What to Look For When Buying Cattle
Bringing cattle onto your lifestyle block is a big step, and choosing the right animals is critical for a smooth start. Here's what you need to consider before you buy.
Why Are They For Sale?
Always know the "why" before buying cattle. Understanding why a seller is parting with an animal is crucial; it unveils key information about its health, temperament, and how it will fit into your operation. Common scenarios may be young calves that are sold cheaply or given away because they are “bobby” calves and hold no value to the farmer outside of getting the to start producing milk. Beware these calves may not have had the healthiest start, as may have had no colostrum, have a poor immune system, or come with health concerns. If a cow has been “retired” as a breeder, question “why?” Did she have recurrent bouts of mastitis, chronic lameness issues, or maybe an aggressive attitude? Best case scenario if you’re looking for a pet or nanny cow to watch over the calves, she simply didn’t get pregnant easily enough. Asking these questions early is your best defense against future surprises and ensures you're making a wise decision.
Which Breed is Best for You?
A large beef-breed cow with a calf at foot can be dangerous while dairy breeds tend to be calm and relaxed. A full sized animal will pug paddocks into mud, while little dexters are light footed on the pasture. Any cattle beast will require handling facilities, but some breeds are more easily handled than others.
Choosing the right breed of cattle is paramount for a lifestyle block, as different breeds have unique needs and characteristics. A breed's suitability depends on factors like your local climate, feed availability, and your personal goals. Remember that if you’re keeping animals with extra demands on their systems, such as growing calves, milking cows, or breeding, you’ll need to have plenty of long, good quality grass or be prepared to spend plenty of money buying supplementary feeds. If the size of your land can’t afford them this, then don’t do it.
On lifestyle blocks, the focus is often on low maintenance, disease resistance, and easy handling, rather than maximizing high productivity (which often requires more intensive management). If paddock-cutie is your main goal, your world will open up to a whole range of very cute, docile little cattle breeds you’ll enjoy watching meander around, such as miniature highland cattle, dexters and lowline breeds.
Conformation
Buying cattle with good conformation is crucial for their longevity, health, and productivity. Conformation refers to the animal's skeletal structure and overall physical build. It can also be a sign of prior health concerns such as breaks or joint infections which can result in long-term arthritis.
Examples of Important Structures to Check
Claws: The two “toes” on each feet are called claws, and the feet are the most important structure to check for conformation. Both toes should look relatively symmetrical. If growing unevenly, this can sometimes be due to environmental factors and severe overgrowth (requiring trimming), but otherwise you may be dealing with underlying structural abnormalities. Check for the condition “corkscrew claw”. Any abnormalities will require more frequent trimming, to maintain a normal shape.
Legs: Conformation of the legs is not the be all and end all unless you’re breeding for good genetics, but if they’re walking long distances or hills, or destined to live long lives as a pet, you’ll want to check the angles of the legs. Sickle-hocked is too angular, post-legged to too straight, in the middle is just right. The front or back legs may appear “knock-kneed”. Abnormal angles results in uneven pressure on the joints and claws. This can be difficult to appreciate when the animal is moving around at speed; you may want to enlist the help of your local cattle vet. Note that flexural deformities in newborn calves will often, but not always, resolve themselves of the first week or two, so long as they are able to walk and bear weight. (for an example of flexural issue in calf see the main image above)
Udder Conformation: Ex-dairy cows are often culled for recurrent udder issues such as mastitis or suspensory ligament rupture. If lucky, these girls can end up retiring on a local lifestyle block. They can happily live out their lives as nanny cows or pets, but if you’re planning to breed or milk them, check the udder for discolouration, pain and heat (signs of active mastitis that require treatment), hard lumps or absent quarters (signs of old mastitis that can easily recur), or lack of support where the udder hangs very low (she should never carry milk again).
A cow's hoof with an extra toe
Colostrum and Calf Health
A calf's first few hours of life are critical. The colostrum (first milk) it receives from its mother provides essential antibodies that build its initial immune system, as calves are born with no natural immunity. Without a big belly full of colostrum in the first 12 hours (minimum!), a calf will be immunocompromised and significantly more susceptible to disease. Unfortunately even with the best intentions, there are many ways that calf rearing can go wrong, and you’ll need to put your detective hat on and ask all the questions!
Dairy cows have been bred away from a good maternal instinct (beef cattle are quite the opposite and make dedicated mothers). Collecting calves just once a day is still common practice on dairy herds, and this means a large number of calves will not be receiving adequate colostrum. Even when collecting calves twice a day, some may fall through the cracks.
Colostrum quality is paramount. “Bobby calves” (those destined for slaughter at just a few days old), will often cop the short end of the stick, as are a lower priority than the valuable replacement heifer calves. While legally these calves should still be given colostrum, many more of them will fall through the cracks and either receive poor levels, too late, or of poor quality, resulting in sickly calves.
Dairy calves are born much bigger than beef calves. Dairy cow colostrum is produced in high volumes but contains lower concentrations of antibodies, while beef cow colostrum has a higher antibody yield, made for a concentrated dose into a tiny belly. This difference means that using dairy colostrum for beef calves may not provide enough antibodies, leaving them immunocompromised.
Common Diseases
When bringing new cattle onto your block, it's essential to screen for a number of common diseases to protect your existing stock and kick things off on the right foot. The key is to obtain as much information as possible from the seller and, ideally, consult with a veterinarian for any necessary testing.
Some of the most critical diseases to be aware of include:
Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD): This virus is complex and common, but you sure do what to keep it out. In commercial herds, production losses due to infertility, abortion and a drop in milk production can be enormous. The bigger problem for lifestyle blocks is that if a cow is infected while pregnant, she may give birth to a calf that carries the disease for life. These calves are often small and sickly, grow poorly, and struggle constantly with common ailments such as gut parasites and diarrhoea. These poor wee calves are often picked up by caring owners as “rescues”, but will never recover and will usually succumb to disease and death in the first 18 months of life. If this fits the bill for your calf, a blood test can rule the disease in or out. When acquiring calves, ask the question; many herds will use vaccinations and an eradication program to maintain a BVD-free status.
Johne's Disease: A chronic, incurable wasting disease that leads to watery diarrhoea, severe weight loss and death. An animal can be a carrier and spread the bacteria through its faeces while still looking healthy. Definitive testing can be difficult, but ask the seller if they are part of a Johne's control or eradication program. This disease does not crop up until they are older (5-8 years old), and is in so many NZ herds, that you’ll usually need to just do your due diligence, then ride the lightning.
Internal and External Parasites: Weaned cattle can carry heavy burdens of internal parasites (worms) and external parasites (lice, ticks). Lice are common and can cause severe skin irritation, coat damage, and poor condition. You'll want to ensure the cattle are recently and effectively drenched for internal worms and treated for external parasites before introducing them to your block. To be sure, hold them in a quarantine pen and test the faeces again 7-10 days after drenching, to ensure the worms are cleared, before putting them onto your paddocks.
Ring Worm and Pink Eye: For young animals, check them thoroughly before transporting, and ideally quarantine on the other side. Conditions such as pink eye and ringworm are highly contagious, and the stress of transporting, will little faces all rubbing up against each other on the ride over, will often result in an outbreak on the other side. While not the end of the world, pink eye can be costly to treat in an outbreak.
Eye with ulceration of the cornea due to pink eye infection
A good biosecurity plan, including a quarantine period for all new cattle, is the best way to prevent the introduction of these and other diseases to your farm.
Want to know more?
Understand how cattle see the world
For a deep-dive, enroll on our What You Need to Know to Keep Cattle and Cattle Breeding online courses.
