The begining of the end...

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Thought I would share with this group our little county carcass contest data. All of the steers are home raised steers, no "show" stuff, and the kids learn a lot from this process. There is no "award" for participating in this, but the kids learn a lot. The steers were first weighed in the beginning of February, and had the final weight Sunday. Their ages range from February to March (so 17 to 16 months). Each kid fed differently. I will update the posts as I we get them, next Monday night is the night we get to see them on the rail. There is a professional grader coming to grade the cattle with the kids, and teach them about their end product. Then they will take one of the sides of beef and actually break it down into the cuts to show the kids where the parts come from. So here goes...
Here is the steers tied to the fence while the leader talked about the visual appraisal and having the kids select who they thought was fattest, least fat, and grading.

OK, this was the only image I was able to get of this calf. His owner was at the Hereford National show, so there was no halter (one of the leaders picked the steer up and brought him over). He is a Charolais cross, born 3/21/2013 and weighed in at 745, finished at 1245

This calf is a PB angus, born 3/22/2013 and had a starting weight of 585. He finished at 1260.

This calf is a 3/4 simmental, 1/4 angus calf, and was born 2/18/2013. His starting weight was 785, and finished at 1340. He was ours.

This calf is a 3/4 angus, 1/4 simm calf, and was born 3/15/2013. His starting weight was 745, and his final weight was 1560.

This calf is a PB red angus, born 3/5/2013. His starting weight was 625 and his final weight was 1265.

This calf was the last calf to complete, and his owner was also at the Hereford National show. He is a 3/4 simmental, 1/4 hereford steer. He was born 2/29/2013. His starting weight was 875 pounds, and his finished weight was 1300.

I will get the hot carcass weights tomorrow (they were processed today), and next week I will try to get some good shots of them in the locker. I will post them for you guys, and try to see if you can guess which carcass goes to which steer!!! This is a great learning experience for these kids!

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Oh, and remember I asked about Amino Gain (feed supplement made by ADM)? The red steer and big 3/4 Angus steer were fed just that and corn, and had amazing ADGs on it! The black steer (1560) had an ADG of 5.7 and the red steer had ADG of 4.??? can not remember. Our steer was 3.4, the PB angus was around that and the 3/4 sim 1/4 hereford was just under 3 (2.9). That is why I was asking about the Amino Gain, to see the impressive gains the two steers had on it!
Our steer was the only steer left on pasture and supplemented with grain, the others were kept in pens and fed full choice grain. We lost some gain because of it, but I wanted to raise our steer to taste the way I liked, not too fat! Grass is free, grain is not! Our steer was on about 20 pounds of grain a day there at the end.

 

[3waycross]

Your steer looks good. My guess is he will yield but not grade as high as some of the others. Good job on him :tiphat:

 

[Jessica06]

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that yours wins the YG contest. Quality is a crap shoot...they all look good. Very cool!! Interesting fact - 98% of all beef that grades prime is Dairy. The kids will probably have a lot of fun seeing them hanging.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Your steer looks good. My guess is he will yield but not grade as high as some of the others. Good job on him :tiphat:

Thanks! My daughter thinks he will grade low choice, YG 2.5. She does a lot of livestock evaluation, so I think she is spot on. I think maybe Choice, not low choice, but will be happy with either. We have a running bet that the red angus will be YG 4 at least. He is by far the fattest in the group, with the two angus calves following close behind. The Charolais cross calf needed more time and weight, and will not grade as well. He could have easily carried 1500 pounds! The other simm steer looked just about right also.
We are happy with the final product of our steer, and since we will be eating him I guess that is all that matters :banana: We ran out of beef a few months ago, and Sam's meat just does NOT compare to home raised beef!

 

[3waycross]

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that yours wins the YG contest. Quality is a crap shoot...they all look good. Very cool!! Interesting fact - 98% of all beef that grades prime is Dairy. The kids will probably have a lot of fun seeing them hanging.

Not true!

 

[Jessica06]

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that yours wins the YG contest. Quality is a crap shoot...they all look good. Very cool!! Interesting fact - 98% of all beef that grades prime is Dairy. The kids will probably have a lot of fun seeing them hanging.

Not true!

It was when I judged in college 8 years ago.

 

[Jessica06]

Your steer looks good. My guess is he will yield but not grade as high as some of the others. Good job on him :tiphat:

Thanks! My daughter thinks he will grade low choice, YG 2.5. She does a lot of livestock evaluation, so I think she is spot on. I think maybe Choice, not low choice, but will be happy with either. We have a running bet that the red angus will be YG 4 at least. He is by far the fattest in the group, with the two angus calves following close behind. The Charolais cross calf needed more time and weight, and will not grade as well. He could have easily carried 1500 pounds! The other simm steer looked just about right also.
We are happy with the final product of our steer, and since we will be eating him I guess that is all that matters :banana: We ran out of beef a few months ago, and Sam's meat just does NOT compare to home raised beef!

Those all sound about right, I think! On a side note, I bought a loin roll at Sam's a few days ago. It was really good!! MUCH better than the open 2 year old grass-fed heifer we've been gnawing on. I say "grass-fed" with a derogatory tone. Yuck.

 

[houstoncutter]

Your steer looks good. My guess is he will yield but not grade as high as some of the others. Good job on him :tiphat:

Thanks! My daughter thinks he will grade low choice, YG 2.5. She does a lot of livestock evaluation, so I think she is spot on. I think maybe Choice, not low choice, but will be happy with either. We have a running bet that the red angus will be YG 4 at least. He is by far the fattest in the group, with the two angus calves following close behind. The Charolais cross calf needed more time and weight, and will not grade as well. He could have easily carried 1500 pounds! The other simm steer looked just about right also.
We are happy with the final product of our steer, and since we will be eating him I guess that is all that matters :banana: We ran out of beef a few months ago, and Sam's meat just does NOT compare to home raised beef!

Those all sound about right, I think! On a side note, I bought a loin roll at Sam's a few days ago. It was really good!! MUCH better than the open 2 year old grass-fed heifer we've been gnawing on. I say "grass-fed" with a derogatory tone. Yuck.[/quot


Your 2 year old heifer grown on nothing but grass in SE Texas would hardly qualify as "grass fed". Same heifer coming off momma at 500 lbs or more then put on good annual ryegrass and clover for 6 months makes for some finest kind eating...

 

[Bigfoot]

That red calf looks like good eatin.

 

[glacierridge]

FS in think your steer looks tasty...
Please let us know the carcass results.

 

[3waycross]

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that yours wins the YG contest. Quality is a crap shoot...they all look good. Very cool!! Interesting fact - 98% of all beef that grades prime is Dairy. The kids will probably have a lot of fun seeing them hanging.

Not true!

It was when I judged in college 8 years ago.

I am sorry! I thought you meant in the context of the beef industry as a whole.

 

[dgree]

Not only will the kids learn something, I will too. Looks very interesting. Was cost of feed calculated in the contest?

 

[Ohrmundt Simmentals]

Really neat program start to finish. Great for the kids and in the end regardless of the YG they are all going to taste good. Another nice calf FS, your daughter and the rest of the kids did a great job.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Really neat program start to finish. Great for the kids and in the end regardless of the YG they are all going to taste good. Another nice calf FS, your daughter and the rest of the kids did a great job.

Thank you! That steer is a Built Right sired steer, with his dam being a BC Lookout x GCF Cayenne cow. He was her first calf, and did not have the power to stay a bull. I was surprised at how big he ended up, since she is about a 5 frame cow. She is an easy keeper, always good looking. She is raising us an embryo calf this spring (Steel Force) and has another embryo calf in her for next January (another Steel Force). The kind of cow I like! Here is a pic of her and him when he was a calf:

The feed cost was calculated on an individual basis since each kid fed their steers differently, at home. I need to do ours still, but you can bet it was less than the others since he was on pasture with supplemental grain. I am eager to see if his carcass fat looks any different, since the others were on grain with a small amount of hay. I have heard it will be more yellow, but he was not strictly grass fed, so I am not sure if that will be the case with him or not.

 

[Isomade]

Ian going to guess that you are a year off on all your DOBs, otherwise I'm doing something terribly wrong.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Ian going to guess that you are a year off on all your DOBs, otherwise I'm doing something terribly wrong.

:lol: yeah, your right! I would hope everyone would realize they are yearlings, since I put in the top paragraph they ranged from 16 to 17 months old! It is hard not to write 2013 when writing the date. Good catch!

 

[CSM]

Oh, and remember I asked about Amino Gain (feed supplement made by ADM)? The red steer and big 3/4 Angus steer were fed just that and corn, and had amazing ADGs on it! The black steer (1560) had an ADG of 5.7 and the red steer had ADG of 4.??? can not remember. Our steer was 3.4, the PB angus was around that and the 3/4 sim 1/4 hereford was just under 3 (2.9). That is why I was asking about the Amino Gain, to see the impressive gains the two steers had on it!
Our steer was the only steer left on pasture and supplemented with grain, the others were kept in pens and fed full choice grain. We lost some gain because of it, but I wanted to raise our steer to taste the way I liked, not too fat! Grass is free, grain is not! Our steer was on about 20 pounds of grain a day there at the end.

Grass is not free.

 

[chippie]

Thanks for sharing the pics. I'm looking forward to seeing the results. You all have a good program. Here, the kids don't see the results on the rail.

CSM is correct about grass not being free. When our kids had scramble heifers and kept record books. The stock show told the kids to allow at least $3 per day for grass/pasture even if their folks owned the place. That was about 6 years ago, so the value has probably gone up.

 

[inyati13]

Fire sweep, I wish I could find a couple heifers that look like your steer. Your steer is the prototype of the look I like. I hope Rocking P has some that look like that. I am suppose to go look when Keith can host me. I need some more mouths turning grass into beef. I could put 20 more head on my 80 acres and they would get lost in the grass and clover. Lady, I need a higher stocking rate, bad.