You have gotten some very good advice so far, I'll just throw in my two cents. For quaitity meat you need to prep the calf to produce quaility meat, as stated; work the calf up to 10 or so lbs of grain per day for a 60 to 90 day period (start him on 2 or 3 lbs and increase slowly to 10 or so lbs), free choice hay or grass, free choice minerals and haven't seen this mention is a good worming program, keep in mind withdrawl times (the time you have to wait after your give the steer/heifer the shot/pour on wormer to slaughter). Have the steer/heifer in an area that will allow an easy, quick, no stress kill. You lose meat quaility if the animal is stressed and spooked at or during the kill.... in other words you don't want 3 rounds with a 30-06 at 150 yards on the run :?
. Mine are in a holding pen for two or three weeks before slaughter, one 22 mag in the head, 20 feet.
That was one cent, here's my other. Since you'll be raising and dealing with cattle before slaughter you should know what the cattle are like before you buy any. Meaning temperment, the pros and cons to horns, pasture habits (ie; fence leaners, escape artist, high strung ect.). Keep in mind every breed has its great, easy to handle animals and every breed has it "bad apples". Some breeds just have more bad apples than other breeds. For example; I raise Polled Herefords, my last slaughter animal started out being a Hereford heifer about 14 months old. I planned to feed her up for another 4 or 5 months and put her in the freezer... she wouldn't stop going through fences. None of my other Herefords go through fences, I believe most Hereford don't. So I put her in a pen I made with panels, not too small... within 15 minutes she went under a panel and through 3 fences. Fixed the fences, reinforced the panels with t-post and caught up the heifer for round 2. Within 15 minutes she was over a panel (crushing a $100 panel) and through another fence. Caught her up... again, this time she did not get out of the trailer until we hit the sale yard, I brought back another steer that I just put in my freezer.... she was a "bad apple", every breed has them.
Don't get me wrong I chose Polled Herefords for their temperment and good pasture habits, mine are very docile and I'm always very comfortable walking in the middle of the herd as well as dealing with new borns with mom looking on very close. I'm not going to pick on any other breeds but some breeds won't let you do that, they have more bad apples. I love Polled Herefords.
JMO,
Alan