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

Ben, sometimes, wearing warmer boots, and that frizzen waterer thawing faster.

Grocery Farmed Yaks, you could create a niche market! I can see the brand now, GFY.

That could work

I am on our son's computer, otherwise I could pull up some pictures of our modest products from photobucket.

Yak, or not, those look good, what time do we eat?

I'm all for no mud in the spring and fewer rain showers in the summer... Grin

Here's some hard numbers for forage needs and production. I'm using Pa. figures, contact either your local NRCS office and ask for the grazing specialist or contact the Cooperative Extension Office, they'll have some one on staff with better numbers for your area.

With an average weight of 750 lb (500-1000 lb) and needing 2.5% of their body weight in dry matter (DM), a beef animal will need 18.75 lbs DM per day. 180 day grazing season means 3375 lb DM for the season. Rotating them into small paddocks every day or so allows a 75% utilization rate, you will need 4500 lb of dry matter to feed one criitter for the grazing season. If you just put them on an acre for the summer and continuous graze it, utilization is 35% and you need over 9600 lbs.

4500 may be doable, 9600 ain't. That's for one animal. Feeding grain each day will cut the 18.75 lb needed from pasture but how much will depend on the water content of the brewers grain.

You'll need good fence, both perimeter and some sort of interior divider fence to mark off small paddocks that hold one or two days worth of grazing. A water tub that can be moved around, it does no good to have interior fences if you have to leave them open so they can get to one water source.

Somebody mentioned Micotil, good stuff but not for novices! It'll kill you if you accidentally inject yourself. Ask your vet for something else.

Dairy beef was also mentioned, there's an old joke here in Pa. How do you get a Holstein steer to grade Choice? Cross it with a corn crib.

Again, I strongly urge you to contact NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) or Extension, they'll have info on soil types, production capabilities, soil test info, fertilizer recommendations, paddock size, watering etc.

I work for NRCS, contact me if you have trouble finding your local office.

Dale

I have worked thousands of Holsteins through the lot and on the rail. Grading choice is not generally a problem. Now doing that while having an adequate ribeye while not being too big so as not to be docked too far below native beef prices is the real problem.

We raise a few beef catlle on 117 acres. Most all are various crosses withe majority having from 1/8 to 5/8 Brahman. The reason for the Brahman influence is that they can stand the summer heat and insects in Louisiana. This calf crop coming off now is Black Angus or Charolais sired. Our most efficent cows believe it or not are 2 Brahman/Texas Longhorn cross. They are tough, not to big, good mothers, and spit out a calf at about 11 month intervals. You can raise cattle big as elephants, but they eat like elephants,and break down at an early age. These little cows raise a decent calf that favors his sire and sells well. As a side note, I once visited a Kansas feedlot that was feeding out Holstein steers. The owner told me they grade 90% choice, just don't convert feed efficiently, therefore they are bought at discount to make up the difference.

find a local dairy that has bull calves they want rid of. pick up 4 or 5. bottle feed them til they get on solid food. graze them til fall, sell half of them. keep 1 or 2 to finish next year. rinse and repeat.

it would be the cheapest way IMO, that's what I would do. make sure you castrate em before they get too big

Check out the price of milk replacer.
That last calf we had to bucket feed went through over two hundred dollars of replacer.

Pay attention to what was said re: Micotil - I know vets who won't prescribe it because people have accidentally self-injected, fatally.
I personally should never get blackleg or bovine pink-eye, due to accidental self-injection.