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Grass/Corn finished vs Grass/Grass finished

L

Liveoak

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
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573
Location
Texas
I'm thinking about raising calves on strictly a grass diet all the way to the butcher (versus finishing them on grain). My question is, given two calves that were identical in feed efficiency numbers and genetics, how much longer, on average would it take the grass finished calf to mature (for butchering) than the corn finished calf? ( I may be making a false assumption that the grass finished calf will take longer to mature) Thanks!
 
Our April May calves are either barley fed to hang in April or grass fed for September. Those that don't make the grass fed cut are sold as short keeps to some desperate feedlot guy that has sold more than he can easily supply for November. Of course all of this is determined by your decisions at weaning time and how you would like to background them.

Of course the simple answer.... a year. :wink:
 
So, two answers saying it would take about a year longer to get a calf to butcher if it were solely on grass versus corn or grain finished.

The Hearst ranch site that Old Dog referred to appears to use a weight of 1000 to 1100 lbs as a target but doesn't mention the time difference but that probably is not an issue for them. It seems then that feed efficiency ratings (RFI, DMI) could be critical to the rancher who wants to make a buck in the grass fed/grass finished beef marketplace. Is that a practical cost efficient approach?
 
We acxtually had grass finished steers government graded in September so I'd say closer to six months that a year. there are genetics out there that I doubt would ever be very tasty on straight grass.
 
With our cattle we like a late April born calf to kill the following October @600lb hanging so I guess the difference might be 6 months as NR says. It's funny how everyone asks how much longer it takes to fatten on grass - not how does the cost of feeding a heavy grain ration compared to grass fattening compare. We find there is very little cost in our grass-feds, they are essentially just grassed yearlings with a little more attention to detail on the grass management.
I guess 600lb isn't a huge weight either but that is about the size most of our customers prefer and if the quality is right you will have them eating out of your hand. We delivered beef of 8 steers Saturday/today and I have already had two customers tasted the beef for the first time and want to order an addition quarter from our October deliveries :D :D :D
 
This was my first year in selling grass fed beef and it did pretty good. My target weight was 640 lb, but I graze them a little long because of the drought conditions we had. I also left them on the cows until a hauled them off. They ended up at 740 lb and yield 60-61 percent. They were about 8 months old at this weight. My customers were happy about this wt because they don't need a very large freezer to keep them in and the cost was still cheaper then Whole foods.

O and the calves was angus and angus cross. I mostly use number 1 muscle for grass fed finish and number 2 or 3 muscle for a grain fed finish.
 
Trinity man said:
This was my first year in selling grass fed beef and it did pretty good. My target weight was 640 lb, but I graze them a little long because of the drought conditions we had. I also left them on the cows until a hauled them off. They ended up at 740 lb and yield 60-61 percent. They were about 8 months old at this weight. My customers were happy about this wt because they don't need a very large freezer to keep them in and the cost was still cheaper then Whole foods.
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I don't know much about Texas but we don't consider cattle finished at that weight. Have your customers never heard of Half a beef?If beef doesn't have a certain amount of "Finish" you lose a lot of (I'll make up my own word) eatability. :D
 
What do you consider finished BMR? Our cattle would consistently grade AAA off grass at 17 months. Many of our customers tell us it is some of the best beef they have ever tasted. I guess not all beef coming out of the feedlot tastes great either. It's not all killed by 12 or 14 months either.

Liveoak, your question on relative feed efficiency ratings, dry matter intake may or may not be all that important - depends where the data was collected. Most of the "relative feed efficiency" testing I've seen done up here has been performed with the cattle eating grain out of a feedlot bunk. Not much relevancy to grass production in my opinion. I'd rather "efficiency test" on grass and the ones that do well on grass would likely do best on the grain ration too. I doubt the reverse is the case although the guys selling grain tested "feed efficient" breeding cattle as the ultimate grazers likely wouldn't agree.
 
Grassfarmer said:
What do you consider finished? Our cattle would consistently grade AAA off grass at 17 months. Many of our customers tell us it is some of the best beef they have ever tasted. I guess not all beef coming out of the feedlot tastes great either. It's not all killed by 12 or 14 months either.

Liveoak, your question on relative feed efficiency ratings, dry matter intake may or may not be all that important - depends where the data was collected. Most of the "relative feed efficiency" testing I've seen done up here has been performed with the cattle eating grain out of a feedlot bunk. Not much relevancy to grass production in my opinion. I'd rather "efficiency test" on grass and the ones that do well on grass would likely do best on the grain ration too. I doubt the reverse is the case although the guys selling grain tested "feed efficient" breeding cattle as the ultimate grazers likely wouldn't agree.
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Do you get your beef processed at a plant that grades?

What is your "finished" weight?

I run cattle to yearling so they aren't finished in the feedlot at 12 -14 months either. You run yours longer then trinity which is what I was getting at. I run older angus genetics that could finish on grass but to get a good gradable finish they take longer then in the feedlot. Winter also come into play in this country.

On our prairie grass we can get good hard white fat if they are let graze into the fall.

Figure what your gain is in the feedlot 3-4lbs/day. What's your gain over your grazing period 1.5-2.5 maybe. That would take longer to finish wouldn't it?
 
No the plants we use don't "grade" them officially - only with their multi-generational experience of high quality Swiss butchering.
Their finished weight is on average 600lbs hanging and we don't get a big spread on weights - they are usually pretty tight to the average. They walk out of the field (no shrink) at 1000-1100lbs probably with a 1050lb average.
 
Grassfarmer said:
No the plants we use don't "grade" them officially - only with their multi-generational experience of high quality Swiss butchering.
Their finished weight is on average 600lbs hanging and we don't get a big spread on weights - they are usually pretty tight to the average. They walk out of the field (no shrink) at 1000-1100lbs probably with a 1050lb average.
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Would you consider a beef "finished" at 740 lbs?
 
Big Muddy rancher said:
On our prairie grass we can get good hard white fat if they are let graze into the fall.

Figure what your gain is in the feedlot 3-4lbs/day. What's your gain over your grazing period 1.5-2.5 maybe. That would take longer to finish wouldn't it?
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Sorry BMR, The second half of your post didn't show up when I replied for some reason. Same here, we get a good hard white fat finish by grazing into October on meadow brome - it has great power in it to finish cattle once we get the early frosts in September that concentrate the sugars above ground. This is a huge benefit of the climate in my area yet most calves from here get fattened in feedlots of southern Alberta. Our cattle need to average over 2lbs/day to be finished by 17 months - we run in the 2.5-3lb/day gain on grass in the final finishing stages. We can fatten them at home by renting extra pasture for 50-65 cents/day (for a yearling equivelant) That's in the 20c/lb of gain region. How cheap can anyone fatten them in a feedlot?
This country round me would be far better suited to growing grass to fatten cattle than growing poor, late grain crops to truck to Lethbridge.
 
In this area, the true "grass finished" beef is not produced anymore. I'm refering to the big 2-3 and 4 year old steers the old-time ranchers produced that never saw anything but grass and not a lot of hay in the winter as steers were expendable until they got big enough to sell. The last ranch to sell two's was back in about 1985 and these steers still only weighed around 950 to 980 on the average live. If they were over-wintered another year or two there were lots of them that got to be in the 16 to 1700 lb range and they would actually jiggle when they walked.
Now those kind of cattle are classed as "cow beef".
 
Big Muddy rancher said:
Grassfarmer said:
No the plants we use don't "grade" them officially - only with their multi-generational experience of high quality Swiss butchering.
Their finished weight is on average 600lbs hanging and we don't get a big spread on weights - they are usually pretty tight to the average. They walk out of the field (no shrink) at 1000-1100lbs probably with a 1050lb average.
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Would you consider a beef "finished" at 740 lbs?
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Maybe as veal? don't know anything about it. Most cattle would not be marbled at that weight/age although strangely enough my Luings seem to marble almost all their lives. A friend killed 2 in the 850lb live weight range and they were surprisingly well marbled and good eating. The fixed costs of custom kill favor a much heavier animal though.
 
gcreekrch said:
In this area, the true "grass finished" beef is not produced anymore. I'm refering to the big 2-3 and 4 year old steers the old-time ranchers produced that never saw anything but grass and not a lot of hay in the winter as steers were expendable until they got big enough to sell. The last ranch to sell two's was back in about 1985 and these steers still only weighed around 950 to 980 on the average live. If they were over-wintered another year or two there were lots of them that got to be in the 16 to 1700 lb range and they would actually jiggle when they walked.
Now those kind of cattle are classed as "cow beef".
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We shipped two's at 1090lbs off the grass. They were light yearlings and calves were high so we sorted them off and trailed them back to the hills in October. We had a open winter and trailed them out of the hills the next October.
 
I finish at about 18-20 months, around 1000-1100 lbs. I killed one this spring at about 12 months because he didn't want to respect fences, he pretty much went into patties and it was fairly lean. Raising my cows on a low input system I am starting to see a certain amount of variation in a group of animals under the same management. Some genetically do better then others on all grass. I have some going in October and November. There was a 3 year old cow I killed last month, the fat was more yellow then the ones I kill later in the year.

I highly recommend getting this book

http://www.stockmangrassfarmer.net/cgi-bin/page.cgi?id=503.html

447.jpg
 
If you're going to finish on grass, my opinion is that there is a huge potential for cutting cost by paying attention to the genetics that do it in a shorter time frame. We calve in late May and June, so ours finish at or near 2 yrs of age. We've had purebred Galloways fat by the time they're 20 months, and we've had some crossbreds do the same. Most do it at 24-26 months, depending on grass conditions for the year.

When ours are on grass as yearlings, anything that's lean and green gets sorted off and sold when we can tell that they just aren't the type to finish on grass. They might as well go to a feedlot where they belong. They're just not the genetics we want. We're getting most of those culled out now, most of which were purebred Angus and one sire group of Galloways.

The right body type though, and it's amazing what you can do just on forage. We have some crossbred steers right now that jiggle when they walk. THey're 2yr olds, Galloway sired and out of Tarentaise cross cows. They're weighing 12-1300lbs, and I don't wanna guess how much they're eating in a day - they're diesel burnin' brutes. Our purebred Galloways will finish @ 11-1200, and yield 60% pretty consistently.
 

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