Grass fed beef

i think my dad fed grain the last month to get rid of the taste of grass, wild garlic and other freaky things.

__________________
this message has probably been edited to correct typos, spelling errors and to improve grammar...

"All that is gold does not glitter..."

So if cattle are fed chicken manure ( yes, it does happen ) from a chicken that is on growth hormones, do the hormones get passed to the cattle?

I agree about people going to the doctor too much, and I know they tend to prescribe antibiotics way too much.
I also know for a fact that a lot of times feedlots push the withdrawl times, or maybe fudge their records a tad to get animals to market as soon as possible. A steer on it's way to the butcher is a steer you aren't feeding.
As far as the implants, if one is good, two are better. Sometimes they'll get implanted as calves, then sent to the feeder where they are implanted again, just in case they weren't.
People get carried away trying to make these things grow faster and faster.
I've worked and lived around feedlots half my life, and it always amazed me how fast they grew, and they are always finding ways to add weight faster.
No wonder people are marbled

__________________
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Mark Twain
______________________________________________

Enforced tolerance is oppression

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

.
You can eat grain feed or grass feed beef it makes no difference.
The reason people gain to much weight is because they eat to much.

bumpus.

.
If they stopped feeding cattle grain today there would not be enough beef to supply the demand, and the price would go sky hi.

There is not enough grass land to raise the cattle to meet the demand of the public today.

Even today there is a bigger demand that people can raise them.

Feed lot people are only in the bussines to make money and nothing else.
It takes to long to raise beef on grass alone.

There is sure a lot of missinformation out there by the sounds of these replys.
BuckSB,hanging time makes the difference,if I took one half grain fed beef and processed it the same day it would be tough compared to the other half that hung in the cooler for 7 to 10 days!
Mel/WW Softly I too was raised and took it for gospel that the last month they had to be penned and grained to taste good and be tender.I prove that wrong every time i butcher beef, goats,or deer!
Jena my neighbors have the vet at their dairy farm constantly.They pump the cows full of hormones to produce more milk.they milk 3 Xs a day to get all they can.The cows are so stressed and disease prone they are pumped full of antibiotics.Supposedly they have a withdholding time for milk.But when the udder falls apart the cow gets shipped to the auction.Meet your next hotdog!!!or Mc Burger they only use holstiens I hear?
Omega 3 And 6 both come from the same fat it's just that pasture raised gives you something like 3 to 5x s the amount of good omega 3,your arteries know the difference!
As for hormones in feed check again Gmo's have done a wack job on our grains hormone wise.And where did mad cow come from?Check the protein and see if it's an animal derivitive!Feeding cows back to cows!!!!!
And feeding grain causes an acidic build up in animals which does change the meat.
Bumpus that is a common misconception if you ate fat with more omega 3 you would actually lose weight.
There is still lots of land to graze, but not where I'm limited to.So i raise a steer now and then and the rest goats.
If I wanted to raise a hundred cows I would have to go where there is more land or put in a feed lot and put up with e-coli and other problems with over crowding.
As homesteaders we should be learning what it takes to live and eat healthy and realize it's up to us to keep our family,friends, and neighbors supplied with only the safest and healthiest food possible.Your govt ain't gonna do it.And the corparations like Monsanto are after the buck first
These neighbors of mine are great people,but are poisoning the land and the people around them.
The round up ready corn is getting so bad with super weeds now that they are reapplying herbicides in the corn fields.We rolled the windows up in the truck as we went past because of the overpowering smell of it.
Check the sites rockin'b had on the thread.We need to keep learning or we will be making buggy whips that aren't needed
Chas
Ps Please read rockin'b s listed sites,could just save your life!!!!

What about feeding a daily amount of grain/mineral to your grass fed beef? Anyone have opinions on that?

Best thing you can do is feed a little grain every day, and the meat will have good marbling and better tasting.

People used to feed corn the last 30 day but all it did was put fat on the outside of the meat.

Flavor comes from the fat.

bumpus
.

Hormones are not used in poultry production at all. It is illegal and would be of no use.

Jena

I was talking about beef production, not dairies. I don't know much about dairies because I never raised any dairy animals.

Yes, grass fed fat has more omega 3's, but there's less fat, so to actually get enough of the omega 3's, you have to eat 3 to 5 times more beef....which is a lot.

Bovine growth hormones are not in GMO grains.

It is illegal to feed ruminant proteins to ruminants. Yes, that came about due to mad cow. There are plenty of other protein sources for feed.

Jena

Jena,

Just wanted to say hello. I don't visit the Cattle board much any more, but you were one of the posters I really respected. Hope things are going well for you.


"There are not antibiotics in beef cattle feed. I forget what they are called, but they are not antibiotics and act against the targeted bacteria in ways that are entirely different than antibiotics do." Ionophores (like Rumensin) to stimulate good bacteria in the rumen)

"Jena my neighbors have the vet at their dairy farm constantly.They pump the cows full of hormones to produce more milk.they milk 3 Xs a day to get all they can.The cows are so stressed and disease prone they are pumped full of antibiotics.Supposedly they have a withdholding time for milk.But when the udder falls apart the cow gets shipped to the auction.Meet your next hotdog!!!or Mc Burger they only use holstiens I hear?" Most of the high herd-average herds are on 3X milking. Not sure why that is bad. Vet could be visiting to do herd health, pregnancy check, etc. Any cow that has been treated with antibiotics is not being put in the bulk tank for pickup. Sorry, you are 100% wrong there. Many antibiotics also have a withdrawal period before slaughter. I am sure there are criticisms that can be leveled against the way some of the larger frestall operations are run, but a lot of this is off base. Reproductive problems are probably what causes most milk cows to get culled, then foot problems, chronic mastitis.

__________________
"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity." Gen. George S. Patton Jr.

Chas:There is sure a lot of missinformation out there by the sounds of these replys.
A fair amount of incorrect information in your replies as well.

Chas: BuckSB,hanging time makes the difference,if I took one half grain fed beef and processed it the same day it would be tough compared to the other half that hung in the cooler for 7 to 10 days!

Mel/WW Softly I too was raised and took it for gospel that the last month they had to be penned and grained to taste good and be tender.I prove that wrong every time i butcher beef, goats,or deer!

Jena my neighbors have the vet at their dairy farm constantly.They pump the cows full of hormones to produce more milk.they milk 3 Xs a day to get all they can.The cows are so stressed and disease prone they are pumped full of antibiotics.Supposedly they have a withdholding time for milk.But when the udder falls apart the cow gets shipped to the auction.Meet your next hotdog!!!or Mc Burger they only use holstiens I hear?

Omega 3 And 6 both come from the same fat it's just that pasture raised gives you something like 3 to 5x s the amount of good omega 3,your arteries know the difference!

As for hormones in feed check again Gmo's have done a wack job on our grains hormone wise.

Please explain, as this statement makes no sense.

Chas: And where did mad cow come from?Check the protein and see if it's an animal derivitive!Feeding cows back to cows!!!!!

As Jena said, has been illegal for several years, and was almost exclusively fed to feedlot steers more recently, not cows. Way back in the old days, most protein came from tankage, which was animal-based.

Chas: And feeding grain causes an acidic build up in animals which does change the meat.

Feeding grain does not in and of itself cause acidosis, feeding a ration that does not have enough fiber does.

Chas:Bumpus that is a common misconception if you ate fat with more omega 3 you would actually lose weight.

There is still lots of land to graze, but not where I'm limited to.So i raise a steer now and then and the rest goats.

If I wanted to raise a hundred cows I would have to go where there is more land or put in a feed lot and put up with e-coli and other problems with over crowding.

I have 200 cows (cow-calf) and not a one is in a feedlot. I don't know of anyone around here who runs cow-calf in a feedlot.

Chas: As homesteaders we should be learning what it takes to live and eat healthy and realize it's up to us to keep our family,friends, and neighbors supplied with only the safest and healthiest food possible.

Fair enough, but who is going to define what is safest and healthiest? That's a legitimate question. How do you know that the ag. products produced by farmers using methods that you apparently disapprove of are not equally safe and healthy?

Chas: Your govt ain't gonna do it.And the corparations like Monsanto are after the buck first

These neighbors of mine are great people,but are poisoning the land and the people around them.

The round up ready corn is getting so bad with super weeds now that they are reapplying herbicides in the corn fields.We rolled the windows up in the truck as we went past because of the overpowering smell of it.

Roundup has no residual, so it only kills weeds that have emerged at the time of spraying. Suppose you have no-till corn and sprayed with Roundup pre-planting. Entirely possible they went back and did a second-round of spraying post-emergence. As such, it would have nothing at all to do with superweeds. You can tell the exact herbicide being sprayed, and even the brand name of the glyphosate just by smell. That's really impressive.

Chas: Check the sites rockin'b had on the thread.We need to keep learning or we will be making buggy whips that aren't needed

Chas
Ps Please read rockin'b s listed sites,could just save your life!!!![/QUOTE]

__________________
"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity." Gen. George S. Patton Jr.

not to be too critical but that last post was rather hard to read. i could not really tell what your points were. i noticed some of it was blue.

my thoughts on the "pen em' up the last thirty days" was to clear wild garlic and such that does flavor the meat. i have had some really nasty cheap and tough roast beef sandwiches from machines that i swear tasted like grass. i assume they were range beef. not a cattle man...not really sure.

it also follows common sense to think that penning an animal and allowing very little movement would help to tenderize meat. just sit around for a month and see how soft you get.

i have always heard, and fully believe, that aging meat by hanging for a week to 10 days will not only flavor it, but the bacterial breakdown of the proteins will soften the meat.

if you want to increase weight for auction, salt and water would probably help.

__________________
this message has probably been edited to correct typos, spelling errors and to improve grammar...

"All that is gold does not glitter..."

Feeding grain to cattle is hardly new, and has been done for thousands of years. The prevalence of grain-fed beef has grown considerably in the last 150 years, because grain-fed cattle will finish more rapidly than grass-fed animals.

Even 90 years ago, there was lots of grain-fed beef because most of the fat cattle slaughtered from January to June came from feedlots.

It's difficult to compare grass-fed and grain-fed operations of decades past to today because there have been changes in the genetics of animals such as selective mating and culling to get grass-fed animals to finish at lower weights and be more efficient convererters of grass and legumes, better management of pastures.

__________________
"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity." Gen. George S. Patton Jr.

Most buyers of fat cattle want an overnight stand dry (without access to water) because they don't want to buy water.

__________________
"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity." Gen. George S. Patton Jr.

maybe so, but I would quit eating beef if i had to suffer through chewing grassfed beef. Might as well be eating shoe leather.

Ok tell me this, which would you rather eat.

milkfed 6mo /milk and sweetfeed fed the next 6-8 months then slaughtered, hung for no less than a week.

Or grassfed.

I'll put that grainfed up against any grassfed for tenderness, and taste anyday.
Your taste is in the fat, not the lean.

I don't get hormones or antibiotics in my feed for my animals. Thats entirely up to whoever is growing.

I am not a cow producer, but I eat grass fed for health reasons. Actually, I also prefer the taste. You just have to cook it differently. Grain fed tastes rather fatty and gristley (if that is a word :-) to me now. That said, I think most people who want a grain fed animal would rather get one from a local producer who was kind to his animals (and have healthier animals) than from a feed lot if only they knew that was an option. For some reason, the "average joe" does not know you can still get food from places other than the grocery store. Both can fill a marketing "niche" all their own if we can just reintroduce folks to the farm.

__________________
Mom to 5 cool kids and wife to 1 great guy. Life is good!

I already had one heart attack, I'll pass on another one thanks.
We need to be heading away from fat in our food, and grass fed beef if done right is every bit as good as feedlotted.
Don't get me wrong, I've worked on feedlots, and if I was doing it to make money that's how I'd raise my cows, but for my own personal comsumption, I'll take the grass fed.

__________________
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Mark Twain
______________________________________________

Enforced tolerance is oppression

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ