# New to cattle and thinking about a calf.



## ButchGood (Jul 18, 2012)

My DW and I were talking about getting one calf, raising it up, and butchering for some high quality tender beef. Questions did arise that we need some answers to.
How much fenced pasture at a minimum do I need to raise 1 calf to market wieght? What is a good wieght to butcher? We don't have to let the animal get huge, just a decent wieght for good tender beef. What would be the best breed for a newbie? Any links for backyard cattle raising?  I do have experience with goats,sheep, and horses a long, long time ago. Im raising some poultry now, turkeys and chickens. I know raising backyard livestock isn't really a way to save money, but it sure is a way to put high quality food on the table. Any help will be greatly appreciated.


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## kfacres (Jul 18, 2012)

If you don't butcher a calf when it's physiologically ready, it won't be prime eating experience.  It won't be as muscular, or as marbled.  You would be comparing it to butcher your CX birds at 3 weeks instead of 6 like they need butchered.  Most beef steers will butcher from 1200 to 1500 pounds, Holsteins 1400-1700 pounds, and other small breed dairy 800-1000 pounds.  Most steers are geared to be butchered from 12- 15 months of age- dairy longer, as well as grass fed.  Best breed is any kind of Angus based steer.  

You don't need very much room atall for raising a calf if you intend to put it on a self feeder, if you want to have at least an acre of good grass- closer to two acres if that's the only space you'll have-- since quite a bit of it will be trample.  

Best guide I've found is Storey's guides...

Cattle like other species-- prefer to have a buddy...  might consider getting a goat for it's.


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## CochinBrahmaLover=) (Jul 18, 2012)

kfacres said:
			
		

> If you don't butcher a calf when it's physiologically ready, it won't be prime eating experience.  It won't be as muscular, or as marbled.  You would be comparing it to butcher your CX birds at 3 weeks instead of 6 like they need butchered.  Most beef steers will butcher from 1200 to 1500 pounds, Holsteins 1400-1700 pounds, and other small breed dairy 800-1000 pounds.  Most steers are geared to be butchered from 12- 15 months of age- dairy longer, as well as grass fed.  Best breed is any kind of Angus based steer.
> 
> You don't need very much room atall for raising a calf if you intend to put it on a self feeder, if you want to have at least an acre of good grass- closer to two acres if that's the only space you'll have-- since quite a bit of it will be trample.
> 
> ...


X2, but sometimes butchering a little sooner, say around 9 months instead of 12, can make it more tender  (we raised pigs once,and *shudders* CX....)

However, the goat buddy will want to head butt. So the cow might get mad and kick 'em. Then he won't hang out with the cow, so you'll have to get both the cow and the goat a buddy. Well you get the goat a buddy with the cheapest goat you could find, and maybe it was a preggo doeling or doe. Well then of course your 'steer' and his 'steer' buddy will turn out to be a heifer and a bull. 
And so on.


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## kfacres (Jul 18, 2012)

CochinBrahmaLover=) said:
			
		

> quote=kfacresIf you don't butcher a calf when it's physiologically ready, it won't be prime eating experience.  It won't be as muscular, or as marbled.  You would be comparing it to butcher your CX birds at 3 weeks instead of 6 like they need butchered.  Most beef steers will butcher from 1200 to 1500 pounds, Holsteins 1400-1700 pounds, and other small breed dairy 800-1000 pounds.  Most steers are geared to be butchered from 12- 15 months of age- dairy longer, as well as grass fed.  Best breed is any kind of Angus based steer.
> 
> 
> 
> X2, but sometimes butchering a little sooner, say around 9 months instead of 12, can make it more tender  (we raised pigs once,and *shudders* CX....)


while it might be more tender-- it most likely will not be as high of a quality product.  It takes time to get marbleing-- unless you have Waygu... and it takes time to have muscle.

Sure, we butchered some 500 pound holstein heifers last winter that fell through the ice and froze-- but I've had lamb loins almost as big, and pork loins bigger than what they yielded... While I agree that meat was some of the most tender-- I think I'd prefer to have a loin the size of my plate and graded choice-- over the little buttery loin.  

It's getting the most bang for your buck!


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## WildRoseBeef (Jul 18, 2012)

ButchGood said:
			
		

> My DW and I were talking about getting one calf, raising it up, and butchering for some high quality tender beef. Questions did arise that we need some answers to.
> How much fenced pasture at a minimum do I need to raise 1 calf to market wieght? What is a good wieght to butcher? We don't have to let the animal get huge, just a decent wieght for good tender beef. What would be the best breed for a newbie? Any links for backyard cattle raising?  I do have experience with goats,sheep, and horses a long, long time ago. Im raising some poultry now, turkeys and chickens. I know raising backyard livestock isn't really a way to save money, but it sure is a way to put high quality food on the table. Any help will be greatly appreciated.


What you choose to do depends on whether you want grain-fed beef, grass-fed beef or a combination in-between. 

From person experience the only type of beef that I have found to be the best (have never tasted grass-fed before, but probably will sometime in the future), is a combination of grain-fed/grass/hay-fed beef. The steer (I think he was mostly Simmental) we had slaughtered had a live weight of around 1200 lbs (hot-carcass weight was ~650 lbs), and boy was the meat good!  We had him confined to a small corral (maybe 1/4 acre at the most, though I believe I'm over-estimating here) where he could walk around a bit--he had a game leg (broken) and could only get around on three legs--and get plenty of hay (a whole big round bale to himself) and chopped barley--half a 5-gallon pail per day--water and a salt block. We started graining him about 4 to 6 weeks before slaughter.  He was butchered at around 20 months of age. 

What[s the best breed? There really is no such thing as a "best" breed, they all have their flaws. But I would avoid the french Continentals, being charolais, limousin, maine anjou and saler; they tend to be a little "hot" in terms of attitude, which can make it a bit too much for a newbie to handle.  But above all those, any breed is fair game, so long as you don't end up with a wild or aggressive one.  You can get calm ones and nasty ones in every breed.

KF pretty much covered it as far as what to expect if you choose grass-fed or grain-fed.  A combination will be in-between.  Whatever weight you wish to target depends on what age to finish.


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## kfacres (Jul 18, 2012)

WildRoseBeef said:
			
		

> ButchGood said:
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> 
> 
> ...


I think the important part that she touched on, but I'll like to expand on- is how does the average person know when that animal is 'finished'?  it's not a science, but is does come with experience.  The longer than animal has to mature-- the better chances are that it will 'finish'.  If anyone specifically wants to kn know I can go into it in depth...  I think that would be good knowledge for anyone on this board- almost everyone...


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## Cricket (Jul 19, 2012)

I think if you look at other threads, you'll find a lot of discussion on which breeds are 'best'.  We are all over the board as far as grass fed, grain, whether you like it well marbled or not, age, beef or dairy.  The last probably 10 years I've raised Jersey cross steers for our own beef, as I find that the most economical way for me.  I give minimal grain (more to keep them coming when I call!) and butcher pretty much when we need meat and have room in the freezer and they look big enough.  It usually works out to somewhere around 18 months.  

My best advise would be to fence in more than you think you'll need and to get a GOOD fencer.  It might also be a good idea to check out what options you have for butchering, as in my area you have to book 6-8 months in advance for fall/early winter butchering, but it's pretty easy in Feb, March or late summer.

Good luck!


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## WildRoseBeef (Jul 19, 2012)

> The longer than animal has to mature-- the better chances are that it will 'finish'.


Yep.  Of course that depends on whether an animal is early-maturing or late-maturing. Early-maturing cattle tend to lay down fat at an earlier age, thus are ones to slow muscle development at an earlier age.  Late-maturing cattle tend to start laying down fat at a later age.  The early-maturing ones are the ones to worry about especially if you get them on a grain diet at too young of age; that's because you can get young cattle getting to look more like butterballs than meat-wagons.  With late-maturing cattle, you don't have to worry about that as much; most, if not all dairy cattle breeds in general are late-maturing cattle, and thus can be started on grain at a young age to help put on more muscle and fat. IMHO dairy cattle raised up for meat don't benefit as much from backgrounding as much as beef cattle do, because they'll grow, for sure, but they won't put on muscle like the British-bred (like Angus/Red Angus, Hereford, Shorthorn and the like) or Continentals will.  Most continental cattle of all continental breeds (Simmental, Charolais, Limousin, Maine Anjou, Gelbvieh, Braunvieh, Pinzgauer, Saler, etc.) are also late-maturing, but unlike dairy cattle, they tend to do well being backgrounded, though some producers can sell some soggy continental-cross ~700 lb calves right to the feedlot to start finishing almost immedaitely. 

Now "backgrounding" is a process that I'm all too familiar with from when we had cattle a few years back.  Backgrounding is essentially growing young weaned cattle (~6 months of age @500-600 lbs) on a forage-based diet.  this is to get them to grow and lay down more muscle than fat and to encourage growth over increase body condition, though ideally a backgrounded steer with a good healthy body condition score of around 6 (on a scale of 1 to 9) versus one that was at a BCS of 4.5 was what we considered really, really great.   Backgrounding also suited the continentals as well, not just the British-breds.That means hay and silage with a little grain (actually we rarely fed grain to these critters when they were given silage...probably because Dad was scared he'd get some animals bloating on him...).  The hay and silage (and getting them "bunk-broke") were fed during the winter.  Come mid to late spring, they'd be put out to pasture.  The last few years we didn't hardly grain the steers while they were on pasture.  On the occasion we would, but not like in the past when we weren't feeding them silage. Our "grain" is barley, btw, never corn.  Almost a year later since we bought them (more like 10 to 11 months...one year we went 14 due to the BSE crisis), they get sold to the local feedlot just a few miles away as the crow flies. 

So, to the OP: should you end up choosing a weaned beef steer/heifer, don't start the finishing/fattening process right away because you'll end up with a carcass that has more fat than meat on it. Background it for about a year, then start finishing it a 3 to 6 weeks before slaughter.  And yes it is more of an art than a science to tell if an animal is ready for slaughter or even ready to be fattened.  It's a lot to do with what age you want to target, what weight (which affects how much meat you'll get off an animal...usually the bigger the live weight the more meat you'll get and the bigger steaks you'll end up with), and how you finish it.  If you're one that doesn't want a big honkin' 8 oz. steak and would rather have one that is a bit smaller, then you'll have to finish/slaughter the animal earlier.  The reason I say this is because typically the later you slaughter the bigger the animal will be.  This is much more true on a grain-fed or grain/grass/hay-fed combination than grass-fed.  With grass-fed, you will get a smaller animal at an older age simply because it takes longer to fatten a steer or heifer on grass than on grain.

Now that I've said my piece, I'd be interested what Kfacre's take on finishing and that is at this point.


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## ButchGood (Jul 19, 2012)

Thanks fellas, Lots of good info so far. I already have 1 and a half acres (maybe a tad more) fenced. If I can talk my sister-in-law and her husband into going halves on it I'll have another 1.5 acres. I will be feeding grass/hay and a little grain. Sounds like I should finish with grains to get some fat on him. Definatley like a big well marbled steak. Im thinking of planting some more grass and start watering. What would be good to grow. I was thinking maybe some rye this winter. Get it about knee high then putting a fully weaned calf on it i March. If my S-I-L goes for it I could rest one lot while it grazes on the other.


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## kfacres (Jul 19, 2012)

ButchGood said:
			
		

> Thanks fellas, Lots of good info so far. I already have 1 and a half acres (maybe a tad more) fenced. If I can talk my sister-in-law and her husband into going halves on it I'll have another 1.5 acres. I will be feeding grass/hay and a little grain. Sounds like I should finish with grains to get some fat on him. Definatley like a big well marbled steak. Im thinking of planting some more grass and start watering. What would be good to grow. I was thinking maybe some rye this winter. Get it about knee high then putting a fully weaned calf on it i March. If my S-I-L goes for it I could rest one lot while it grazes on the other.


if you intend to continue raising livestock-- I would plant perminate grasses.  email me for more details-- that is my job.  and let me know where you are.


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