Raising Beef

[Bobby Bass]

Don't really have a place to put this question but I figured we must have some hobby farmers or cattle people here. Buddy of mine is thinking of buying a few head to raise for the freezer. Has enclose pasture so that is not a problem but how long does it take to fatten up a steer? looking at 18 months and does anyone have an idea how big a steer should be and how much meat can be expected back from the butcher? Guess this question is to just start a conversation on the thought of raising ones own beef.

[cam7069]

I buy a 1/2 every year and it varies between 325 lbs to the biggest 1/2 we got was 480 lbs.

[delcecchi]

Don't really have a place to put this question but I figured we must have some hobby farmers or cattle people here. Buddy of mine is thinking of buying a few head to raise for the freezer. Has enclose pasture so that is not a problem but how long does it take to fatten up a steer? looking at 18 months and does anyone have an idea how big a steer should be and how much meat can be expected back from the butcher? Guess this question is to just start a conversation on the thought of raising ones own beef.

Got anything to feed them besides grass? How big do you want them?

[Bobby Bass]

That's part of the question, Many parts to the question. Like can they be grown big enough not to have to winter them over A second season or is it feasible to just raise them for less then a year. Buy one two or three and stager harvest? Grain fed vs. grass fed Looks like two years is a good length of time before harvesting.

[graingrower]

Do yourself and the cattle potentially purchased for this experiment a huge favor: buy a live, finished butcher beef from a legitimate feedlot operator. Avoid the grass-fed, organic, all natural marketing gimmicks offered by some. Negotiate a hanging weight price.

Hanging weight should be roughly 62% of live weight; take home yield depends on your cutting instructions.

[Bobby Bass]

I would not call making a commitment to raising your own beef an experiment. Not me doing it but a neighbor who has been tending horses for years and is looking at utilizing the fence in pasture and outbuildings. Now raising pigs would be an experiment!

[minky]

It can be done without a lot of problems but it takes some work.

I would ask a lot of questions and do some reading on the subject.

We would always give the steers some corn based feed each day to speed up the process.

Good luck and have fun as you learn.

[PurpleFloyd]

Do yourself and the cattle potentially purchased for this experiment a huge favor: buy a live, finished butcher beef from a legitimate feedlot operator. Avoid the grass-fed, organic, all natural marketing gimmicks offered by some. Negotiate a hanging weight price.

Hanging weight should be roughly 62% of live weight; take home yield depends on your cutting instructions.

Why?

[swamptiger]

Quote:

I would not call making a commitment to raising your own beef an experiment. Not me doing it but a neighbor who has been tending horses for years and is looking at utilizing the fence in pasture and outbuildings. Now raising pigs would be an experiment!

+1 on the pigs. Pigs take a lot of feed...

My son has a hobby farm with about 40 acres of fenced pasture. He has an arrangement with a neighbor who raises beef to rent his pasture in the summer months in exchange for some beef and cash. This works pretty well for him since he doesn't have to be concerned with feeding and caring for the cattle in the winter months..

[graingrower]

I'm not sure which part of my post you are questioning; so I will elaborate on each.

1. Production practices by inexperienced or unskilled managers likely exert a level of animal stress destructive to carcass quality.

2. Economics favor scale production.

3. Purchasing direct from feedlot allows buyer to inspect a live animal and its environment, ration, and health protocols and ask questions.

4. Hanging weight negates any risk of shrink from live weight, few lockers even scale cattle live.

5. Grass fed cattle are best suited to crockpot cooking; if you want a steak for the grill, only high energy diets will satisfy.

6. Organic = a marketing scam accepted by those consumers with more money than production knowledge. This observation is not limited to livestock.

[graingrower]

+1 on the pigs. Pigs take a lot of feed...

My son has a hobby farm with about 40 acres of fenced pasture. He has an arrangement with a neighbor who raises beef to rent his pasture in the summer months in exchange for some beef and cash. This works pretty well for him since he doesn't have to be concerned with feeding and caring for the cattle in the winter months..

[swamptiger]

Quote:

It takes about 11 times more corn to finish a Holstein steer than it takes for finish a hog. Hogs will perform on cheaper alternatives where cattle cannot, and do so in one third the time. Pigs are far easier to raise due to their adaptability, limited space requirements, and in-bred immunity.

Depends on the availability of feed. Hogs don't make out very well on a grass diet, where cattle will do just fine. The only thing corn does is add fat, which does add flavor to the meat.

Quote:

On a more general point, "horse people" tend to be just that.

True, and they generally don't eat them.

[PurpleFloyd]

I'm not sure which part of my post you are questioning; so I will elaborate on each.

[swamptiger]

Quote:

Quote:

On a more general point, "horse people" tend to be just that.

True, and they generally don't eat them.

On second thought, I know a lot of horse people who are beef people too.

And hogs make bacon but they don't lay eggs.

[Eric Wettschreck]

And hogs make bacon but they don't lay eggs.

Loves me some bacon, hates me the pigs that it comes from.

I have a couple steers in the back pasture, if that's what you want to call it. I do work for a dairy farmer friend of mine and in return get a couple young-un steers. They're out back and on their own, for the most part, when it comes to food. Every now and then they get a snack of some ground up corn but for the most part they're grazers. Know what, they're just fine and will taste wonderful. This isn't my first steer I've ever raised.

FWIW- Pretty much my entire childhood, for beef, we had holstein steers. My brother and I worked for the dairy farmer down the road and that was our payment. He treated his steers the same way I treat mine. That's where I learned

Takes longer to get them to weight without corn feed but it's easier.

[PurpleFloyd]

1. Production practices by inexperienced or unskilled managers likely exert a level of animal stress destructive to carcass quality.

[delcecchi]

It can be done without a lot of problems but it takes some work.

I would ask a lot of questions and do some reading on the subject.

We would always give the steers some corn based feed each day to speed up the process.

Good luck and have fun as you learn.

And the guys on the "small farms team" might be of some help...

http://www.extension.umn.edu/food/small-farms/

(plug for extension, your tax dollars at work)

The beef guys might be too big scale..

http://www.extension.umn.edu/agriculture/beef/

On the other hand, a cow is a cow.

4H is another source of info.

[mooneyes]

I have been raising limousin and Angus cattle for 30 years. Length of time to feed out varies greatly on genetics, health, feed+nutrient intake. All of our cows are grass/alfalfa / crosstalk fed and our steers are fed grass and some grains depending on individual fleshing ability. As far as organic goes if I have a $5000+ cow or a runt calf and it gets sick with pneumonia or something else it's getting a shot to treat it. A sick animal is doing you no good in long run as far as daily weight gain goes and it surely isn't good for the animal to "tough" it out. I do not use any implants or growth hormones. And grass fed steers are not tough! steers with bad fat marble genetics and a range of other factors makes steak tough. Pm me with any questions anytime.

[Bobby Bass]

Glad to hear the thoughts of everyone, I am forwarding the link to my neighbor so he can read all of your comments... Bobby

[benbosh]

It takes about 11 times more corn to finish a Holstein steer than it takes for finish a hog. Hogs will perform on cheaper alternatives where cattle cannot, and do so in one third the time. Pigs are far easier to raise due to their adaptability, limited space requirements, and in-bred immunity.

And a lot quicker turn around time from wean to finish vs. cattle. Especially if you don't want to keep anything through the winter.

[Juneau4]

Chickens are the cheapest and easiest to raise and the processing is simple.