If you are considering buying a lifestyle block, then I suggest getting involved with the many interesting forums on  w w w  dot  lifestyleblock  dot  co  dot  nz.

We are on a lifestyle block.  It was a steep learning curve for the first year as we experienced what each new season brought.  Have you thought about bottle raising lambs?  Orphaned lambs are just about given away, and bottle fed ones fatten nicely, and prime lamb prices are expected to remain high this coming season.  I think lambs are slightly easier/less risk to raise than calfs. 

In our first season we bottle raised four lambs - this prepared us for the next season - by then we had our own sheep (pregnant).  The advantage was we knew how to bottle raise any if need be (yes there was one).  Expect about 20% attrition rate with orphaned lambs.

If you want to buy a lifestyle block, make sure it has good quality sheds, holding yards so that you can carry out inspections/vaccinations, and good fencing (or at least have the cash to get it all sorted).  Lifestyle blocks can be a money trap if you are not careful. 

Just a few ideas - plenty more at the website mentioned above.  Good luck with your "lifestyling"  : )

Oops, should have put in that this isn't a plan for now. It's something I want to start a year from now, but we want to start looking for a lifestyle block to buy now.

Thanks all for your responses. Very helpful.

I wouldn't go there in pregnancy, and you probably wouldn't want to with a young baby.

My parents have just had an outbreak of salmonella on their farm and I won't go out there for a few weeks after there've been no signs of it.

Like T-Rex said, it is a huge gamble at the moment and one that might not pay off. My parents have a sheep and beef farm and get calves at the sales or off their many dairy farmer neighbours. They adopt them onto nurse cows (takes a hell of a lot of effort on my dads part as the cows get stroppy and are sometimes a bit wild), and send them to the works or onsell them at a year or 2 old if they're a bull, or don't show promise for being a nurse cow. They get about 600 each for them, but that's a lot of time and feed invested in each one.

Also, they get pretty strong once they're a few weeks old. You'd have to be prepared to get whacked/ bumped a fair bit, and don't forget the endless slobber.

Hi All

This is waaaayyy off topic for this site but I hope some people can help me.

I am trying to look in to calf rearing to see if it is a possibility of something for me to do to make a bit of surplus cash. I don't want it as a main income cause I know I'd have to do it on an enormous scale to succeed but I'm wondering if 20-30 calves is reasonable.

I need to know, whats the average cost of buying a calf and what does that cost include (I.E would the calf have been TB tested, vaccinated, etc)

How much land would I need for 20-30 calves?

How much does it cost to have the calves de-horned, TB tested, vaccinated, etc?

How much does milk powder cost? And how much would you need per calf to raise them through to weiner?

Whats the average sale price of a weiner calf?

And I guess any other expenses and bits of information that I'll need to take into account. Then hopefully from that information I can minus my expenses from my income and see if its viable or not.

Thanks in advance.