Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Raising beef?

Not all the sugar is washed out. A good bit remains, as well as protein, nitrogen, etc.....

My current farmer raises pigs, but he may have info on feeding it to beef. I'll have to ask him.

Gunner, find out where he's located. Those brahmas just don't do well where it's real cold for extended periods of time, even the crosses. I know you have snow in OK but you have hot summers.

I was raised in the cattle business here in LA, grew the business to a sizable operation and after many years raising cattle, sold out as I got older.

I raised Brahman, Brangus, Brafords, commercial crosses, Charolais or Angus on F1 cows. We sold steers and heifers on the satellite, weighed on site with certified scales, hauled in 18 wheelers to feedlots in the Midwest.

Back in the day, I sent Brahman bulls to a well known WA State Hereford breeder to raise some Brafords. He tried to take care of those bulls but some froze to death. They couldn't tolerate the cold. Those big ears and loose hides dissipate heat, not good where it's cold for a long time.

DF

BTW- you're not boiling your mash are you?

No sugar remains when I do it!

No - bad choice of words on my part but a good chunk of the sugars are removed in my beers as I tend to start my OG high and then let that yeast work hard for a higher ABV than most.

I'm west WA and maybe 50' ASL. It doesn't get cold. Maybe a weeks worth of freezing temps all winter. Maybe.....

Lots of Highland cows around, but mostly east of here in the mountains.

I would not buy a calf at an auction, find a dairy. Make certain the calves have had colostrum from their mothers(nurse for a week)and get non soy milk replacer to bottle feed. Just because you have a lot of grass doesn't mean its good grass. Grass gets woody and sour as well and they won't eat it. Need to make certain the can stay dry and out of the wind as well. Remember to keep plenty of clean water available You can feed distillers grains but I do not know how much as I don't

Thanks! Deerstalker said the same.

I'll call some dairies, there are plenty around here, and see what they are getting.

BTDT GOOD LUCK

Hard to believe that it used to cost more to take a dairy bull calf to auction than he would bring.

Are there evergreens in the area? If so, do a a good search for any members of the yew family. They eat it readily and it's deadly. Deer eat it, too, and thrive on it. They're immune.

A friend trimmed some yews in his dad's yard and piled the limbs in his pasture to burn later. It killed his 2 ready-to-butcher steers.

When I was a kid in the 60s and 70s, the dairies would give us the bull calves or charge 5 bucks. I haven't raised a calf in many years, the horses keep the pasture grass down at dad's, I'd have to bottle then hay feed them.

If I had real pasture and grass I'd probably do it for old times sake.

Kent

My neighbor is a dairy farmer. He feeds a lot of the left over grains from the local ethanol plant, but he mixes it with silage, snappalage and god only knows what else.
He used to get stuff from a brewery over around Columbus, Oh. but the ethanol plant is about 80 miles closer. I cant remember for sure but I think he pays about $40 per ton, he hauls about 13 ton at a time in his old Mack dump truck. I do know that the cows like it as anytime they can get out you will always find them in the pit he keeps it in.

You cannot feed spent grain as a sole diet to a calf. You will have to provide forage (hay) if your grass runs short. Another option might be alfalfa cubes or pellets. They're available in some areas and are a simple way to feed forage. You start getting into hay handling and you end up needing more equipment unless you use idiot cubes.

I would look for a dairy calf but a warning, milk replacer is EXPENSIVE. I would cruise craigslist and contact the local dairies direct as well. If you can get a little older calf, you're better off (less expensive milk replacer and closer to weaning).

Yes. Two acres does not a rancher make. It will be a fine lot if one has some other source of free feed he can toss out every day. Even then, those two acres will be stripped down to bare soil.

One could maybe run a critter off of two acres if he could lot it elsewhere and harvest a couple cuttings of hay from his acerage. Figure they will consume 3% (dry weight of feed) of their weight on a daily basis. So a 500 pounder gets 15 lbs of dry hay on a daily basis, and that's assuming they will consume it all, which they won't because there are the refusal portions.

Hit up a local beef/dairy extension agent for advice on alternative feeds like brewery or cannery waste.

Everybody oughta get into the cow business at least once in their life.

Hope you're thinking about a few extra things other than what color calves and how many acres you have available.

How you gonna haul them around? How you gonna catch em up to haul them around? How you gonna doctor them if'n the need arises? You have open water year around? Hay once your grass shuts down for the winter? You have a way to haul hay and other feed?

If you're gonna feed one, feed two, they'll just do much better than one. You should be able to sell halves or quarters of what you don't want to friends, family, or neighbors. I don't have any experience in just grass feeding calves to fats, but I do feed some every year on a high corn/protein diet. My calves will usually have an average gain of 3-3.5 pounds/day. I'd just guess that a straight grass diet would be half that at best. I've no idea what the barley would do, but it should bump you up to a pretty good rate of grain if you feed it right. When mine are on full feed they're eating about 24 pounds of grain and pretty much all the hay they want.

A good pasture fertilizer will add about 50% more grass, it's worth it if you have some way of applying it.

Look at the initial cost of buying a 5-7 weight steer, look at the value of a fat. Try to estimate your costs in between, not gonna be a lot of wiggle room there.

Initially, it certainly would be cheaper to go with a black and white calf. But when you have a 1000 pound holstein standing out in your pasture you probably have about 800 pounds of bones, hide, guts, and head. There's a reason them critters are cheaper.

Don't get too big a hat, and hold off on the spurs, probably just trip you up and scuff up the wife's hardwood floors.

Yep!




MM, I will say what everyone else has already mentioned. Unless you are willing to see the 2 acres get tromped all to hell I would pass on sticking any cattle on it.

As for distillers grain, 20 years ago my dad used to get rail cars full of the stuff. All I remember is that it smelled pretty good. He'd dump some in with the chopped hay in a mixer wagon and feed it to calves all Winter in our little feedlot.

Pellets will double your hay costs. Around here, hay is going for about $200/ton now. Pellets are $400 or more.

From time to time i and a bud get a steer to eat.
I raise alfalfa and haygrasier .
They get turned loose on 3 acres of Kline grass pasture,have all of the fresh water they want.
When it gets close to the cutting time he gets a number 10 can of cracked corn in the morn. and eve.

Don't get that much rain here bit i have laid pipe and watered it a few times.

Had 16 pairs on this same block till fall and they could not keep with the grass.

Give it a try.
Make sure you have a catch pen handy and it helps to get them used to feed in a bucket,in case they get out.

everyone needs to try it once.

Don't let your kids give them names.