Beef Branding to Mark Year of Birth
Wow, you're so shut to the best beef you've ever had! And the best part is, you raised it yourself!
Your steer is growing well and you've noticed he's looking pretty big lately. Now it crosses your mind "how exercise I know when this guy is ready to put in the freezer?"
Your steer is finished (prepare to be butchered) when he has fully filled out his brisket (fatty area between his front legs as viewed from the front end) and has fat rolls at his tail head. Steers on full feed (all they can eat grain with hay) volition be butcher ready at 14-18 months of age. Steers on grass only will take 26-28 months to be butcher prepare.
Congratulations! Raising your own beef is huge!
To make sure yous and your family go the all-time eating feel and brand the best employ of that beautiful steer you are raising, yous'll need to have him butchered at the correct time.
Cost To Butcher Your Own Beef will walk you through figuring up the expenses of getting your steer into the freezer!
Now the question is: how do you tell when he'southward ready? I'll get over the places you demand to look at on the steer to see if he is finished or non and we'll become over how to add finish if you lot need to.
Wondering how to feed your cattle up to this point, read my commodity Beginning With Beef Cattle: How To Care For Your New Herd.
Note: for the rest of the commodity I am going to use steer for the beefiness animal you are raising for freezer beefiness.
Really, non breeding stock heifer should be listed as well. For the sake of simplicity, I'll use steer.
Steer ready to butcher? 3 things to look at
In that location are three things to expect at, broadly speaking when you want to make up one's mind if your steer is fix to butcher or not.
- Age of the steer
- Fat at the brisket
- Fatty at the tail head
When a steer's body is done putting marbling in the meat, marbling is the little fat streaks that are mandatory for dandy eating steaks, his body will outset stashing extra fat other places.
That'due south the reason why you are looking at the brisket and the tailhead.
These ii spots have easily seen changes that are outward signs indicating what is going on inside the body, specifically regarding the marbling of the meat.
In example you are not enlightened, you can butcher your steer anytime throughout information technology's growing out time on your farm.
The readiness factors listed here are for a steer in platonic butchering condition, which volition get you the highest quality meat for your freezer.
If you lot decide to butcher him sooner, realize y'all will not go the marbling in the meat.
Another of import matter to realize is that you accept a range of time when your steer is at his best, beef wise. You don't need to worry that you'll miss the day. At that place is no specific day, information technology's a range of fourth dimension.
You've got some jerk room in the butchering window. When he's finished, getting him to the butcher soon is all-time, information technology saves yous extra time feeding him. Merely it doesn't have to exist today!
Age of the steer to finish will vary with genetics and feed
Here is where genetics come up into the game. The importance of your steer's genetics regarding his age at finishing, cannot be overstated.
Some steers will be piece of cake to finish, some hard and some about impossible. It all depends upon what you are working with and how yous are raising your brute.
More often than not speaking, a large framed steer is going to accept longer to finish than a smaller framed steer. Curt and wide will cease faster than alpine and wide or curt and thin.
Proceed in mind the finishing time of the steer is determined by nutrition equally well.
The best genetics in the world, well suited to your type of cattle raising volition not overcome lack of plentiful, high quality forages.
A gentle reminder: cattle do not grow overnight! Finishing a steer is a long term commitment that tin non be rushed, take patience.
It can be challenging to permit the steer grow for a few more than months to get the finish you need. Want great beef? Exist willing to look for it, you're on nature's time now.
You'll be glad you waited the extra time information technology takes for the steer to develop the oh so important finish.
It means the difference betwixt the best beef e'er and thwarting, seriously. If those are my choices, I'1000 definitely going with the best beef e'er!
An interesting note for anyone considering raising their own beef: these cattle beingness raised for the subcontract store, meaning high quality beef, are half beef, one-half dairy. So far, the U.S. has however to catch on to the huge potential of beef/dairy cross calves for beef. Look at these beauties!
Grass fed and finished steer will take 26-28 months
If you lot are finishing your steer on grass lonely, it volition have effectually 26-28 months, to go from baby calf to butchering size and condition (fat roofing).
If y'all purchased him equally a feeder, ask the farmer how old the calf is or yous'll need to give it your best approximate. Information technology's not vital information, so don't worry if you demand to guess.
The torso shape (genetics) will determine how much feed he needs per day. Lots of frame equals lots of calories needed for maintenance and daily repair, both of which come before growth.
If you lot are shooting for grass fed, you'll need to go the right genetics to get the best results. Lankier (taller and/or thinner) animals will accept longer than the 26-28 months.
Supplementally fed steer will abound faster
If you are going to feed your steer some higher free energy feeds, he will stop faster. Virtually people feeding steers are using some grain, if non primarily grain, to finish their beefiness.
I'm not recommending grain, merely stating that most beefiness producers are feeding it.
In that location are some programs to cease steers that have zero or very little provender intake included.
While this sort of a ration would exist fine for a pig or a chicken, it is a disaster in the making for your steer. His digestive system can not handle a heavy load of grain.
Delight become cautiously hither: grain, should you lot decide to utilise it, is non a panacea. There are some huge potential side effects for you to be aware of.
The biggest trouble is that since cattle are non biologically designed to eat grain, information technology messes with their digestion.
Use common sense here, a small amount of grain will non grenade your steer'south digestive system. Strictly speaking, he doesn't need it, like you eating potato chips or cake.
Go on the amount small-scale and while it's non the all-time decision for your wellness, it's not the worst either. Feeding your steer is the aforementioned.
Grass Fed Vs Grain Fed Beef goes over the basics of growing out cattle with and without supplemental feeding (feeding anything other than grass or other forages).
Expect at the steer's brisket for finish
For anyone who's new: the brisket is located between the front legs of the steer.
Y'all'll need to see the steer from the front to evaluate the brisket properly. The brisket should be full, you should be able to encounter a filled out padding of fat.
If y'all do non encounter a total brisket, your steer has non all the same reached the ideal fatty covering and marbling for his body.
He needs a few more months of a high quality diet to deposit that last scrap of fat needed for great eating beefiness.
Look at the steer'due south tailhead for finish
For the beginner: the tailhead is where the tail meets the body.
What yous are really looking for here is fat rolls, ideally three of them. The fat rolls at the tailhead evidence the finish of the steer in the same way that the total brisket does.
This is another overflow of stored energy stash that is piece of cake to see on the live animal.
If your steer has the finish at the tailhead, he's good to become.
If not, yous can even so eat him, of course. Still, the meat will not be marbled to the extent that you lot desire it to be for outstanding flavor and eating quality.
Here's an interesting commodity on How to calculate target slaughter weights, with multiple charts and graphs and easy to understand instructions if you are looking for more of a math based answer.
What if my steer isn't ready?
Ideally, you've been monitoring the body condition of your steer and specifically checking for stop for the iii or four months leading upwardly to the butchering date.
If the fourth dimension has slipped by and you didn't check your steer'due south body condition lately, get out there today.
If your steer does not accept the finish you demand yous accept a few options, depending upon how close you are to your appointment appointment.
Push back the butchering appointment
If you are a month abroad from the appointment and your steer is not finished, you don't have the fourth dimension to prepare much now. Call the butcher and run into if you can reschedule.
If yous can't reschedule, you can nonetheless butcher this steer. You'll merely exist brusque on marbling, which means brusque on juiciness and tenderness of the meat.
3-four months to change the finish on the steer
If you accept checked your steer and not liked the finish yous are seeing, if y'all have 3-4 months left before the butchering engagement, you lot take fourth dimension to arrange his ration to aid him put on fat.
The easiest way to practice this is grain. I know for some cattle raisers that is not what you lot want to hear. If you need him to finish on time and he is not eating plentiful, well growing grass, he'southward not going to stop on time.
Let me be clear, your steer does non need grain, always. Button back the butchering appointment.
If you decide to keep the appointment time, you lot need him to put on weight faster than he is now.
I'k figuring yous do not take the forage to support that growth, otherwise he'd be eating the grass at present, right? Now that you are in a tight spot, supplemental feeding, in one form or another, is your selection.
You tin really up your game and feed him very loftier quality hay (introduced slowly of form) and see if that volition work as an alternative to grain.
Wait at the hair glaze to determine steer health
Look at the hair coat on your steer.
What do you see, shiny or crude? In the summer, when he has shed out this is the easiest to see, but even a total winter coat should await shiny.
What does hair take to do with anything? Glad you lot asked: the hair coat is a way to mensurate how close you are to giving your steer is his platonic diet.
If he has a shiny slick coat of hair, whatever you are feeding him and however he is living are suiting him well.
If he has a rough pilus coat, something is off.
If your steer didn't finish on time and he has a crude hair coat, you should not be surprised. His condition has been telling y'all he needed something other than what he is getting.
You lot just didn't notice or you lot didn't effigy out what he needed to help him grow at his best. That'due south why he didn't finish on fourth dimension.
Can I butcher my steer at home?
Sure. For the virtually office, information technology'll be no dissimilar than processing your own deer.
There is i exception: weight. A beef carcass is going to be incredibly heavy, particularly compared to a deer.
Recall, to gut the steer you lot are going to want to have the carcass hanging, that ways chains and a loader tractor.
In case you oasis't considered it…
Once you get the carcass eviscerated, you'll need to remove the hide, caput, anxiety and tail.
With all of these gone, the total weight will driblet downwardly quite a bit, but you'll withal need a way to safely hold up the unabridged weight of the steer until you become down to the hanging weight.
The next biggie is ageing in a cool, protected area. And then on to cutting and wrapping.
If you are not set up to handle all of this yourself, reconsider butchering at home.
Before you get started, call effectually to the local butcher shop and see if they will age, cut and wrap for you if you butchered the steer at home. Get specific, practise you eviscerate or do they and then on.
If they volition pick upwardly where you left off, they can bail you out if you decide you lot're in too deep once you get going. If not, reconsider the large job y'all are taking on if yous accept no experience home butchering larger animals.
Y'all can heighten heifers for beef
As I noted higher up, all calves raised for beefiness are not steers.
Since not all heifers built-in to your herd volition meet your replacement stock standards, you'll have some heifers to sell or enhance as beefiness animals.
When you are looking to grow your herd and nigh half of the calves built-in from your herd are heifers, good news, you lot can expand your herd numbers more than quickly.
However, half the calves will continue to exist heifers when y'all don't demand more cattle.
Of course, some can be kept every bit replacements, but not all of them will make the cutting. At present that you take the herd numbers where you want them, you lot tin be more than selective.
Any heifer that does not make the potential breeding stock choice will exist raised for beef.
For the heifers you lot determine to enhance as time to come freezer beef, they will need to run into the same finishing standards as a steer to get the same quality of beef.
As far every bit the eating quality goes, no worries. Heifers raised for beef volition be only equally proficient as steers.
Some other question folks normally ask about is dairy beef. Read Raise Dairy Beef and Exercise Jerseys Have Proficient Beefiness? both articles I wrote to help people decide if dairy beef volition work for them.
Source: https://familyfarmlivestock.com/raising-your-own-beef-when-is-your-steer-ready-to-butcher/
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