Land prices around Alpine or Afton, WY

[sunsprit]

Wow!

after all the histrionics and offense taken ...

we get an admission that land for "full scale raching purposes" aren't financially viable in the Star Valley area.

That's what I was saying all along, and I documented it with current real estate listings from the area multi-list and realtor's websites.

But we did get a "rah-rah" about how wonderful it is to live there and how nice it is to be close to the economic activity of Jackson. Great!

We could have made the same observations about many many other Wyoming communities ..... all you'd have to do is cut and paste the names of the towns.

[UtahStar]

Now now sun......but I do love ya.

to the other person, yes this operation will START small but the goal is to make this a fairly viable business. I mean bulls do grow old, they "retire" from the circuit, etc. Breeding them via mother nature is a risky gamble which means the other way (Sun knows what I mean). It's why atm my brother and I would pay more and get a live animal (and know it's sex) then let mother nature in either way take her course. Thus why I want to have enough land to expand rather then be like my brother and let's say this happen this summer, 5 years from now be up the proverbial creek going "where can I get more land?" I'd be renting it out from sun in that case, and thats something we don't want to do. I do know THAT much about this operation.

I've had some other options presented to me, and found out Alamo has an office in Cheyenne, so who knows, maybe we'll go that direction. Right now its like....baby steps. We haven't packed up and are loading the moving van, we're seeing our options.

[cbrannan]

We raise rodeo bulls in Montana and are looking to relocate soon. We have looked at Texas and Wyoming and haven't decided. My husband works in mining and we would like to be near that industry. Our cattle herd has grown rapidly but also declined during the harsh winters here. Losing calves during calving months is heartbreaking because our herd sire is older and every one counts. With rodeo cows it is hard to grab a calf and put it in a warm bath to get it going again because the mothers usually won't accept it back in our cases. We have done alot to save a calf to include wrapping one recently in an electric blanket with me. He was near death and is now a miracle but when winters last until June it gets old after awhile The tough part is that we enjoy seclusion because rodeo bulls aren't always liked here as neighbors so we need to live somewhere less populated. We also can't compete in the events for ABBI as much because there are few here. But overall our biggest expense is feed and hay and you compete witht the feedlots near Billings for the hay. But I think the biggest obstacle in raising cattle here in Montana is getting water to them. Our electric bill for heated waterers is outrageous bus necessary. When we had cattle near the Yellowstone it was so labor intensive just getting water to them when the river freezes that it was a fulltime job. So raising Brahman cattle in Montana during the winter months can be a test of wills and we are looking for a more suitable place.

[ElkHunter]

It's unfortunate the so many large places have been broken up to "manageable" sizes. It's really limited the available land.

In our area, some of the large (90k acres) ranches have realized that they can't make a go with so many acres and not enough hands. But instead of selling off chunks, they've taken in cattle and horses on consinement. It has made it affordable for Joe Citizen to run his smaller herd without trying to purchase land enough to do it.

Are there any operations like that in that area?

[sunsprit]

cbrannan ... you may want to look into SE Wyoming.

There are a number of rough stock operators down this way that supply the rodeo circuit with horses and bulls.

There's properties here in the 80 acre to 1/2 section size at reasonable ... dry land prices. You will need to supplemental feed, but at least you'll be surrounded by neighbors who understand livestock and farming.

Keep in mind that winters around here can also last into April/May, so you'll still be dealing with heated waterers. I didn't turn mine off until last month this year, although it was just to keep the ice off for the mornings during lambing and kidding season.

[jody_wy]

I have one of the larger ranches for sale in star valley, it has 2 miles of salt river and 3 miles of spring creek,All the irrigation water is diverted from the creeks into my own ditches, There is a out the gate forest service grazing permit. The association uses my corrals to cut after roundup. We currantly are a cow-calf, some cash barley , and wool and lambs. Not all the cows go on the forest and the sheep atay home. My folks use to have up too 700 laying hens, and used some of the Barley and winter wheat crop.... yes we can grow winter wheat here. There are larger ranch even for sale but most are scattered with a homestad here and a 80 here and 120 there,pluse miles from thier forest service grazing permits.