Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire beef review..4 legged kind ...jim conard

I have zero concerns with Jim's meat. Zero.

Old neighbor gave us a bunch of meat from one of their cows they had cut up. Tasted like gamey azz deer. They just pulled it off the range and cut it up. Yay grass fed lol.

At my last place I had a holstein steer I raised to butcher. Paid like $75 from a dairy as a bottle calf. Fugker was as tame as dog, loved getting petted and scratched. When time came, neighbor hauled him in for me with theirs. He loaded right on the trailer like a horse. He was delicious. If I had the room I'd do it again here, but all he'd have to eat is skunk cabbage and I doubt that'd make for good beef.

I ordered a half a cow last year from a rancher and farmer. He raises them to around 1200 to 1400 lbs. No hormones and antibiotics. He row crops corn soybeans and peanuts. He grinds his feed from crops from his farm operations. You pay a deposit when ordering and he takes steer to processor and the final price is based off of hot hanging weight.
Processor hangs for 21 days and then cuts according to your custom cut order. The beef is individually vacuum packed and USDA inspected with sticker on each bag with date packed and weight of package, hard frozen. He picks beef up and gives you a call.The price of a half beef averages between 1650 and 1750 total.
I will never buy any beef from grocery store again! The ground beef has no bones and gristle and the flavor and smell while cooking is so different from store bought.
The price comes out to $6.10 a pound for finished product and he guarantees that if it it is not the best beef you have ever eaten he will buy it back.
Now i would like to find a farmer raising hogs, I would never buy meat from store again.

A 1,000 pound bull is a little late to be "finishing."

It would make edible (not great) hamburger and that's about it, IMO.

I don't know that I've ever had grass fed beef but I do know that weened calves, fed up to about 800 lbs on alfalfa hay, ground corn/oats mixture and corn silage makes for the best tasting, most tender beef I've ever consumed.

All natural fed. No fancy shots.

F that store bought, water injected crap.

1000lb bull isn't an old animal.
But it's a bull, unfinished.


Bought some burger from a local beef producer, (he had a shop and a guy
to cut) that was from a steer he bought. An anima l from an old guy who
had died several years before. The family was busy fighting and the herd
got old. Figure this steer was around 6 or 7.

Don bought it hesitantly, butchered it and tried some before selling.
His butcher told me about it so we bought 50#, tried it as soon as I got
home. Some of the best burger we ever had. Tried to get more and it was
gone. He had kept one Dell out, and regretted grinding the good steaks.


Must have lived an easy life? Or just the finishing?

Really appreciate the write up Bob.

I was worried sick that you wouldn't like it. We run em the old way.

Basically our ration is ground barley....and grass hay.

They grew on grass previous to going into the fat pen.

We start them slow on ground barley...eventually getting them to full feed. Which for us is free choice.

In other words...they can eat all the barley they want.

The barley is ours, so is the hay. They are our cattle too.

Thanks again Bob. You took a risk buying from some slapjack on the Internet.

Glad it worked out.

I could be very interested in splitting one with another Michigan Fire member. Would not have a problem with making it a road trip. Freezer(s) in the cargo trailer or just in the pickup bed.
When is your normal slaughter time?

Mark

There are a couple problems with farm to table.

The first is all retail meat must be slaughtered in a USDA inspected plant. Around the Boise area (75 mile radius) I only know of one. They kill for the local bison farmers who sell meat out of their home freezers. They also kill for at least one beef grower who is just setting up a retail outlet, where they will also sell some bison meat. (Payette Id).

Other than killing in a USDA plant, the only legal way to sell meat farm to table, is to do as is being discussed here. The consumer purchases the animal live, and has the grower deliver it to a butcher live.

There is a problem with this currently, as the butchers are backed up six months to a year. And most consumers do not want to spend the money up front to purchase an entire cow, or even a hog and pay for cutting/wrapping all in a lump some.

Top that off with, most consumers have no idea what good meat is. Most are perfectly happy with the crap they pick up at Walmart.

I am in camp with Mooner.

I will feed grain to a holstein steer. Usually a five gallon bucket of rolled barley/corn/oats with molasses twice a day for six weeks before slaughter. But herefords or angus or crosses thereof are killed in October straight off sweet short rotated pasture grass. I do not want 30% fat content in my rib steaks, or even in my ground.

Grass fed actual beef is far superior to grain finished dairy steers. Guess what you get at Walmart and the other typical grocery meat counters. They have to do something with those millions of holstein bull calves born on the dairies every year.

It’s all a matter of taste preference. “Superior” is all in the eye of the beholder, or this instance the forkholder

There is a big difference between meat from a cow on range consuming dry cheat grass, sage brush, and juniper berries; or a cow on sweet meadow grass or irrigated pasture.

Meat tastes like what it eats. There is a local guy who raises about fifty holstien steers a year. He feeds them waste from the local Ore-Ida potato and onion processing/freezer plant. The steers eat tons of reject french fries and onion rings.

People who buy meat from him refuse to eat "fresh meat" any more because it tastes nasty. They buy from the meat counter at Walmart instead.

It took me years to convince one family to try a couple of my steaks. They loved my beef and could not understand why it was not nasty like that they had bought from their buddy.

And then of course, some of us like the taste of venison. And some prefer their meat to be devoid of flavor. But nobody wants their beef to taste like a rancid french fry or onions.

Way back in the 1960's the man that I worked for custom butchering kept the heads, unless the customer asked for them sperately. He would bone them out and along with pork butts make some very good Kielbasi. I made some last year that was close using 60% pork and 40% venison. We ate a lot of the tongue and He gave some to anyone that asked. Most people here did not want any part of the head. We also ate a lot of brains and eggs, and Sweetbreads. miles

Generaly speaking, a steer or heifer gaining weight will be tender. One losing weight will be tough. Graining them in a pen where you can watch them lets you know what they are doing. miles

Without a doubt.

I like venison, but like beef it’s not all the same. Sometimes it’s delicious. But I Have had plenty that I only ate because I felt obligated. The beef I referenced earlier was like that.

My dad grew up in a dairy, and they only beef they ate were the old cows that quit producing. He wasn’t a big beef fan lol.

I had plenty of people look at me cross eyed for feeding out my Holstein steer to butcher. They didn’t have anything negative when they ate it though for sure.

Given my druthers I’d eat nothing but ribeyes, pork chops and pork/beef roasts and be perfectly content.

Just got back a grass fat 10 year old half Brahman that went over 1400 on the hoof. She lost a calf several months ago and wouldn't breed back. She was slick fat and tried to kill us every time we corralled her. Mostly ground meat and a bunch of it. My son in law grilled a big ribeye a said it was good. It isn't as good as fed beef but I have 3 adult kids and they have 3 kids that took a bunch of it. It ain't perfect but it's at least as good as most you get in a store. The killing and processing which included vacuum sealed was about a dollar and she didn't end up as taxable income. This animal and a 600 lb. fed steer has us set for a while.

Last time I checked, all of Costco's prime beef was "blade tenderized" and that will keep me from purchasing it.

My experience is that dairy steers are real good beef if fed out. Usually what I would rate as choice. The problem is that they don't convert feed as well as beef breeds.

Nothing wrong with Holstein steers, they are some big boned critters though and probably not as efficient as the crossbreeds, as was mentioned.

My wife's father, and brother used to feed Holstein steers by the thousand, a few would grade prime. The dressing percent was lower, more bone, and belly.

We fed a few, some steaks were more bone than meat.

All beef is good, but grain fed beef is the only kind of beef for me. I'm not worrying about eating healthy I eat what taste the best to me.
A friend of ours feeds out Holstein steers. They go from Florida to Ohio at a few days old then to Chicago at less than a year old to be sold and slaughtered. Last group of steers averaged 92% prime. He feeds a DG, barley and corn mixture of some sort.