Grass fed beef on the cheap?

A lot of dairy calves never see pasture now. They are raised in confinement all their lives. We have a 1600 cow (milking) dairy that has no pasture at all. They plant grass in the fall, chop it in May and plant corn in the early summer for silage in the fall. Irrigation and fertilizing from the manure lagoons from the wash water for the alleys from the creek. They have a large tank, the width of the alleys, with a gate across the bottom that opens and a small tital wave washes the alleys....James

Pasture raised? Here is the rub---in most states except the warmest---those animals are fed hay all winter and are called pasture raised anyway. With that in mind a cow in a stall fed hay meets the same criteria unless it is fed unnatural things like straw and urea etc. instead of hay. Around here they get silage, haylage or hay which in my thinking qualifies as pasture. Beef fed ethanol waste corn as 100% of their diet practically are a whole nother kind of critter.

Truth as they say, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder.

My answer to the OP... "you have no idea how your beef was raised unless it was raised by your neighbor. Most store bought meat cuts are GMO corn raised in the last few months before being butchered. As far as the chubs are concerned... it may be anything from prime Angus (unlikely) to half starved cattle being fed urea...... It this were Europe there might even be some horse meat thrown in....

One just doesn't know.... but with each passing year the possibilities are getting scarier..

I know several cattlemen who do a great job of raising quality beef, with little or no antibiotics. What is the chance that I will get their meat or some like it at a grocery store? The problem is, I just don't know......no one else here does either.

Mainly because there is no such critter....

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

I beg to differ. Our neighbor had several steers in his barn that were getting 100% ethanol waste corn and NOTHING ELSE. Not one single drop of hay. I specifically asked what else he was feeding but the ethanol waste corn. Nothing!

But you will never see those cattle in the marketplace because they will starve to death.

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Flaming Xtian
I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
Mahatma Gandhi


Libertarindependent

your neighbor is an idiot he's going to have cattle die from polio because of sulfur toxicity.

there are no cattle feed commercially a diet containing 100 percent DDGS!

Ive hauled several loads of DDGS that was sold to a small feeder.

It has about 30% protein and 12% fat but not much else because the starches and sugars have been cooked out to make the alcohol.

They use it to mix with grains and silage to complete the rations.

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" Do or do not, there is no try. " - Yoda

The lots I have hauled to did the same mixed the DDGS with other grains and silage or haylage.

This wasn't recently. Probably 10 years ago when it was a new feed and everybody was experimenting. I have no idea what happened to those steers. I only know that to my mind it would have also ulcerated their stomachs etc. At any rate I wouldn't have wanted to eat one. It could never happen now as corn is too expensive even if it didn't kill them. There was not one drop of anything else in their feeders. They looked okay but I have no idea how long he had been feeding them the corn junk. Somebody told me later on that when they were fed large amounts of the stuff they had to be butchered or they would die. Oh geez, that sounds like great meat! Argh.

It is just corn with the starches and sugars cooked out of it thus concentrating the protein and fat. You can get it in meal, pellets or cubes. Nothing wrong with using it in feed . I'll leave the GMO factor out of this discussion.

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" Do or do not, there is no try. " - Yoda

DDGS today is not the same as it was 10 or 5 years ago. Virtually every ethanol plant is now removing oil from the DDGS so improve profitability of the Ethanol Plant, as a result the feed value of the DDGS has dropped. The other component that must be considered when using DDGS or WDG in cattle is the Sulfur content, too much can you can have Polio.

DDGS/WDG is a quality feed ingredient but it msut be used wisely in livestock rations.

Jim

Understood. My point was when used and mixed correctly, it has a place.

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" Do or do not, there is no try. " - Yoda