Personal Beef.

[S.R.R.]

Does anyone raise their personal freezer beef any different then regular? Longer on grain or grass. Butcher at a earlyer time ect. Just interested to know some of the finer ways to finish beef.

 

[Susie David]

We usually just keep a quarter for ourselves....nothing special cracked corn and alfalfa...corn starting at 90 days and increasing to 15# at finish, we will finish one heavier than usual but need to have the whole carcass sold in advance, our customers do not like exceptionally fat beef....
Oh... forgot to mention, we sell hanging beef by the pound...or rather shares in a live animal and broker the processing at customer's expense.
Hope that this helps....Dave Mc

 

[Brandonm2]

We usually just held back the smallest healthy steer we had(I don't want to have to fit a 900 lb carcass in my freezer afterall). Then let him run with the cows, after we wean him off mama of course, (though most of the time she went to the sale for having the dink, usually just a good old cow who stayed one year too long) and butcher him at 12 to 14 months. The stuff at the store is grain fattened; but we were always too CHEAP to buy grain for a calf. I won't claim that grass fattening is better; but we always ate it.

 

[C HOLLAND]

Does anyone raise their personal freezer beef any different then regular? Longer on grain or grass. Butcher at a earlyer time ect. Just interested to know some of the finer ways to finish beef.

From my years of eating beef that my parents raised, I prefer grass fed over grain. But that's a personal choice.

 

[SF]

Does anyone raise their personal freezer beef any different then regular? Longer on grain or grass. Butcher at a earlyer time ect. Just interested to know some of the finer ways to finish beef.

Prefer mine to be butchered at 14 months of age or less (younger is better), at least 60 days of full grain, no grass.

 

[msscamp]

We have always raised our own beef, always steers. When we had the ranch, they were grass finished. On the current place, we don't have enough grass so they are fed ground hay/beet pulp/perhaps a little silage if we can get it, then the last 60 days they get about 3/4's of a 5-gallon bucket of grain each. If we are fattening more than one (currently have 3 in the freezers), then it goes longer than 60 days (and the corn is adjusted relative to the time before slaughter) as they are taken to the slaughter plant at 30 day intervals (more or less).

 

[Kent]

We work ours up to full feed of bull test ration over a three week period and leave them on full feed for another 75-90 days. We start them at about 10 months of age and slaughter at 13-14 mos. They will typically consume 25-30 pounds of feed per day. All of ours have been purebred Hereford, purebred Angus, or a cross of the two. Never a bad steak since my Daddy started feeding his own when I was 5. In fact, I can't remember anything other than steaks that were better than what you will find at a Longhorn or Outback.

 

[flaboy]

I am trying something different for a change. Years ago I only grass fed then changed to wean at 5 months, feed until 800 pounds. This time I have been grass feeding for 12 months and will finish with grain for 2-3 months. I will see what happens.