Just for fun, finishing experience level

[SBMF 2015]

Any time there is a cattle feeding/ finishing question posted whether it's nutrition or economic it gets a lot of responses. So I got to thinking ; I wonder what percent of CT folks feed cattle for a living?

 

[TCRanch]

I should clarify we finished a steer once. That was enough. One 'n done, I'm out! Probably didn't grain him long enough and while he tasted okay, steaks were tough. We've had much better meat out of fat cows that couldn't go to the sale barn. Plus, we really don't have the facilities (and I don't have the patience!) to feed out one steer that gets bored easily.

 

[MurraysMutts]

I should clarify we finished a steer once. That was enough. One 'n done, I'm out! Probably didn't grain him long enough and while he tasted okay, steaks were tough. We've had much better meat out of fat cows that couldn't go to the sale barn. Plus, we really don't have the facilities (and I don't have the patience!) to feed out one steer that gets bored easily.

Ya gotta feed 2!

They are happier when they have a buddy...

 

[Ky hills]

Our story is a combination of two of the choices, we feed one out for ourselves and then another one or two to sell.
So far we have been very pleased with the results, much better than the grocery store beef.

 

[Dave]

I have fed them out to sell beef to others. As many as 20 head at a time. I have fed them to eat our self. And I have had a lot of years where I sell calves. College (50+ years ago) I studied animal nutrition. Plan A was to work into managing a feedlot. Plan A? Well somewhere about then I decided to make my fame and fortune riding bucking horses in rodeos. You will note how rich and famous I am.

 

[ksmit454]

I started feeding out steers for friends and family back in October 2019. I was 23 at the time and working at our local feed store. A regular customer/good friend of mine (my dad had sold him tractors in the past years) came in one day to grab some feed. He had 2 steers he was taking to the auction in his trailer that day. That was the day I bought my first feeder steers, from him instead of taking them to the auction. Since then, I’ve had returning customers and have finished out 6 steers for customers and my family. I have 5 more right now that are being processed mid-September. I do not feed them out for a living by any means, however it generates a bit of a profit while I finish up my ag business degree. Plus I love living this lifestyle.

 

[Nick Wagner]

Growing up, the family fed out our own calves, 150 or so per year. I followed that business model when I struck out on my own, but it’s not the same with 16 cows and 70 bushel ground. So I converted this eroded farm into all pasture and expanded the herd in 2004, sell most of my calves as feeders. Keep a few misfits every year to fatten on grass, just let them run with the replacements. For example, I have a calf with a bum leg this year, he‘s not worth anything so I’ll grow him out here. I‘m sure he’ll make fine eating, it will take another two years though. A benefit I did not know would happen, grazing cows and grass healed those eroded clay knobs, I have eight inches of topsoil where there used to be none. I’m sure I could grow 200 bu corn now.

 

[TCRanch]

Ya gotta feed 2!

They are happier when they have a buddy...

Yeah, but how much beef can 2 people possibly eat? Even giving a bunch to the family.

I did give him a Jolly Ball and empty protein tubs to play with.

 

[farmerjan]

With be

I have fed them out to sell beef to others. As many as 20 head at a time. I have fed them to eat our self. And I have had a lot of years where I sell calves. College (50+ years ago) I studied animal nutrition. Plan A was to work into managing a feedlot. Plan A? Well somewhere about then I decided to make my fame and fortune riding bucking horses in rodeos. You will note how rich and famous I am.

With being able to retire to a 1200 acre ranch you did something right...maybe not famous but "rich enough".....

 

[farmerjan]

We "finish" out 4-10 per year now and sell most of the beef. I will kill a jersey steer or a jersey/cross for my own freezer most every other year. But they are primarily grass fed/finished with some silage.... people want local and want beef to have some flavor, and these that are raised on grass meet the bill. Have return customers regularly.
Usually in the 1,000-1200 range when they go to kill and hang in the 5-700 range.

 

[Otha]

I should clarify we finished a steer once. That was enough. One 'n done, I'm out! Probably didn't grain him long enough and while he tasted okay, steaks were tough. We've had much better meat out of fat cows that couldn't go to the sale barn. Plus, we really don't have the facilities (and I don't have the patience!) to feed out one steer that gets bored easily.

That's interesting you found the fat cows to be better meat. We sent 2 cows last month and all the steaks are extremely tough. Probably going to cook them all in a slow cooker. They were plenty fat and taste good just too tough. We had sent a calf or two in the past and have never had one real tender but never this tough either.

 

[SBMF 2015]

The poll is going about how I expected. Quite a few that feed small groups, but not many of us addicted to feeding cattle.

 

[Dave]

With be

With being able to retire to a 1200 acre ranch you did something right...maybe not famous but "rich enough".....

Well for starters 1,200 acres here isn't like that much land in other areas. With the BLM grazing rights I have I could run about 80 pairs. No great plan. Just stayed too long in western Washington. The place I paid $42,500 for in 1979 I sold for $355,000 in 2018. An inheritance from my Dad. The wife had some money from a ranch she sold and inheritance from here Mom. And we got lucky with timing. People we bought from were in a position of having to sell. We paid $10,000 more than they did when they bought it 10 years earlier.

 

[farmerjan]

Dave, I was not in any way trying to minimize or trivialize what you have. I am in total respect and awe... and yes, you hit it right and you have worked hard for years in the timber industry that was a TOUGH LIFE.
I meant it that you hit it right and were smart in what you did. I was just teasing about the "rich and "FAMOUS " part...
I cannot imagine the difference in the type ranching that takes 20-100 acres per cow/calf pair, compared to here with 2 +/- acres per pair. And getting out of where you were not happy is the best part.
I am thinking I want to go further into the "back forty" , off the beaten path... but it would be nice to have a partner of some sort... Son is not on the same path in some things.

Well for starters 1,200 acres here isn't like that much land in other areas. With the BLM grazing rights I have I could run about 80 pairs. No great plan. Just stayed too long in western Washington. The place I paid $42,500 for in 1979 I sold for $355,000 in 2018. An inheritance from my Dad. The wife had some money from a ranch she sold and inheritance from here Mom. And we got lucky with timing. People we bought from were in a position of having to sell. We paid $10,000 more than they did when they bought it 10 years earlier.

 

[Travlr]

We "finish" out 4-10 per year now and sell most of the beef. I will kill a jersey steer or a jersey/cross for my own freezer most every other year. But they are primarily grass fed/finished with some silage.... people want local and want beef to have some flavor, and these that are raised on grass meet the bill. Have return customers regularly.
Usually in the 1,000-1200 range when they go to kill and hang in the 5-700 range.

That's basically how I feed an animal for the freezer. Usually bull calves or heifers that don't breed or lost a calf, not Jersey although when I was in college we did a taste and cutability test using all the common breeds of the time and the Jersey actually won... as long as the blindfolds were on. I grain the animals minimally, but I breed for easy keepers so it doesn't take much, and otherwise they are pastured just like everything else.

 

[Dave]

I go to the sale enough that I watch for a 800ish pound heifer that is crippled. The feedlots don't want her and too small for the kill cow plants. Buy her cheap. Give her 100 days or so on feed in the corral where feed and water are close for her to walk. A bad leg doesn't hurt her any hanging up.

 

[farmerjan]

We also will buy some of the "bad leg/bad eye " type animals at the sales. Can normally buy them at a cheap price because as you say @Dave , they don't "fit" feedlots or kill cow situations. Have gotten a few and fed out in smallish pastures/lots for however long and made pretty good beef also. Many times one with pretty bad eyes will be giveaway prices and we have a place we can put them and once they get the fences figured out and the waterer... they do pretty good. We have 2 nearly blind ones now that will be beef in another year. One born almost totally blind, and one that had pinkeye we just could not get cleared up. They know where the feed trough is, the waterer and can get around quite well. Come to voices calling them.

 

[Dave]

Dave, I was not in any way trying to minimize or trivialize what you have. I am in total respect and awe... and yes, you hit it right and you have worked hard for years in the timber industry that was a TOUGH LIFE.
I meant it that you hit it right and were smart in what you did. I was just teasing about the "rich and "FAMOUS " part...
I cannot imagine the difference in the type ranching that takes 20-100 acres per cow/calf pair, compared to here with 2 +/- acres per pair. And getting out of where you were not happy is the best part.
I am thinking I want to go further into the "back forty" , off the beaten path... but it would be nice to have a partner of some sort... Son is not on the same path in some things.

I didn't take it that you were "minimize or trivialize". Actually just the opposite. To a lot of people that much land seems like the Ponderosa. In this part of the world it isn't much. Just a large hobby ranch. But we do love it here. The house and out buildings. The setting and seclusion. The community and the whole extended area we are in. We have been truly bless. I thank God daily for putting us here. Nearly 40 years on that place in western Washington I don't remember once feeling that way. I was not unhappy where I was. I just didn't feel blessed being there. And the sleepy little farm town I moved to in 1979 is only 30 miles from the state capital. It was fast turning into a bedroom community for the capital.

 

[Cattlelow]

That's interesting you found the fat cows to be better meat. We sent 2 cows last month and all the steaks are extremely tough. Probably going to cook them all in a slow cooker. They were plenty fat and taste good just too tough. We had sent a calf or two in the past and have never had one real tender but never this tough either.

What do you think was the reason? Is it all about the number of hanging days at the processor or is there more?

 

[Otha]

What do you think was the reason? Is it all about the number of hanging days at the processor or is there more?

Both cows were hung 21 days so I don't think that's it. I'm really not sure what caused it. They weren't on feed long but there were fat coming off of pasture from not having a calf. The fatter one was fed for about 45 days and the other was feed for 75. I guess next year the cull cows will get feed for 100+ days to try and get some more marbling into the steaks. I'll try it anyway. The best way to do it may be just take them straight off pasture and grind everything. Probably try it both ways.