Longhorns... good beef???

seedspreader · #1 11/20/06, 06:37 AM

Tell me all about longhorns, thinking about buying one or two...

unioncreek · #2 11/20/06, 11:27 AM

I bought a couple of Longhorn heifers about 5 years ago, because they were cheap. My pasture was all grown up with brush and willow and I heard Longhorns are good browsers. They are and cleaned up all the brush and willow and they eat 20% less feed than other breeds. Straight bred Longhorns are don't put on a lot of flesh, so I cross mine with Angus. Pasture them as yearlings and then grain them for 90 days. All the meat that I have sold has graded "Choice" and I haven't been able to supply all my customers. They have a healthier fat than the Bristish breeds (Angus, Hereford) and are actually lower in cholesterol than most chicken. As soon as I can find a few more heifers I'll be expanding my herd to try and keep up with demand. If you don't want to deal with horns and their young enough just have the vet dehorn them. They are not wild and I halter break the one's I'm going to keep at four months. If you handle them enoug they are like a pet. My older cows are not halter broke, but I can walk around with them and they'll let you pet them.

Bobg

seedspreader · #3 11/20/06, 10:50 PM

Thanks Bob.

If you got a good enough price on some steer, would it be worth raising them for the meat? Can you give me an idea of price/lb. on the hoof that is pretty decent?

Country Doc · #4 11/21/06, 02:25 PM

One other thing about longhorns is they live and calf longer. An angus may go to age 12 or so and a longhorn may go to age 18 or more.

unioncreek · #5 11/22/06, 10:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZealYouthGuy

Can you give me an idea of price/lb. on the hoof that is pretty decent?

I bought my heifers when they were 6 months old for $350 each. If you go to a stockyard I don't know what they would bring per pound, but they get docked quite a bit. To me it's worth raising them for meat, like I said I run mine on grass after weaning for the summer and then grain for 90 days. They will fatten without grain, but it takes longer and some people don't like how lean it is. One thing about Longhorn meat you don't want to cook it until it's fully done or it will dry it out too much. My wife likes her's well done and she hasn't complain about it not being cook enough.

Bob

bill not in oh · #6 11/22/06, 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZealYouthGuy

Tell me all about longhorns, thinking about buying one or two...

Hey Bob..

Just curious - why longhorns? There are better meat breeds...

seedspreader · #7 11/22/06, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bill in oh

Hey Bob..

Just curious - why longhorns? There are better meat breeds...

Just got a line on some from a local person. That's the only reason.

wr · #8 11/22/06, 01:27 PM

bill in oh, I disagree with there being better meat breeds. I really enjoy longhorn meat, especially the ultra lean factor. Properly cut and hung, the meat is flavorful and tender. I will concede the carcass is smaller but that isn't always a bad thing either, most people are getting away from the huge slabs of meat with their meals. I have no problem marketing my longhorn meat or my highland meat. It just requires a bit more creative marketing than some other breeds might but I know that in the past, I've had 25+ steers to sell and sold out of sides of beef long before I ran out of customers.

DJ in WA · #9 11/22/06, 10:39 PM

bobg,

Can I assume that a Longhorn cow bred to an Angus bull will have a polled calf? That would solve the dehorning problem. Though I wonder if there is a market for the horns or horned cattle for some just for the looks. I see the Longhorns at our fair, and the 6 to 8 foot spreads are pretty impressive.

By the way, one of my favorite books as a kid was Lonesome Longhorn.

jerzeygurl · #10 11/24/06, 04:48 PM

breeding our jersey to angus got us polled once out of 4 times...

jersey is good beef, and jersey bull calves are cheap..

we have three long horns... we can get close to one

trying to decide how to be rid of them...

unioncreek · #11 11/24/06, 10:20 PM

The average hanging weight of the last calves we had slaughtered was 735, I figure that's pretty good. A lot of Angus and Hereford's will only weight that at slaughter. It costs me lest than $100 to finish off my calves and that gives me a net return right at $300. You don't have all that extra fat that the British breeds carry and so the customer doesn't have to pay for it. I've never had anyone complain at the price I charge or that it wasn't any good.

DJ,

The are polled if you have a homozygous polled bull, there are a few Angus bulls that have scurs (sp?) and you can get horns if you use one of these bulls. I've used Hereford bulls before and just use dehorning paste when they are about a week old to solve that, do it the same time I band the bull calves.

Bobg

bill not in oh · #12 11/25/06, 08:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wr

I have no problem marketing my longhorn meat or my highland meat.

Highlands... now we're talkin'

And I didn't mean to insinuate that the Longhorns weren't good beef cattle. I've eaten my share of Longhorn as they were (and still are) a popular breed in Texas when I was growing up.

DJ in WA · #13 11/25/06, 07:50 PM

Bob,
Okay, I was wondering if the genetics were different with longhorns. Apparently not - polled is still dominant over horned. Yeah, I had a polled hereford bull that provided me a calf with scurs a few years ago - technically not horns, as they don't attach to the skull. But I still ended up removing them.
Didn't realize some angus had scurs - I'd think the breed would work hard to get rid of them as polled is a nice selling point.

Jerzeygirl,
Sounds like your angus bull had some horned breed in him. Pure angus should always throw a polled calf.

farmergirl · #14 11/25/06, 08:27 PM

I traded an old electric horse walker contraption for a longhorn steer (we agreed that he was worth $300). Honestly, I would have probably ended up paying someone to haul the hotwalker away cause it was a dangerous obstacle in the new turn out area for my horses. Anyhoo, we got "Ribeye" at about 400 lbs and by the time we had him slaughtered he was about 850! Meat was really good. Took us over a year to go through it all, even with selling some here and there. Grind some of the less prime steaks up into the ground beef and you'll have the BEST hamburger! We did grain him for probably longer than necessary (about 3 mos total) because we had heard over and over that longhorn beef can be terribly lean. If we had to do it again, I think we'd just finish 'em out on grass and see what we'd end up with. I ended up deciding that horned cattle just won't work on our farm ( got sick of replacing corral boards left and right), but they sure are pretty.

mayfair · #15 11/27/06, 08:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DJ in WA

By the way, one of my favorite books as a kid was Lonesome Longhorn.

I didn't know anyone else read that book! That was my favorite book, too- I read it many times from the library- 30 years ago! I remember the longhorn's hooves were worn down to the hair when he made it home...