# Raising Your Own Beef



## The Learner (May 21, 2008)

Does anyone here raise their cattle for family consumption? 

Once I finish up with my chickens I am going to do some cross fencing and buy a cow with her calf. I want the cow for her milk, but I was considering raising her calf to a good size, and then having it processed for its meat. However, a friend of the family is advising that I do not do this. He says that grass fed beef does not marble well, and that it taste bad. His advice is to raise the calf, sell it at auction, and then go buy whatever beef that I want at the store.

I would appreciate any advice that you guys can give me one way or the other on this.


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## francismilker (Jan 12, 2006)

Not sure what your friends intentions are, but raising your own beef is the only way to go. It's absolutely spoiling. Grass fed beef is the best I've ever had. (grass fed up to withing 60 days of slaughter and then put on full grain.)


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## TC (Jun 22, 2005)

I don't know what you friend considers good beef, but you'll never buy it at a store again, once you taste your own. Agree with pasture fed until 30 to 60 days before slaughter , then finish them on grain.


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## Jay (Feb 5, 2008)

My freezer-bound calves get fed minimal corn/grain mix daily--around a small coffee can full. They are on pasture now and hay in the winter. This gives it a bit of 'corn' flavor, and isn't as comprimizing on the nutrition/health of the cow, or the meat I eventually eat. (Also easier to "bribe" them if they get out!!) HA
I refuse to raise something, sell it, and turn around and buy God-only-knows-what at the store. I wouldn't raise a garden, sell the produce, and go buy whatever at the store....doesn't make sense! 

Your peace of mind is knowing the time, effort and money put into growing your own food, and what it does/does not contain (drugs, etc). 
The last calf I took in cost me just about $2/lb, including processing charges. Next one will be costlier, due to higher feed/hay prices.

Even if it were double the price, I'd still do it. Can't beat homegrown anything, so much tastier and healthier!!


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## topside1 (Sep 23, 2005)

Sorry to hurt your friends feelings but they seem confused. I agree with all the other posters, but here's another thought. If you raise your own, you will know where it was raised, how it was raised, and what it was feed. Come on, if somehow grass fed beef tastes funny than raise your steer as a grass/grain combination....that's what I do, store bought meat is for folks who can't raise their own...


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## airotciv (Mar 6, 2005)

I grew up with a Dad that always raised beef for the family, My DH and I use my dads formula. Grass feed, until the age of 12 months, and then start adding a pound of cracked corn twice a day until slaughter. My dad always had the best beef. The DH and I only have 4+ acres and my dad had 670 acres, so we don't raise as many as he did, but the formula is the same. Hope that helps.


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## KSALguy (Feb 14, 2006)

ask your friend what they are smokeing and if they will share...lol sorry just had too, store bought beef is no where NEAR the quality you will get from raising your own, you will be SOO spoiled and then you can cook a good steak dinner for your friend and show them what they are missing.


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## The Learner (May 21, 2008)

Thanks so much for the replies, this is the news that I wanted to hear. The guy is kind of a know it all, and I was pretty sure that he was wrong about this.


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## TSYORK (Mar 16, 2006)

Tasting bad and tasting different is two totally different animals. While if find that grass fed beef does have a different flavor and texture, the taste far exceeds anything the stores have to offer. They're just saling poison lying on a styrofoam tray that's wrapped in plastic. Grassfed, however, is about as pure and unaldulterated as you can get. I'll take it any day over what the local supermarkets have to offer.


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## Ronney (Nov 26, 2004)

I think the family friend needs his head read. I too rear my own beef for the freezer and it's grass fed all it's life. I've never eaten grain fed beef and I'm sure the flavour will be different but different doesn't mean bad. You will be eating the best of the best.

And once you get your cow, consider getting yourself a weaner pig or two as well and treat yourselves to some good pork and bacon.

Cheers,
Ronnie


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## Razorback21 (May 13, 2003)

Sell one you raise and use the money to buy it at the Grocer? Simple economics will tell you that doesn't make sense. Our last one, which includes feeding it grain in the last 90 days to get marbling, costs us $2.44 a pound. Our grocery store sells ground beef ON SALE for 1.99 a pound. Raising your own beef is one of the best values out there.


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## montysky (Aug 21, 2006)

Like the other posters have said, go ahead a raise your own, you can finish it on grain or grass. last 120 days I do grain feeding increasing the amount but there is nothing wrong to keep it on grass till the end. the taste will not be the same but that is not bad a lot of people like the taste of a grass fed better then grain.


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## Shagbarkmtcatle (Nov 1, 2004)

We raise ours on pure grass. Until slaughter. And we are selling it to customer's who are giving us good reviews.
Grass-fed is delicious and only needs a little adjustment in your cooking. Cook slow and low. You will be pleasantly surprised. See my signature line


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## copperhead46 (Jan 25, 2008)

If you've ever wondered about store bought meat, just drive past a feed lot. Home raised beef is healthy, lean, low in fat, low cholesteral, plus, it hasn't been injected with growth hormones, and all kinds of antibiotics. There are some excellent articles in the Mother Earth News on the subject. If you read up on it, you'll never eat meat from wally world again !!! When people ask "how can you eat something you've raised, my answer is always, how can you eat something you didn't raise ?? " I know that my animal was happy, healthy, lived a good natural life and was humanley slaughtered. 
P.J.


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## Shagbarkmtcatle (Nov 1, 2004)

When people ask "how can you eat something you've raised, my answer is always, how can you eat something you didn't raise ?? " I know that my animal was happy, healthy, lived a good natural life and was humanley slaughtered. 
P.J.[/QUOTE]

That's a good one, I like that:clap:


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## ErinP (Aug 23, 2007)

Grass _finished_ is going to taste different than grain _finished_. Your friend is right.
Grass-fed beef mean that it is fed grass right up until the day it's sent to slaughter. 
And no, these animals will _not_ marble the same as a grain finished calf will. That's part of the draw, of course, as it's leaner meat. It will have a stronger beef taste, and it won't cook up as juicy as it's leaner. (More like buffalo than the beef most of us are used to)

Grass fed until a month or two prior to slaughter and finished on grain is how almost all beef in this country is grown. 
Whether in the feedlot or your own back lot, grain finished is _not_ the same thing as grass-fed. 
(BTW, I personally prefer grain-finished, but that's just me)


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## Mare Owner (Feb 20, 2008)

Ours are grass (and hay) fed until we finish them. We finish on corn. We LOVE our own home raised beef, though I do get a burger down at the corner bar sometimes! 

I've never had grass finished beef, but hope to try it someday. But I'd have to go buy a calf to raise it that way, I don't think I can convince DH to do it with any of our home raised ones, he likes things the way he likes them. 

A big part of raising your own, for me, is knowing how it was raised. What it was fed (and NOT fed). Also we hire a butcher to dispatch on the farm so the animal is killed quickly at home and doesn't feel any anxiety over it (they haul the carcass to the shop to hang and cut).


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## pb2823 (Feb 26, 2009)

I purchased a steer 18 months old from a trusted local farmer. The slaughterhouse let the 1100lb steer hang for 14 days then processed it. I thought the meat looked great. Well marbeled and well trimmed. When I ate it I detect a not so paletable aftertaste and fear I have 600 pounds of trash. Does anyone have a theory of what may have gone wrong?


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## Cotton Picker (Oct 10, 2008)

Hi Learner,

I've been a meat cutter. I've raised my own, grained and grass-fed.

My first question to you would be. How many are there of ya? If your household is small, IMHO a whole, or even a half beef may be.... Wait for it..... Biting off more than you can chew.

The only method of maintaining long term quality of frozen meat is vacuum packaging. This is not the most economical up-front and I would say that there are few, if any, custom kill shops that even offer vac packaging. Here is a handy guide for shelf life of frozen beef:
http://www.wabeef.org/safebeefhandling.aspx

There is no end to the pro-con arguments of grass fed vs. grain fed vs. homegrown vs. commercial beef. My personal experience is that straight grass-fed is chewy. This was with a full-blood Angus calf of about 600lbs live weight. He was taken from suckling his Mama straight to the locker. Conversely, I raised a Holstein, using the 100 days on grain method and he was tender. 

There is the aspect with home grown of knowing what the animal was fed and where the animal came from. However, this can be a curse as well. If your beef critter turns out tough as a boot.... Whatcha gonna do? If you loose power, or your freezer takes a dump, with 400 lbs of meat in it.... Whatcha gonna do? if you end up with 100lbs of cuts that you have tired of eating and they get freezer burned.... Whatcha gonna do? Or like PB2823:


pb2823 said:


> I thought the meat looked great. Well marbeled and well trimmed. When I ate it I detect a not so paletable aftertaste and fear I have 600 pounds of trash.


 It may have been what the calf was fed. It may be what conditions the carcass was subjected to in the aging process. Sadly I'd say that he might just have to season the aftertaste out of it. 

Another downside to the grow your own variety is the plethora of cuts that you may have little to no experience in how to prepare. Another thing is multiple duplicates of cuts that you don't like. Home grown, custom slaughtered beef carries with it a learning curve. It will take you several head to fine tune your desired raising/feeding, breed selection, technique. It will also take you some time to fine tune your cutting preferences. If you change breeds or processors, you will have to adjust your learning curve. 

While I am well aware that commercially raised beef can be subjected to less than desirable rearing methods, etc. It is consistent. USDA beef is graded by health of the animal, marbling, as well as, drug residue. 
http://www.extension.umn.edu/beef/components/releases/10-30-06-Torell.htm
I have seldom had a problem with commercial beef being tough. I am also of the persuasion that it's not so much the grade of beef that you buy, but how you prepare it, that counts in the tenderness of the cut on the plate. Most markets will refund or replace meat that you find less than satisfactory.

Another plus to USDA beef is that you get what you want. You don't have to end up with 200lbs of hamburger in order to have a few steaks.

Just sayin'


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## Gregg Alexander (Feb 18, 2007)

I have raised our own beef for over 40 yrs. Nothing taste better than growing your own. When all my kids were home we raised 1-2 each yr, lots of kids eat lots of burger's. Now for my wife and I we raise 1 a yr and usually finish it out to around 800 #, sometimes I will raise 1 for friends,I sale them the calf and they pay processing cost.


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## pb2823 (Feb 26, 2009)

Thanks for the reply
The processor vaccum packed the cuts and everything looks great. The 600 lbs was the weight in my freezer. the hanging weight was about 875.


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## MN Gardener (Jan 23, 2008)

We raise our own beef. We grass feed and then grain feed for the last few weeks.


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## stifflej (Aug 11, 2008)

Razorback21 said:


> Sell one you raise and use the money to buy it at the Grocer? Simple economics will tell you that doesn't make sense. Our last one, which includes feeding it grain in the last 90 days to get marbling, costs us $2.44 a pound. Our grocery store sells ground beef ON SALE for 1.99 a pound. Raising your own beef is one of the best values out there.


Yea, and that is just the burger, price a T bone once, $6-$8 a lb, that is where you save the big bucks...

We have been eating grass fed beef for years, we get a 1/4 every year, and it is enough beef for me, my wife and 2 growing boys (one of which eats like a cow)...Since we moved last year, and have some land now, we are raising 2 of our own Black Angus for butcher in the fall, splitting costs with my dad, he will take a 1/4, I will take a 1/4 and we will sell the other quarters to family and friends that are interest, and there is a lot of interest. Selling this meat should cover all costs of raising the 2, and provide some cash to purchase the next two for raising. (also getting some pigs here soon).

You will not be disappointed.


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## wstevenl (Mar 26, 2008)

I know Erin said it already but to repeat.....
Grass Fed Beef is grass finished. 
I'm reading this thread wondering what people think all the other cattle in the world eat when they claim that theirs are grass fed but then they finish for 90+ days on grain, even full grain. What I mean to say is that if "growing up on grass" is what makes beef grass fed, then most of it is. It's what happens at the feed lot that changes the healthyness of the meat. 
I do agree that getting a good Grass Finished product is difficult and simply taking a steer off the "range" isn't a good bet. They need to be finished on very good pasture and probably need to be rotated rather intensively to get the fat that they need. Even then, alot of wild onions could make the meat have an off flavor. That's what makes GRASS FED beef so difficult and costly to buy and what's given "range fed beef" a bad reputation.


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## copperhead46 (Jan 25, 2008)

PB2823, to try and answer your question.........nope, dont think any of us know why the meat taste bad. There are a lot of different possibilities.........locker wasn't clean as it should have been, was it a bull?, or maybe you aren't used to the taste of home grown beef. I have had people tell me that they taste more of a game flavor in grass fed or even home raised on grain. If it has just a kind of flavor you don't care for, you can soak the whole cuts in milk before cooking, that takes the off flavor out. For the ground meat, your seasonings, like garlic or onion should mask that. I sure hope you can figure it out, thats a lot of meat to not like. Maybe have the farmer you bought it from eat some of it, and see if he thinks it taste "off" or says it's just right.....
P.J.


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## Cliff (Jun 30, 2007)

montysky said:


> Like the other posters have said, go ahead a raise your own, you can finish it on grain or grass. last 120 days I do grain feeding increasing the amount but there is nothing wrong to keep it on grass till the end. the taste will not be the same but that is not bad a lot of people like the taste of a grass fed better then grain.


We do, found once we got used to grass fed that the grain fed had a real greasy taste/texture to it. Well, greasy and a bit less beef flavor as well.
Look up the health benefits of grass fed beef, it'll make it more appealing to try it.


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## Cliff (Jun 30, 2007)

wstevenl said:


> I know Erin said it already but to repeat.....
> Grass Fed Beef is grass finished.
> I'm reading this thread wondering what people think all the other cattle in the world eat when they claim that theirs are grass fed but then they finish for 90+ days on grain, even full grain. What I mean to say is that if "growing up on grass" is what makes beef grass fed, then most of it is. It's what happens at the feed lot that changes the healthyness of the meat.
> I do agree that getting a good Grass Finished product is difficult and simply taking a steer off the "range" isn't a good bet. They need to be finished on very good pasture and probably need to be rotated rather intensively to get the fat that they need. Even then, alot of wild onions could make the meat have an off flavor. That's what makes GRASS FED beef so difficult and costly to buy and what's given "range fed beef" a bad reputation.


I don't know why this is, but we've found that our grass finished Dexters are much better eating than our "beef" cows who are grass finished. The (grass-finished) Dexters don't have the fat marbeling either, but are much more tender. Lots smaller carcass too.


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## travlnusa (Dec 12, 2004)

Grass or grain, you will make you own decision.

What you need to work on is handling and loading. It is very easy to bring home a 100lb calf and raise it.

You need to also be working on a plan and set up to load it to take it off to the slaughter house. If you are going to hire someone to slaughter on your own place, you will still need a place, such as a clean pen, to do the deed. Have a way to get the steer into the pen. If you choose a pen, make sure you can drag a very large, heavy, dead critter out of there to haul off to the butcher. 

If you choose to grass feed, I suggest you Bucket Train the steer. Feed it just a touch of grain to get the steer to know that there is candy in that bucket. As it get older, start to use the bucket to lead the steer to the area you will need it to be it's last day.


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## Ken Scharabok (May 11, 2002)

For a while my youngest sister and BIL lived with his parents in MO. They had their own chicken flock. She said the eggs tasted funny to her a first. I asked if that was because they had a favor to them and she agreed.

But then a friend gave me a dozen free-range eggs. I cooked several up one-to-one with a supermarket egg. I couldn't tell a difference. $1.50 a dozen (I'd say they were mediums) vs $1.85 dozen for supermarket jumbos.

When you consider all of the costs involved it is difficult to produce beef lower than supermarket prices. See the following:

http://www.retail-lmic.info/CD/StandardReports/BLSTable2.htm

The data is a bit dated, but I doubt it has changed much since then.

In the stickies at the top of this forum there is one there on what percentage of various cuts to expect to receive from a carcass.

You also have to take it with a grain of salt in that if you get back an entire carcass you will receive few high-end cuts (only about 75 lbs on a 1,000 steer). Mostly roasts, burger and stew meat. When the high-end cuts and roasts are gone you are likely going to have a lot of meat loaf.

On aging, 14 days is likely the absolute minimum. Longer is better if the additional cost is not significant. Some high-end steak restaurants chill age their beef for 6-8 weeks.

And don't make the assumption ALL supermarket beef comes from feedlots. At any livestock auction there will be 'killer' cows which fell out of someone's program for one reason or another. Perhaps a cow and large calf come into the ring and she has been marked as open. Changes are they will pull off the calf to sell separately and then sell the cow to a slaughterhouse order buyer. I've culled a couple due to their tits getting so large a calf couldn't suckle. I've give the cattle occasional treats to train them to come up to the house when I call them. Otherwise they are grass/hay fed.

Locally these cows sell for $30-40 a hundred-weight. I'm not sure it wouldn't be cost effective for one to go directly to a processor, then to your freezer.

On Wally World beef look at the sticker on the package on what percentage of weight is brine. You are basically paying full beef prices for salt water.

Fortunately we still have a mom & pop supermarket with a butcher staff. A couple of days ago I wanted ground pork. None on shelves so had them grind up a pork roast for me. They also grind all of their beef burger.


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## Anderson farms (Mar 26, 2007)

I say go for it. We raise our own beef and it is great. We do finish on grain the last 60 days. I do agree that you get a lot of hamburger, but we like hamburgers a lot, and hamburger can make some cheap meals. Our processor vacuum seals all the meat and they hang for 3 to 4 weeks. Processing, feed, and other costs put us at a little over $2.00 a pound. You can rarely get ground beef for that now. I recommend raising a hog also. You will never want to eat store bought pork after you raise your own, plus if you are milking a cow you can feed excess milk to the hog which makes them DELICIOUS!!! Good luck with whatever you decide to do.


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## samm (Dec 6, 2008)

we raise and eat our own beef, goats and chickens. once ya have tasted your home grown meat, you will not want store bought..
samm


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## Debbie at Bount (Feb 24, 2005)

I have a herd of Angus and I have had slaugherted both grass fed and grain fed steers. I prefer grain fed. The steer I am going to do this year turned a year this month. I will wait until summer when the grass is starting to lose nutrients and put him and another up for 60 days. Never done one at a time because they break fences, scream all night if they are by themselves. I sell one and put one in the freezer.


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## ArmyDoc (May 13, 2007)

ErinP said:


> Grass-fed beef mean that it is fed grass right up until the day it's sent to slaughter.
> And no, these animals will _not_ marble the same as a grain finished calf will. That's part of the draw, of course, as it's leaner meat. It will have a stronger beef taste, and it won't cook up as juicy as it's leaner. (More like buffalo than the beef most of us are used to)





Cliff said:


> I don't know why this is, but we've found that our grass finished Dexters are much better eating than our "beef" cows who are grass finished. The (grass-finished) Dexters don't have the fat marbeling either, but are much more tender. Lots smaller carcass too.


As I see it, there are two (some say three) factors that affect marbling and/or tenderness. The first, and probably most important is what the animal eats. Animals raised on poor pasture are going to be leaner and tougher than animals raised on good pasture. Animals that recieive grain are going to be fatter than those that don't. You can compensate somewhat by feeding better pasture and/or more grain the last three months of the animals life. But an animal raised on good pasture will still marble better than an animal raised on bad pasture if given the same feed during the last three months.

The second factor is genetics. There are breeds, and lines with in breeds that are better at marbling and are more tender. They can do ultrasounds and gentetic tests and what not to check for this now. Good genetics + good nutrition will provide better beef than poor genetics + good nutrition. 

Lastly, the animals age can affect tenderness, hense the market for veal. But I've eaten some 4 and 5 year olds that tasted fine, and were not as tough as some supermarket beef I've had, so I don't know that the difference between a 2 year old and a 4 year old animal is all that significant.


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