Grass Finished Beef

[Heel Fly]

I am thinking of putting some steers on grass and selling them this fall as grass finished beef. What are your thoughts and any info that you have on this.

[Northern Rancher]

It all depends on the cattle and the pasture-takes very good pasture to 'top off' yearlings.

[Heel Fly]

We have some old hay meadows that we have had to let go in the last few yrs do to health and cost of health. I was thinking about using them. Would you finish them on that in Aug. ??? I have another pasture 3 sec that hasn't been grazed in 2 yrs. that was my other option.

[Soapweed]

[Northern Rancher]

What type of cattle.

[High Plains]

Know your market. Know your customer. Know your costs. Calculate the equivalent to the conventional market.

Speculating is one thing. But use a calculator.

Lots of "what if's" involved.

HP

[Shorthornguy]

Grass finishing means quality grass and rotational grazing. Cattle need to be moved to fresh grass at least twice a week. Just turning them loose in a pasture will mean they will be 24 to 30 months old before they finish.
Grass finished all natural beef pays a premium but you earn it as it takes a lot more time and management.

[Soapweed]

[Horseless]

Are you planning on actually finishing them or just put on some gain?
What will there weights be when you turn them out?

[Ben H]

First, subsribe to the Stockman's Grass Farmer, http://www.stockmangrassfarmer.net/index.html
They also have lots of good books on the subject, I've bought most of them, read half of them.

Are you aware of the health benefits of grassfed beef? Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio and CLA are the big ones.
If you aren't using lush grass you won't get the health benefits. I wouldn't use an old grown up meadow for a finishing pasture, nor for the stocker phase. That sounds like cow pasture.

One strategy is to take your best pasture paddocks, send the finishers in first to select the best stuff then send the next group in behind them to graze the rest down to 3-4" You don't want to let the grass get much more then 8-10" for a grassfed program.

I will reiiterate the point that grassfed takes Management Intensive Grazing (MiG), they don't call it that for nothing. It's also recomended learning MiG with Cows before stockers or even finishers.

What is your market? How far from a city are you?

I've been switching to grassfed the past year. I have probably at least 200,000 people living in a 30 minute radius. Whole Foods Market is building a new store that will be finished next month. They want to buy grassfed beef direct from the producer. There is a local farmers market starting this spring that is asking me to join. That is located in a town Called Windham, Maine that is on the East side of Sebago Lake. There is tons of tourists in the summer going to their cabins/cottages and to the lake. The location of the farmers market has been researched to have daily traffic counts of 25,000.

I sold my sides of beef direct to customer this year for $2.25/lb hanging, that's just for the animal, no processing yet. They pay that to the butcher. I don't think I'm charging enough. Once I get better and more consistant I plan to charge at least $3/lb. One farmer I talked to this week is charing $3.50/lb hanging with processing included. If you don't have a good market then Tall Grass Beeef Company will pay $1.75/#, I believe that's hanging, if you meet certain requirments. One of which is an ultrasound test of the ribeye and backfat at a certain age.

[Heel Fly]

Wow there is always more to something then you originally think, guess thats why I asked. My steers would be Hereford and we have had good sucess raising our own beef this way, but that is small scale. Ben I understand what you say about rotating I had to giggle a little. Our smallest pasture is 3 sec. and the rest are 8 and 9s. Although I agree with what you say getting the "upper management" to change our ways is a mountain in its self! We are a long ways off from any real market for this that would be a draw back. Its funny how when you start to step out of your thinking box how open your mind starts to become. I have a million little ideas, this being one of them, floating around. I just need to fine tune them.

[elwapo]

Hey soap . We just tried a footrot vaccination program on our bull calves this year. We are also doing the herd bulls. Even though footrot is not that prevalent around here we have found that one of the main causes in the loss of yearling bulls was a delayed treatment of footrot which is inevitably followed by poorer conception. If it works it may save us replacing a bull or two for customers in the long term.