Bull "taint"
 

Just had a conversation with a neighbor. The guy is a jerk in general and a very poor animal caretaker so for the most part I take very little of what he would say with regards to critters and give it value at all. However he said something that made me wonder and I thought I would ask you all since I have far more faith in the response I will get here then from anything he might say.

We have a yearling Jersey bull. Normally I would have banded him as a baby, but situations were such that it did not get done. The plan was to give him another 4-5 months to put on a bit more weight before butchering him. This fellow was telling me that bulls get a taint like some people say (and yes I know, some say not) boars get. He feels that if they are in rut, hadn't really considered bulls as getting in rut but ok, being around cows coming in season that the meat from him won't be worth eating.

So what do you all think? Does this yearling bull need to live in a monastery or he will taste nasty or what?

We put the three year old mid-miniature jersey bull in the freezer a few months ago when he turned on me. He'd bred two cows during the previous two months. He was on grass and alfalfa hay only, no grain. It is incredibly tasty and tender beef. We did have the rounds made into hamburger, in case it was tough. But I don't think there would have been any problem doing steaks and roasts instead. I like the meat better than the grain fed Holstein steer we put in the freezer last year. Better flavor, less fat.

My parents had to butcher their 6 year old piedmontese bull after he broke something in his shoulder, they had all of him ground, it was the best ground beef I have ever eaten.

Well Oscar Mayer must think their ok, most all bologna is made from bull meat. From what I understand, is that it is so lean that it will hold alot of water when added to the meat. I think your young bull will be just fine. > Thanks marc

When we had a jersey cow, we would often get an unrelated bull calf, raise him to about a yearling age to breed our cow. Sometimes we banded him after the breeding, other times we did not. They went to our freezer about 18 months or so and all tasted very good.

Thank you all for your comments and experiences. I sort of figured this guy was full of it and this pretty well confirms it. He told us about some bull that they butchered and how off putting the meat tasted, but my guess is that the poor animal was either eating real crummy food or was VERY stressed and poorly handled before, during, and after the thing was processed. In light of the conditions I saw that he keeps his animals is this would fit right in:-(

Not necessarily so Oregan Julie, there is a personal factor in this as well as what people are used to eating so your jerky neighbour may not be talking through a hole in his head.

Young bull, ram and boars are usually all acceptable but once they mature they can, to some people, become quite inedible. I personally do not like bull meat and would never put a mature bull, in fact any bull, in my freezer as a freezer beast - I am in a position to eat far better meat than that. It has a much stronger flavour, tends to be darker in colouring and coarser in texture. We did once kill a bull and have him processed into mince, sausages, corned beef etc and that was acceptable.

It's probably interesting that the bulk of our bull meat is exported to the U.S. where it is used as ground beef by the likes of McDonalds. That says a lot for the quality of bull meat! It will also absorb twice it's weight in water making for an economic but probably revolting meat rissole. I don't like McDonalds either.:D

Cheers,
Ronnie

This guy is a jerk, he don't know squat!!!!!!

Do you think so? In fact, he's pretty much on the ball and a bull that has been working or close to cows in heat is quite likely not to taste too good at all. But then I probably don't know diddley squat either:rolleyes: But if you guys are happy to eat low grade meat, go for it. It's probably why all our bull meat ends up in the U.S.

Set your sights a bit higher. Most of you are in a position to eat prime steer or heifer so why are you settling for something less. If nothing is available on farm, send the bull to the works where he should make could money, and buy yourself some good meat. I can send a bull to the works and make between $1,000 and $1,400 on him and buy a prime steer at the farm gate for $800. I may not get the quantity of meat but I will certainly get quality meat.

OJ, I see your bull is a yearling - if he were mine I would be cutting my losses and getting the vet in to castrate him NOW and by your autumn he should be in good condition, ready for the freezer and no bull in him.

Cheers,
Ronnie

Sorry another vote for Bull meat. Just put a 2 year old Dexter Bull in the freezer and the beef is terrific. Tender, juicy, lean, and very flavorful. We enjoy it so much we have another one slated for November.

My parents also butchered a 2 year old bull that they used to breed the cows after the 6 year old was butchered and his steaks were excellent. snd while someones says to set your sights higher, we eat heifer, bull etc, my dad doesn't castrate his bull calves because he gets better growth out of them, they are butchered at 14 to 15 months and usually 1600 lbs, the meat is excellent, and he has a waiting list for beef, the bulls are in a corral next to the heifers, so I know their hormones are raging....but still no bad taste. Mcdonalds is just nasty, so to compare their burger to actual farm raised, humanely treated, hormone free beef is a mute point.

To each his own, I had RATHER have bull beef than a steer. I grew up eating both from our own cattle. Let folks eat what they choose. I PREFER the color, texture & flavor of bull beef.

Remember that the two different descriptions of bull meat are coming from two different management systems. A mature beef bull who has been ranging over hundreds of acres with a herd of cows is a different animal than a young dairy bull typically raised here in a pen or small pasture. I think you'll be very happy with the meat.

We have always butchered our Jersey bulls after they start getting ornery. This could be at 2 years or 6 years depending on the bull. These bulls are pastured, running with the cows, and get a small ration of grain a day.
I have *never* had a complaint about the taste of the beef, from my family to my city cousins. Its delicious.
I take that back, the one bull that tasted a bit strong, was a two year old who was shot by a family friend. The first bullet didn't put him down and he went blundering through several pastures before the friend caught up with him to finish it. He was a bit stronger flavoured due to all the stress of his death.
Right now we are enjoying Lee, a six year old bull. Now, when they are that old, we do make them into all burger. The younger bulls we use for roasts and burger, maybe a few steaks. We prefer to cut our roasts at home to make steaks.

Ronney
Don't slam me for speaking my mind.
I was born , raised , work the same land my family settled on in 1835. Now, as far as eating low grade meat, meat from a bull or old cow makes good hamburger, don't kid your self the retailer will use all cuts of scrap meat to make store hamburger. I will give you an excellent example of cheep meat. I friend called a couple of weeks ago he had a cow come up lame. She was appox 3 yr old. Told me she allways limps from foot rot in the spring. I told him , lets put her in the chute and I would trim her foot. He told me no he was just going to sale her. Buddy , I said she ant going to bring nothing at the sale limping.
Long story short , at the sale next week I bought the cow weight 1020# for $11/cwt, roast, steaks, hamburger sure is good. My friend got mad at the sale barn for stealing the cow(he says) after all comm came out he pocketed $85. Thats cheep meat my NZ friend.

Hey Ronney; Bet we get a little kangaroo meat with that bull meat your country ships up here also. > Thanks Marc

Greg, if you want to infer that people know squat, you must expect them to speak their mind too. And yes, bull and cow does make good hamburger - which is why it's used. Why process good meat into mince.

I doubt bull from here, at least, ever sees your retail market as most are bought specifically for the fast food market. Also, much of the bull meat that ends up in the States is young - those that run bull farms send them off at 18 months of age.

Marc, you've got the wrong country, it's Australia that has Kanga's.

As Articow says, to each their own but I know which I prefer.

Cheers,
Ronnie

Sorry Ronney, I forgot, darn me to pieces, shame on me I made the first mistake of my life. > Thanks Marc

Your neighboor is talking nonsense just to rile you. we run bulls with our herd year round. we never seperate. The cows are sent to the schools as burger, the steers are butchered for our retail customers and the bulls are butchered for us.
the first bull we did was a scottish highland cross. 4 1/2 years old, turned mean and 2000#. When the meat came back from the butcher, the first thing I did was pan fry some ribeyes. they were so tender and delicious we vowed the bulls are saved for us from then on.

I would take grass-fed bull meat any day over another choice.

Feeding corn is what makes them tough and nasty, not the fact that they are bulls.

Think about one more thing. when you go hunting, how many of those buck deers do you think are neutered? Do they taste like taint?

Just think, you also get the those two extra "cuts" of meat with a bull that you don't get with a steer.

Well Curtis, you can have those two extra cuts from any of my bulls that I would happen to butcher. Never been keen on those two cuts, but I give them to the neighbor most times. > Thanks Marc

I heard the same comments from a friend when I didn't band my twin Highland x angus bulls. I told him he was wrong but of course he didn't believe me.
Some people are just set in their ways.
I did research it some and also got the results that most people like it just fine.
I work in a small grocery store and we get 60 lb frozen chunks of bull meat to make Hamburger out of that is almost like ground round. Very ,very lean and most people swear it's the best they ever had. Most of the time it's from NZ,Australia,Argentina,Uruguay and whatever but always the same quality meat!

I will be picking up a 3 year old bull Thursday. He is mostly hamburger, but will be tasty.

For some reason people have a great desire to tell other people why what they are doing is going to turn out bad. When my husband started hunting turkeys everyone around told him to just breast them out cause the rest of the meat would be worthless. I told him if he was going to be hunting animals we were going to use all the meat. The turkey turned out great & we've cooked everyone whole since then. They said the same about pheasants (breast them out) goose (don't even bother) and the big old buck he shot (just make some jerkey) - we ate that whole fella, but we worried before the first grilling that he would be as bad and stinky and gamey as everyone said... He was delicious!

When I started raising goats people made fun of my husband for letting me get them. Saying that if he could ever get me to butcher one we wouldn't like the meat... I mean have you seen the look people make when they say "goat meat"? This past weekend when I finished processing our first goat out in the shed I told folks that I'd always thought they would taste like venison - and as I butchered it I sure did think it smelled just like the fresh deer I've butchered. Sure enough we grilled that loin and our whole family loved it! It is just as wonderful as venison and we can have it any time of year without having to set out in the freezing cold before dawn waiting for a deer to wander by.

SO... the moral of the story is - if they haven't seen how the animal lived, how it died, how it was butchered, how it was stored and how it was prepared.... Well then they can't exactly say for certain the bad taste in their mouth was because the animal still had it's balls.

Now I don't know that I've ever eaten a bull, nor can I say I haven't - but why would it be any different than any of the other male animals we've eaten?