![]() On the average - as detailed in the accompanying article - if you sell your elk for meat, you can figure on netting around $900 per adult cow. The following prices are representative of what elk sold for at the Cape Girardeau auction in 1985, and are close to what you can expect to pay for starter animals purchased in 1986: Calves With an 80% annual calf return, your herd should grow quickly, and once you have 12 adults and their spring calves, you can begin harvesting an animal per month without decreasing the size of your base herd. The minimum practical starter herd would consist of one bull and a few cows. With a strong, high fence in place, you’ll need some elk - which can be purchased from the Wyman ranch, from similar operations around the country, or at the annual wild animal auctions held at Cape Girardeau, Missouri, each fall and at Chamberlain, South Dakota, in late winter. However, by utilizing the high-tensile-strength, single-strand fencing that’s recently become available, and by doing the work yourself, that per foot cost can be reduced considerably. At current prices, such a fence - assuming you purchase all the materials at retail and hire the work done - could run as much as $5.00 per foot. The Wymans use an eight-foot-high, V-mesh fence stretched between strong, deepset poles. Elk can, and often do, leap over or bull right through standard barbed wire. Small-Scale Elk Ranching: A Hopeful’s PrimerĪssuming that you’re already equipped with the necessities of tending large livestock - sufficient acreage, hay barn, feeding and watering facilities - the biggest expense involved in converting to an elk operation will be fencing. In fact, he feels that a person with just a few head of elk can realize a profit that wouldn’t be possible with the same number of cattle pastured on the same acreage.
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