Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire "Best" Beef Breed

The very best steaks I can remember ever eating were given to us years ago by a elderly couple, long time members at church. They fenced in a rather small area behind their home and raised a few beef up just for their own use. Don't know what breed they were, all I can remember is they were all solid black or a really deep deep brown in color and were feed a special diet of what ever the family had researched to make the highest quality beef. They never left the relatively small enclosure until the day they were took off to be slaughtered and butchered. Every bite was melt in your mouth tender and delicious.

Sam, your post didn't show earlier when I saw miles post. Cute calf. We will be headed to the country before long and hope to have a few cows. We definitely want a Highland or two. We just want to raise our own beef not sale. Any particular breed do better than others as far as being docile?

Red Baldy- John McCain

Black Baldy- Barrack Obama

Check out plain, old Shorthorns. Problem with the docile ones is they make good pets. Hard to slaughter a pet for food. Of course, some of my ancestors ate dog so...

When registering the pure breds, there is a definition of where and how much white could, and must be on an animal. At least there used to be on polled Herefords. Another tidbit is that if a purebred horned Hereford dropped a muley calf, it could be registered as a Polled Hereford. Seems the lack of horns is dominate and the muley will have calves without horns if bred to another polled animal. At least that was the rules back in the 1960's. miles

Those Scottish Highlanders are so gentle you can ride them. They make nice pets.....

I've mostly worked with other peoples' cattle, so maybe am less biased- Hereford, Angus, Charolais,
Simmental, Limousin, Galloway, Chianina (sp), Gelbveih (sp), and some various crosses and mixtures
of many of both taurus and indicus blood lines. All can be tasty, all can be a pain, all can be interesting.
Also have worked with Holstein, Jersey, Brown Swiss, Shorthorn dairy breeds.
"Best" can depend on conditions- I prefer breeds more adapted to life as beef, rather than life as
dual-purpose. But I once heard the best test is to watch different cows' reactions to walking up to
a good, tight 4-strand fence-
Angus crawls through it, and teaches her calves to do the same. Anything Brahma-related jumps
over it, and doesn't stop running for several miles. Charolais walks through it, without noticing.
Hereford takes one look, and has a uterine prolapse.
Handling, I found that Herefords were always my favorite. Horseback, afoot, whatever. Galloways were
the easiest to calve, that I've seen. Angus were next, Simmental worst. The very worst thing I ever tried
to handle were bison. You can't tell what they'll do, and neither can they.

Huntsman, do you have to bareback em or can you throw a saddle on😀.

You can debate all you want but the best eaten' breed is Highland. Lots of other issues with them but the best meat is Highland...end of discussion!!

Thanks Sammo,

Me too, wise acre as the old man used to say. We REALLY need a sarcasm font.

We had a registered herd of Herefords up where I used to live in WA, really nice looking animals and from the looks of the operation very well cared for.

Also, from what the cattle folks up there told me, we had a well respected Wagyu breeder in the area. I met him a few times, one of the nicest guys I've run across.

Loads of cattle around here, mostly black ones with a surprising number of Corriente types. I hear they do pretty good on our range.

You folks just kee[ growing that good stuff, so I can have a nice burger now and again.

Geno

Oh, Sam and you other cattle folks

I'm such a "wise guy" as Sam calls it, when I first opened this thread I was thinking of posting:

The Best beef breed is a


Lamb!!


Just to see who's dander I could raise.

But I was nice instead,

Honestly, my favorite meat is what's on my plate, especially if you bought it.

Geno

Thanks to all you beefers for providing the wonderful porterhouse I’m going to devour this weekend.

Pards raised dexters in the past, cool little critters, downfall is steaks, speacilly rib steaks are perty small. He went back to regular angus after a couple years

Don't get me wrong, I think they are cool! I may get some myself soon. I just find it ironic that they are slow gainers, all the Scottish wimmins could make a single calorie go a LOOONNNGG way, lol. Dam efficient! They could store fat just by looking at food.