Jabes0623
Well-known member
Best of luck to you sir & thanks for the info.
Exactly.Jabes0623":2uk07iev said:It's just one of many reasons to do what you need to do today & not waste too much time looking into an unknown future.
There's a difference (tho most consumers don't know it) between "grass fed" and "grass fed and finished". Almost everyone here has grass fed cattle.Kell-inKY":1zg7t2zp said:This is a very interesting thread, I am a beginner and have nothing to say about price up or down but have some comments/questions.
Same thing here, any patch of pasture is being turned to crops, even with the price down. Nobody wants to fool with it, they just want a check, bigger farmers getting bigger, and zero small farmers (who can afford the equipment unless you have the acreage?). Anything remotely flat is rowcrop, the people left doing cattle are on hilly ground.
Will this accelerate the shift to large feedlot type operations? Take the cattle off the grass, turn the pasture into rowcrop, put cattle into a feedlot, feed cattle the grain? (with price of grain lower now) I know that sounds efficient but it freaks me out. Now for my dumb question, where are most of the feeders born that end up on a feedlot type operation? I know they have the big hog operations contained in one place, but I don't know if they have any cow/calf type operations figured out yet for a feedlot? Maybe I'm not explaining that well but just curious if they have or will try to do it all in house like other animals.
On a positive note, there are plenty of people in my area that are willing to pay for beef that came off a local farm, and I keep hearing people asking for grassfed, so maybe I can eventually actually sell something down the road, eventually.... This seems less dependent on what the market is doing, and the people asking about the beef aren't poor like me either. Anybody have a whole operation doing this direct selling or is it too big of a pain? A Local grocery is starting to carry "grassfed" I noticed.
Kell-inKY":1g9tf336 said:This is a very interesting thread, I am a beginner and have nothing to say about price up or down but have some comments/questions.
Same thing here, any patch of pasture is being turned to crops, even with the price down. Nobody wants to fool with it, they just want a check, bigger farmers getting bigger, and zero small farmers (who can afford the equipment unless you have the acreage?). Anything remotely flat is rowcrop, the people left doing cattle are on hilly ground.
Will this accelerate the shift to large feedlot type operations? Take the cattle off the grass, turn the pasture into rowcrop, put cattle into a feedlot, feed cattle the grain? (with price of grain lower now) I know that sounds efficient but it freaks me out. Now for my dumb question, where are most of the feeders born that end up on a feedlot type operation? I know they have the big hog operations contained in one place, but I don't know if they have any cow/calf type operations figured out yet for a feedlot? Maybe I'm not explaining that well but just curious if they have or will try to do it all in house like other animals.
On a positive note, there are plenty of people in my area that are willing to pay for beef that came off a local farm, and I keep hearing people asking for grassfed, so maybe I can eventually actually sell something down the road, eventually.... This seems less dependent on what the market is doing, and the people asking about the beef aren't poor like me either. Anybody have a whole operation doing this direct selling or is it too big of a pain? A Local grocery is starting to carry "grassfed" I noticed.
I sure don't want to stir you up, but I would like to read the discussion. Can you point to some threads? ThanksKarin":25x6kk1g said:Kell-inKY":25x6kk1g said:This is a very interesting thread, I am a beginner and have nothing to say about price up or down but have some comments/questions.
Same thing here, any patch of pasture is being turned to crops, even with the price down. Nobody wants to fool with it, they just want a check, bigger farmers getting bigger, and zero small farmers (who can afford the equipment unless you have the acreage?). Anything remotely flat is rowcrop, the people left doing cattle are on hilly ground.
Will this accelerate the shift to large feedlot type operations? Take the cattle off the grass, turn the pasture into rowcrop, put cattle into a feedlot, feed cattle the grain? (with price of grain lower now) I know that sounds efficient but it freaks me out. Now for my dumb question, where are most of the feeders born that end up on a feedlot type operation? I know they have the big hog operations contained in one place, but I don't know if they have any cow/calf type operations figured out yet for a feedlot? Maybe I'm not explaining that well but just curious if they have or will try to do it all in house like other animals.
On a positive note, there are plenty of people in my area that are willing to pay for beef that came off a local farm, and I keep hearing people asking for grassfed, so maybe I can eventually actually sell something down the road, eventually.... This seems less dependent on what the market is doing, and the people asking about the beef aren't poor like me either. Anybody have a whole operation doing this direct selling or is it too big of a pain? A Local grocery is starting to carry "grassfed" I noticed.
It wouldn't make any economic sense to raise cattle in a feedlot, not when pasturing them for most of their lives is the cheapest way to go. Feeding cattle grain should be kept at no more than the last 4 months of their lives, and before that leave them on pasture, so to speak. The costs associated with pushing for more beef cattle to be raised like hogs and chickens would mean more expenses going into feed, fuel, fertilizer, vet bills, mechanical/equipment expenses, etc. It doesn't matter if grain prices are lower, if the incentives and return on investments to moving the cow-calf and stocker herd to the dry lot and keeping there 365 days a year are not there, why bother? It's only efficient as far as resource-use is concerned because you can feed more cattle on corn per acre than you can grass per acre. But financially and economically it's a crap-shoot.
All feeders are coming from cow-calf operations that are already on grass. The beef production is nothing like the hog or poultry CAFOs, it's more spread-out and a lot more sell-sell for cow-calf, or buy-sell-buy-sell for backgrounding and feedlot operations. With longer times to raise cattle up to finishers or fats, there's more opportunity to sell and buy at two main stages of birth to slaughter. So the guys with the feedlots have to rely on the cow-calf guys to supply them with the feeders. Unless I'm wrong, most if not all feedlot operations don't have their own cow-calf herds to be able to operate and create enough of a supply for their own feedlots that they don't need to buy from other producers.
Don't get me started on the resource-efficiency debate of grass-fed vs. grain-fed. Been through enough discussions with others off this board to know how much BS can get flung around on that.
Supa Dexta said:We market as grass fed and grain finished and the customers are happy with that. Most know the difference between saying grain and corn finished. And those that want to debate it coming in as a new customer usually leave with some meat and come back impressed. For whatever reason the public is more anti corn than ever, but it doesn't bother me as I don't even grow corn any longer. I grow my own oats and barley, my own grass and my own animals - People are happy with that combo. In general most cattle are finished on small grains in Canada, and in most taste tests people would prefer
I don't care for grass finished beef myself but to each their own. Canadian beef is better than Mexican beef but not anywhere as good as corn feed American beef. Is corn not a type grass?
Tis indeed.......but it's not the grass part being fed to finish. ;-)highgrit":2qr4q50z said:Supa Dexta":2qr4q50z said:We market as grass fed and grain finished and the customers are happy with that. Most know the difference between saying grain and corn finished. And those that want to debate it coming in as a new customer usually leave with some meat and come back impressed. For whatever reason the public is more anti corn than ever, but it doesn't bother me as I don't even grow corn any longer. I grow my own oats and barley, my own grass and my own animals - People are happy with that combo. In general most cattle are finished on small grains in Canada, and in most taste tests people would prefer
I don't care for grass finished beef myself but to each their own. Canadian beef is better than Mexican beef but not anywhere as good as corn feed American beef. Is corn not a type grass?
Lucky_P":1bmhdktk said:- NY journalists, LA chefs, animal rightist vegans all spouting BS about public lands grazing, desertification, CAFOs, water use, decimation of predators, 'climate change'...
Lucky_P":1y6ihdsq said:Holy crap, Karin. The comments following that MJ article you linked almost made my head explode - NY journalists, LA chefs, animal rightist vegans all spouting BS about public lands grazing, desertification, CAFOs, water use, decimation of predators, 'climate change'... from their major metropolitan penthouses, as if they actually had a clue... (tic)How dare you challenge them!
Workinonit Farm":2xv58bnw said:Lucky_P":2xv58bnw said:- NY journalists, LA chefs, animal rightist vegans all spouting BS about public lands grazing, desertification, CAFOs, water use, decimation of predators, 'climate change'...
The really sad, bad and unfortunate thing is, all the people that read/listen to the folks you have listed, actually believe all of it.
If I had a dime for every time I heard that crap, or did my best to "educate", I could sell it all and retire.
highgrit":13w2f918 said:I don't care for grass finished beef myself but to each their own. Canadian beef is better than Mexican beef but not anywhere as good as corn feed American beef.
Karin":33va8rlt said:And these individuals call me the ignorant one who needs to be "educated"!