Butcher Cow, what would you do?

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Little Joe

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I've got a cow that has huge tits when she first calves, hasn't been a problem so far but it's not gonna get better. I booked her to be butchered right after she calved back early summer hoping to butcher her soon after weaning calf, April 2021 was next available date and she will be due to calve early-mid June, would you go ahead and butcher her or hold out and butcher her soon after weaning next calf and hope it does like the others and figures out how to suck? Will it make much difference as far as what stage she's in? Ideally I'd rather not have her bred at all when butchered but seperating out 1 cow and calf is a hassle.
 
Some people say they like older cows better, has more "flavor."
Garbage also has more flavor, but only possums, and coon seem to want to eat it.
 
What we do in cows that need to be culled due to bad hips, feet, bad bags, or whatever, is let them calve and if able let the calf stay on mom for two or 3 months and then pull the calf and sell the cow. If that isn't possible, then we pull the calf, give colostrum, and bottle feed for a month and then sell it to someone who raises bottle calves. No easy solution and everybody does it different.
 
We had a cow like that, but I pulled her out and fed her out like I would any other beef. Before I separated here she had been with a bull for a while so I lutalysed her. We were pleased with the results. I think it turned out much better than if we had just pulled her out of the field and had her processed. In your situation, I agree with the comment above to sell the cow and get a good but somewhat discounted steer or heifer calf and feed them out. I think you will be much happier with the meat if you separate what you intend to process from the main herd and feed them to finish which ever you decide. It's more work and expense but with the cost of processing and the fact that you are going to be eating it for a while, it's worth it in the long run.
 
We had a cow like that, but I pulled her out and fed her out like I would any other beef. Before I separated here she had been with a bull for a while so I lutalysed her. We were pleased with the results. I think it turned out much better than if we had just pulled her out of the field and had her processed. In your situation, I agree with the comment above to sell the cow and get a good but somewhat discounted steer or heifer calf and feed them out. I think you will be much happier with the meat if you separate what you intend to process from the main herd and feed them to finish which ever you decide. It's more work and expense but with the cost of processing and the fact that you are going to be eating it for a while, it's worth it in the long run.

I feed out calves to sell on the quarters yearly and have some customers wanting more burger so I had planned on splitting her up between all of the ones wanting more burger. She's smaller framed (around 900lbs.) longhorn cross so won't bring as much across the scales at the barn as she would selling ground.
 
If she is an older cow, she would be getting ground up into hamburger regardless if she was bred or not. We have ground up older cows that have gotten hurt or otherwise could not run through the sale ring (prior to mad cow restrictions at the lockers) and had no problems with the meat. The only question I have is how you feel about killing the unborn calf. Some people do not like doing that and others could care less. As far as the quality of the hamburger, it will always be better that store bought hamburger.
 
Sell the cow to the packers and buy you something younger to butcher like a good cripple or an off colored steer.
I did something similar this year. Nothing in my cull / open pen appealed to me at shipping time this fall, so I ordered a whole beef from the small packing outfit a couple of hours away. By my figuring there wouldn't be much of a price difference between processing my own or buying a properly finished processed fat. Especially if time and feed were considered to get one of my heifers to finish grade.
 
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