grass fed beef (heifers)

[Susie David]

The demand by our customer base caused us to go to a totally grass fed operation a few yerars ago and the requests for grass finished beef are growing every year.
I haven't noticed any difference between heifers and sters other than the heifers tend to be a bit smaller...go figure. We needed market beef last summer and slaughtered a three year old lim that didn't breed back, cut tenderloin, rib steak, new york and grounf the rest. Sold all of her in two weeks at the farmer's markets, great tasting and the ground beef came out better than 93% lean. Folks that bought at one market were waiting in line at the next market. Don't often process a open cow but this gal was out of one of our real good producing cows...hate to say it but we have a big heifer out of her that could go either way this summer. Depends on how the bull likes her.
Just my two bits worth...asked for or not...Dave Mc

[Loch Valley Fold]

We'll do heifers around 2yrs old they have a chance to go to the bull if they don't go in calf they go in the freezer if we don't have a steer ready. All we've ever done is grass finished have never tried one that has been finished on grain, though that may change this year. The only female that we had that was tough (& I do mean tough) was a 4yr old dairy cow that we had been milking we had a real lot of stews & slow cooked meat.
This is some Scotch Fillets from the last heifer we had

[brandonm_13]

If you're producing grassfed steaks that look like that, I don't know why you'd want to go to grain-feeding. You'd lose some nutritional quality, and probably increase your costs. Besides, I don't think you could produce a better looking steak.

[dburkhart]

We feed natural beef and heifers tend to marble better, which is where the flavor is. Steers are leaner, which is what many of our customers prefer.

We prefer to eat heifers because of the flavor. However,the problem with heifers is that when they cycle, everyone around them seems to go off of feed thus slowing the gain down.

[SRBeef]

I have one coming yearling baldy heifer with a bad attitude who will be joining a couple of the steers wintered on grazing standing corn in a ride in the trailer in about 2 weeks so we will see.

This one heifer is maybe 750-800 lb (I'll weigh her before she gets on the trailer) and 11 months old. I should probably feed her a bit more but I just want to cull her now and would not get enough at a salebarn to warrant the trip. Beside I've fed her and know exactly her history so I thought I'd just try it for our own family and see what we get.

It will be interesting in several ways: comparing a heifer to a similar aged steer and 2 months grazed on corn (steer) vs good hay only (heifer)

Jim