Feeding beef corn silage

[pricefarm]

Going to buy a Holstein steer from local dairy for a beef. It's been eatting hay and corn silage. It weights around 1000#. Someone told me where it has been eatting silage that the meat would have a funny taste . Any truth to that ?

 

[Son of Butch]

1000 lb holstein on hay and corn silage isn't ready for slaughter. He's mostly frame right now.
Are you going to finish him or are they?
If he's finishes on corn not a problem.
Otherwise trying to finish him on corn silage, the corn plant is a grass and grass fed beef tastes funny to many people.
Not to mention it's a fermented grass.

 

[pricefarm]

1000 lb holstein on hay and corn silage isn't ready for slaughter. He's mostly frame right now.
Are you going to finish him or are they?
If he's finishes on corn not a problem.
Otherwise trying to finish him on corn silage, the corn plant is a grass and grass fed beef tastes funny to many people.
Not to mention it's a fermented grass.

Iam going to keep him for about a month before killing him. Not wanting to get him much bigger. That's about the size we kill every year and it's about the right amount of meat for my family to eat in a year.
Do u think if i feed him for that long on just corn on alittle dry hay it will be ok.

 

[farmerjan]

Just dry corn and hay will be okay, but he will lose that rounded look since son of butch said he is more frame now than meat. Do you normally kill a holstein? 1000 lb holstein is not really finished. They grow more frame than meat up to 1000-1100 lbs then start packing on the meat. Most are killed in the 1300-1500 lb range for a good finished steer with sufficient fat and marbling. The corn silage will give it a bit different flavor than a grass fed/hay fed animal with some corn/feed to put some finish on it. I prefer grass fed/finished but many don't.

 

[pricefarm]

Yes Holsteins is all we have ever killed. Will a month of hay and corn be long enough to get the tast that the corn silage gives the beef to be gone.

 

[Son of Butch]

On a 1,000 lb holstein 60+ days of feeding corn would be well worth it in added yield vs just 30 days and then butcher.
I'd feed the corn hard and just enough hay [3-4 lbs a day] for the scratch factor to keep his stomach moving.
Holsteins will often stall out at 1,000 - 1,100 lbs without a protein pellet added to the grain mix.

I've never butchered a silage fed steer early, so I couldn't even say for sure how strong the taste may be.
I'm sure 30 days on corn and hay would help some and better than just another 30 days on his current ration
It's darn hard to get a holstein steer to finish on just corn silage and hay or grass.

 

[pricefarm]

Thanks everyone for the info