Originally posted by Hart8
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need some cattle raising tips....
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its cheaper to buy a butchered calf straight from the processor...we used to feed out a calf every year, by the time you feed the calf out, pay the processing charges, its not really feasible, especially when you start splitting all the beef with others, rib eyes, t bones, etc, there aren't that many cuts to go around, unless you have HB meat made with most of it.
you do however get the satisfaction of knowing you raised the beef yourself.
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Originally posted by Rescue1 View Postfor city slickers.
Parents just bought a couple acres and decided they wanted to feed out a couple cows for the family each year. they have about 2-2.5 acres with a small tank and a few mature trees. the property has been neglected for years and only been used off and on for horses.
they are too old to jump into this alone so I figure I'm going to have to run point. not sure what Dad's thinking, this really isn't his game. mom just wants a healthy alternative to buying store bought beef.
all I know about raising beef is it tastes great on the grill. looking for any tips for a complete newby in this. what breed? what do I need to do to improve the pasture? when do we start? in short, what am I getting myself into?
I think it will be fun and rewarding, and great to get the kids involved. but like I really needed another project on my plate.
any help educating me will be greatly appreciated.
Just how old are they? How old is too old to feed cows?
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I did pretty much what your talking about, had 2.5 acres. We bought cheap steer dairy bottle calves and raised them to be 18 months roughly or right at 1,000 lbs. didn’t have much grass due to dirt work. Fed them a cheap sweet feed, always had hay and a protein tub. About 3 months before we slaughtered them I started working rolled corn into their feed and slowly increased the ratio till it was 80%. For dairy steers the meat turned out amazing. Steaks are small but taste great. Got about 450lbs of each one. Worked well enough we did it a second time. Hardest part is when you first get them. If they can make it through the first two weeks it’s pretty easy after that. We were paying for the feed with money that my wife made off selling eggs to pay for feed and even to slaughter them, so at the end of the day I didn’t have a lot of out of pocket expenses maybe 300-400 per cow. So from my side it worked great. Moving forward I would suggest buy cheap ropping steers. They are about 300 lbs, cheap and you don’t have to worry about bottle feeding.
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