aged beef
 

We slaughtered our steer over the winter. We did not allow it to hang for long due to the weather. I find the meat although very tasty, somewhat tough. Is this due to not letting it age long enough.
steff

We hang ours for 21 days...and have still had a tough one or two. Hold old was he and what was he finished on, and for how long?

He was 10 mnths old and had been pasture fed since the summer.
steff

Probably pretty lean beef?. Cant say I have had anything that was grass finished before. We generally do 45-60s (days) on corn. What breed was he?

holstien. would the corn increaseing the fat content have anything to do with it being tough?
steff

Yes.

A holstein is pretty tough to get good marbling on. You would spend a lot of corn money doing so. They just tend to grow frame.

I knew a guy years ago that had a feedlot and had holsteins. He haylage finished them. Too look at them, you would never know they were a 'finished' beef.

Best and fastest fattening seem to be a baldy heifer.

Marbling is different than tenderness. Marbling adds juiciness and flavor. Tenderness is affected by age, genetics and processing. Since he was so young, my guess is that the lack of hang time is the problem. My butcher hangs them 10-14 days.

Jena

We have longhorns and they would be similar to the holsteins in some ways. I find that it is nice to get a 14 - 21 day hang but if you can't for some reason, cook your meat carefully. Never over cook it and in my experience, if you sear the meat (all sides in the case of roasts) and then cook, it tends to be not so tough. If you're one of those very well done people, you'll struggle with the meat because in the leaner cattle there seems to be a high moisture content in the meat and as soon as you dry it out it toughens up.

Marbling will still add to tenderness, although its major purpose is like you say, flavor.

OK I am ready to get my next calf. I do not wish to keep it much longer than 1 yr. I will spend more to feed it than it is worth. Correct. I am raising my own so I know what it and I am eating. If I can get it right I could sell off some of the better cuts to pay for some of the feed. Can you give me an idea of what he should eat once he is off the bottle. I could feed grain, hay and or pasture. Do you think I would have a better tasting meat if he were older or is hanging still going to be needed in that duration.
thanks for all your advice. I really want to have my own meat, but if noone but me likes it it is not worth my effort.
steff

Grain fed usually tastes better to Americans because thats what we're used to. Google the health benefits of grass fed beef vs. grain fed. It's amazing. And grass fed tastes better after you get used to it, not so greasy.

Personally, I wouldnt get a holstein. I would stick to an angus, hereford of a baldy (a cross between angus and hereford only).
Buying one that is going to be bottle fed is going to set you back for the first few months. A bottle fed wont perform or gain like a nursing calf will. Then again, you will pay a lot more for a weaned calf. I am not saying it wont work, it will. You just wont have the blossom like in a nursing calf.
Once he is of the bottle you could start him on a little oats, to get him used to eating grain, without doing any damage. You could then pasture him and mix some corn in with the oats and generally get him over to corn. Ground corn with the cob would be good at this age.
I would pasture him for the summer. Then in the fall see what his weight is and possible start sticking straight corn to him. 60 days should give you a nice finish, if you start off with a nice calf and not some cull.
There are a million ways to do it. This is fairly cheap to do. You could also introduce him to haylage/corn sileage after he has some age on him. You must have sileage in your area, I would think. Do it all gradually though.

My Indiana Grandfather used to say that beef wasn’t “real” beef until it was at least 4 years old. He went on to say that the butchered beef needed to be hung for six weeks to ripen it. Of course, he was old school and thought that the then new circa 1940 idea of “baby beef” was ridiculous.

When I was a young boy in the ‘50’s Daddy and Mommy would take the family to Grandfather and Grandmother’s house each fall for a few days to butch some hogs and a beef to be divided among the various families. The hogs were always great lard hogs that Grandfather called “baconers”, usually they were old sows weighing many many hundreds of pounds, and the steer would always be huge, big enough to dwarf the Holstein cows whose milk was the cash crop of the farm.

I am not as knowledgeable as even the least among you when it comes to modern cattle techniques, nor as experienced as most of you when it comes to daily cattle husbandry, but I know what I know. An oxen, (a steer over four years old), will fatten on rough pasture that would starve a growing steer or heifer, while a “baby beef” is still growing a frame and if one wants to fatten them it’s grain or forget it. It’s simple math: if the beef in question is fully-grown it doesn’t take much feed for maintenance, add a bit more and the beef gets fat. If the beef is still a baby, they need as much high quality hay and pasture as they can get just to grow at a steady rate, and since these babies can only eat and digest so much, their grain allowance has to be increased, at the expense of roughage, to fatten them.

Current studies have shown that tenderness is genetic. As some breeds have genes that make them longer, leaner, larger, and dwarfed; there is a gene for tenderness. If one’s cattle does not possess this tenderness gene, their beef will have to hang a few weeks to ripen.

There is another issue for the beef producer; a pound of beef is only worth one unit of money. If beef be proper four year old beef the farmer will have far more time and money invested per pound than if the beef were of the inferior “baby beef” variety, but to the general public both types of beef should be worth the same unit of money per pound. To add insult to injury, the general public has been eating “baby beef” for so long that they no longer have a taste for proper beef and as a result older beef brings less money to the farmer.

In my humble opinion, if one wants proper beef, keep the steer until he be at least a four year old oxen, and then hang him for six weeks to ripen. Or, lacking time and space, buy an old dairy cow, fatten her, and let her hang for 6 weeks. Either one will taste and smell better than anything one can find at the supermarket.

Good point Haggis! The problem with that, or my suggestion even, is the risk involved. For example, a lighting storm at 2.5 yrs into the process. Or the steer getting hit by a vehicle, if you live near people.

I think the best solution is to buy something out of a local feedlot, where you know what is going on. No risk involved.

We raise a couple here every year for ourselves. It would still be less involved if we traded our ought from someone else.

I would be curious to try some beef that is 4 yrs old, cant say I ever have. Haggis, what time is supper? *;o)

Steff, I really think a heifer would do you better. It will feed it out faster as well as be cheaper to buy.

I hope that I was making myself clear that the critter (the beef) was four years old prior to his or her making the transition from walking beef to beef for the table? Then hung and aged 6 weeks before being processed for the freezer.

Opus if you're ever up here in Minnesota, you're always welcome to supper, and we'll have proper beef. (And a wee bit of 15 year old single malt to wash it down.)

Well I had a 4 year old cow. She was great, if you like shoe leather! Made good burger though.

This is how I feed my calves. They get grass hay for 10 days after weaning. Then they get hay and corn silage for a couple months. Then I get rid of the hay and start adding corn/soybean meal feed. I get them up to about 10 pounds of grain a day, plus all the silage they want. Once they get 800 or so pounds, I up the grain to 20 pounds a day. I shoot to slaughter at 1000-1200 pounds.

My butcher tells me that my beef would grade choice.

Jena

Steff, I know you want to raise your own, but I think you'd be further ahead in the long-run to find a guy around you who feeds cattle and have him sell you a finished steer. Especially if you find a small family or even just an older couple (like me and my wife), he ought to be able to pick a well-finished steer, you split the butchering costs and the wrapped beef. He'll sell it to you for lot less than the store price.

I've got to go feed and milk. Get at some of those other questions later.

Don't let these guys buffalo you about Holsteins. You can finish to grade choice, but they'll finish out heavy 1500+ lbs. and they won't grade out choice without some grain.

A 10 month old 'stein is just going to be bone and sinew, especially pasture fed. A pasture fed critter should be at least 2 at slaughter, and should have about 60 days of a beef ration before slaughter.

Steff,

I disagree that you will spend more than it is worth. I wouldn't trade one home grown steer for a dozen feedlot steers. Start with a good quality breed, Holsteins are not good beef cows. I usually raise Angus cross breeds. I recently read where Limousin have a very good feed to muscle conversion efficiency. Check out this link, http://www.nalf.org/why_choose_limousin/feed_eff.pdf.

I have never raised Limousin but think I might try a few.

Here is a little advise from a little guy who started where you are 9 years ago. I moved to the country for little piece of my heaven and decided to try and raise my own beef too. We got off to a bit of a rough start but have been doing it every since and refuse to purchase store bought beef anymore.

If you want the best out of your home grown steer at the minimum of cost supplement your grass with grain and alfalfa hay. I have found that "grass fed" beef are not all they are cracked up to be. I personally suggest taking him off of the grass. Grain and alfalfa have more protein, which is what he needs to grow tender muscle which is your ultimate goal. Your local Co-op probably has a feed mill and can provide you with a reasonable grain mix, buy it by the 1/2 ton or more, it's cheaper that way. Just make sure they understand the steer will be raised for butcher. If you don't have a grain bin to store it in, four 55 gallon drums will hold 1/2 ton of grain. A good feed mill truck driver can dump it right into the drums when delivered without spilling more than a few pounds which you can scoop up when he's finished. The biggest issue with this is then you must wrestle them into the barn. If you can buy the hay by the large round bale and start him on it gradually, give him the hay free choice once he is used to it. Gradually get him started on the grain and feed him as much of it as he will eat morning and evening without having any left over at the next feeding. Once he is eating 10-15 pounds of grain at each feeding level off and keep feeding that amount twice a day until 60 days prior to butcher then bump him to 20-25 pounds a feeding. I have found that you get better beef by confining your calf to a corral of moderate size, this keeps him from getting too much exercise. Too much exercise toughens the meat. I keep 4-6 calves in a 30'x40' corral. Get another calf to put in with him. Beef will gain weight better with a little competition because they will each try to eat more than the other. This is not harmful just the natural way of things. Above all make sure he (they) have all the water they can consume. Most people will tell you to butcher at 900-1200 pounds. I don't have a scale big enough to weigh beef on so just feed him out untill he's 14-18 months old.

Probably more than one person reading this will scoff at this plan but I assure you it will work, I have raised 16 head, 3-5 at a time, with success for myself and family members. My costs average about $2.00 a pound in the freezer. You won't buy a T-bone in the store for that. My only failure was drowning one of my first calves because when I force fed him electrolytes I didn't do it properly.

Good Luck and don't give up, it's worth it.

I'm not sure why some think that holsteins are not good for beef. I've raised a lot of bottle holsteins over the years and if they're raised and fed properly their beef is as good as anything.

Grass-fed beef is healthier and higher in omega-3 and -6 fatty acids than grain-fed. And, yes, you can get marbled beef from grass alone, but it requires intensive management and very high-quality pasture. In order to marble on grass the calves must gain 1.8 lbs. per day or more. That's why I have to grain mine, because I simply don't have the pasture quality to provide that weight gain.

Steff,

If you are restricting yourself to buying a bottle calf, (1) you won't get him finished in 10-12 months, especially if you get a Holstein and (2) I don't know about where you are but it's pretty rare to find beef bottle calves, especially at a sale barn. Maybe during calving season you'll get some orphans through.

If you butcher that light, maybe just grind it all up into hamburger meat. People who grass-feed let it hang longer (up to 28 days), and it is tougher because it doesn't have that marbling. When they carcass test, the sheer force numbers on grass fed are higher. It'll tend to get dry and tough real fast with dry cooking, so either sear it well, develop a taste for more rare, or moisture cook.

So, let's say you then look at a 500 lb. calf (weaned). Feeder heifers will sell for less than steers and finish lighter, although they'll have lower ADG and feed conversion. I'd want that heifer discount to be more than $0.08 to $0.10/lb to make them a better buy. Around here, nice 500 lb. beef heifers are selling for $1.25/lb. and nice 500 lb. steers for $1.34/lb., so it's about a wash as to whether it's better value to buy a heifer. Funny how feeder cattle buyers figure that out.

Let's say she has an ADG of 2.75 lbs./day and she finishes at 1150 lbs., you'll have her for a shade under 8 months.

At this age, how much "grain" the animal needs, we have to define what grain is and we have to know the protein of the hay you're feeding. I would start the animal with predominantly grass hay and then shift to a grass-legume mix. If the animal (500 lb) had never had grain, I'd start it on about 2.5 lbs/day of either a 15% beef grower (bagged feed) or similar amount of ground shelled corn and a touch of 40% protein supplement. At the end of two weeks time, I'd try to have that grain ration up to at least 5.5 lbs. of the bagged feed or 5 lbs. ground shelled corn + 1/2 lb. of 40% protein supplement. By 700-800 lbs., I'd be looking at the animal getting 2.5%-3% of this "grain" (So, about 22 lbs. of ground shelled corn and 1-1.5 lbs. of 40% supplement per day), with supplement amount depending on the crude protein in the hay being fed.

You might be able to find a feed mill to grind a small batch for you, but 1000 lbs. is a pretty small batch for delivery. I'd watch the coarseness of feed I got from a mill and I'd howl like a cut dog if they brought me any fine-ground powder. I reckon the feed mills that would custom grind small batches and bag it for you are mostly gone, although some exist in Amish country. Might find that bagged feed is what you can handle. Another option might be to buy a used gravity box and running gear (and tarp) and store your feed in that, although that's not air tight.

I grind my own feed and mix it, because I want the shell corn to be just barely nicked not ground to powder. (Cattle will digest ground shell corn better than whole shell corn.) I start out with a mix that is 53.33% ground shell corn, 26.67% whole oats, 16.67% 40 percent pelleted protein supplement, and balance dry molasses. I also include trace minerals and vitamins in the mix, and give free-choice salt and dical-phos mineral. Since this grain mix doesn't have as much corn, it isn't hot and I can step the cattle up a bit quicker. As the cattle get bigger, I reduce the amount of oats, protein supplement and molasses until I am fattening them out on 74% ground shelled corn, 15 % whole oats and 10% supplement + 1% molasses and vitamins+trace minerals.

I feed twice a day and don't use steer stuffers. I prefer to bunk feed so I can read the bunk and know when to feed more or less. As the cattle get to heavier weights, I'll shift to feeding hay that is more grass and away from the grass-alfalfa mix. I feed square bales twice a day and they always have hay in front of them but I try to minimize the waste.

I use implants (and re-implant) and I use an ionophore (Rumensin) in the grain mix. The organic police don't like implants and Rumensin is an antibiotic. I like to feed whole oats because they add fiber and bulk that keeps the rumen working. Feeding oats is an old-school approach, but when feeders step-up cattle too quickly on these hot rations (high-energy ration without sufficient roughage), you'll get feeders that get over-conditioned without growing, won't eat enough and will have poorer feed conversion.

A mix of haylage and corn silage is real good for feeders, but they won't finish well without grain. Back in the old days, I used to feed a lot of corn silage to steers. I doubt that you have ready access to haylage and silage, so that might not be practical.

I would never give any beef or dairy animal unlimited alfalfa hay, especially feeders.

I hate big round bales about as much as anyone who ever walked the earth. Unless you're feeding TMR and have a tub grinder, they are a waste of hay. You'll pay more per ton for small squares but you ought to recover it with less waste.

Grass-fed beef has more beta-carotene, Vitamin E, CLA and those omega-3s, but you can get those from green leafy vegetables. I seriously doubt that grass-fed has more omega-6 than grain-fed, since that's the gripe against grain-fed, ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 too high. Look at the cost of green leafy vegetables vs. the premium on grass-fed beef and see which way is cheaper way to get nutrition. Notice as well that most people who are touting the benefits of grass-fed beef are, no surprise, producers who grass-feed.

The number one nutritional requirement of cattle is energy, not protein. Cattle derive energy from the cellulose in roughages, the starch in feed grains, fat and oil. A finishing ration is usually 12-13% crude protein. Crude protein builds muscle, but it isn't the primary nutritional requirement.

Low-quality grass pasture has around 8 percent crude protein, and high quality grass-legume pasture can be 18% cp. Baled hay can be anywhere from 10% cp to 28%. Corn is around 9-10% crude protein, wheat, oats and barley from 12-13% cp. Oilseeds (soybeans, cotton seeds) have much higher crude protein: 40% cp for whole soybeans, 23% for cottonseed.

I'd trade one home-grown steer for 12 feedlot steers any day of the week, especially if I got to pick them out of the lot. At current fat cattle prices and assuming the home-grown steer would grade slightly less, I'd make that 12 for 1 trade, pay the commission and trucking and pocket $12,000. I'd make that trade all day long, butcher another steer and have enough to eat lobster and shrimp every week, drive a new pickup, etc.

If you don't have access to a scale, you can estimate their weight by using a tape. Take their heart girth (HG) measurement, and then measure from the pin bone to the point of shoulder (PBS). These measures are in inches. Estimated weight = (HG x HG x PBS/300). Better yet go to the sale barn and sit there and try to guess the weight of cattle as they come in -- do it for feeder cattle of different breeds and sizes and fats as well -- see how close you are. Most good cattlemen can put a steer's weight within 20-40 lbs.

I wouldn't push too hard on the need for having two or more steers in a pen to get higher gains. First off, if you can't eat all the meat from one, then you're going to have to find someone to buy even more meat. It's not much more work to have two than one, but if you're just looking to feed yourself, one is enough.

I remember the first steers I helped feed out was in 1939. Two shorthorns we fed out and hauled to South St. Paul in a Model A Truck. I did some figuring and reckon that I've fed out close to 16,000 beef steers and heifers and Holstein steers. I wish I could say I made money on all of them, but I'd be lying. Lots of ways you can feed steers out, and I'm not looking for converts or saying there is only one way to do things. If you find a method that works, run with it. Personally, for butchering for the table, I'll take a well-finished Holstein steer and have just as good eating as colored cattle. Some of the best colored steers I ever fed out were some Simmental steers out of Extra, some Simmental-Black Angus crosses and long ago a pair of Black Angus-Shorthorn cross steers.

My choice of holstien is due to availabilty. I live in an are where dairies are plentiful. I can get a 4-5 day old for 75$ right down the road. I liked the taste very much, just a bit tough. I will give more feed and alfalfa next time. I think I will wait till summer to get him , then wait till the following fall to butcher. That would make him 15 months old. Understand
I do not wish to become a cattle herder, only to have some healthy beef for my family.
I like allen's answer best.
thanks steff

I just ate a sirloin steak from my 17 month old Dexter steer. It was delicious and tender.

The meat was dry aged for 20 days. It was grass fed, no antibiotics or hormones. I augmented it's feed with 4 lb. of corn a day for the last 60 days.

The taste was extra good. I'd recommend Dexter beef to anyone.

Genebo
Paradise Farm

I know this is controversial, but if you feed grain, even only a little bit at the end, your beef is NOT grass-fed. Grass-fed means just that...grass and hay only.

I don't do grass-fed because I don't like it and neither do my customers, but the folks that want it are entitled to get what they think they are getting...an animal raised without grain at all.

Jena

[QUOTE=Jena]I know this is controversial, but if you feed grain, even only a little bit at the end, your beef is NOT grass-fed. Grass-fed means just that...grass and hay only.


Jena,

I don't see anything controversial about that. Grass-fed means grass-fed.

My steer was grass fed for 15 months. I decided to put him in my freezer and not offer him for sale. That made it all right for me to add a little corn and corn gluten to his diet to try to marble the beef a little.

It must have worked. The meat is tender and tasty. I doubt that the amount I fed really changed the meat very much, but it didn't hurt it.

Besides, my grass went south for the winter.

We had a dry spell during the summer and crabgrass took over a lot of the pasture. The cattle loved it, but it died at the start of cold weather.

Has anyone else had crabgrass do this?

Our local grazing council says it's a good thing. They say to encourage the crabgrass and plant cool weather annuals to complement it.

Genebo
Paradise Farm

Genebo, I am farther south than you and I successfully grow tall fescue nearly year around. The fescue here will go nearly dormant in late July and all of August but I have stockpiled fescue in the paddocks for this period. I would discourage the crabgrass as it only provides feed for a short time. With rotational grazing on good fescue you should be able to meet you forage needs. Interplant some quality clover to fill in some of the gaps and to get free nitrogen. I have yet to feed the first bale of hay this winter.