slaughter age and weight

[arlen]

I've got my first steer coming of age. I think he is between 700 and 800 pounds. He is 18 months old. It seems that most of you are slaughtering around 24-27 months. My guy is really growing.
I would like to avoid feeding him through the winter because I've heard they won't gain much, and with feed prices, well you get the idea. Do you think it is a good idea to butcher now given his age and weight? He is on pasture, I give him about 15 lbs of good alfalfa/timothy hay, and 3 to 5 pounds of cracked corn per day.
I would like to believe he is ready....What do you think?

[Olga]

This is what the judge said at the Pope Co Fair this year: you can't see any ribs, all the way to the 13th rib, on an animal that is ready for slaughter and the sirloin region appears "filled" and blends in to the hips.
This is what a cattle groomer/hoof trimmer with 50 year experience said: stand next to the shoulder of the steer, facing the rear; spread your palm flat and lay it on the rib cage; exercising a moderate pressure, fingers toward the rear of the animal, push your flat hand across the rib cage - in a finished animal you will see ripples form in front of your fingers and your hand will not feel individual ribs.
I can't add any personal knowledge to this for we had only fed out one Dexter steer, about 5 years ago. He was over 2 years old, he was on pasture/hay only, no grain. The meat was dark red and very lean. It was hard to cook tender and easy to overcook. A lot of it was very chewy and tough. After a year in the freezer there was still a lot of this meat left. It ended up being fed to the dogs.
This experience convinced me that not all animals can finish on grass - especially if you don't have enough grass, or not the good grass. It also may be that "dairy" Dexter steers need more attention to finish as opposed to "beef" Dexter steers. May be my steer was still too leggy and still in the growing stage and needed more time. May be I should've taken him off a 30 acre pasture where he had to compete for grass/hay with the rest of the herd and kept him in the paddock with all-you-can-eat hay and grain supplementation. We have since then raised 2 non-Dexter market steers for the Fair and while they ate large quantities of grain, their meat never gets "lost" in my freezer.

This was Jimmy the Dexter steer, in May of 2007, when he was about 23 months old:



Here was Jimmy the Dexter steer in the fall of 2007, shortly before he was taken to slaughter:

[arlen]

Thank you both for the input. Olga, my steer is quite a bit more "round" than the steer in your picture, especially in the rump. I will try and post a picture of mine. That might help.
I want to keep half of him, and sell the other half. I definately don't want my first sale to be an inferior product.
I guess one nice thing about this part of the country is good pasture and hay; lots of alfalfa, clover, and timothy. I do feed grain to all my cattle, if nothing else, it makes them friendly. They come running when you have a pail in your hand!

[Olga]

I'm sure it does make a difference. In this part of AR we hardly have any topsoil, the soil is mostly clay and the ground cover is mostly weeds, especially after 2 droughts. The topography is so steep that fertilization and liming is less effective - the first rain washes the good stuff into the pond. All of these things were unknown to me in the beginning. Another issue is the butcher had cut everything too thin. When the beef is lean, thicker cuts are much easier to cook right.
I'm glad your steer is finishing out so well, I'll be glad to see the pics of him for comparison.
Oh, another point, as it had been said elsewhere on this board, whether the steer is a non-carrier or carrier of chondro also makes a difference: carriers start to put on finish earlier.
There are many aspects to meat production and so many of them take time to grasp for smaller breeder like me, who just doesn't have a large enough output of steers.

[laughingllama75]

This steer was 22 months and 700 lbs. He was pasture fed only until the last 3 months, then he got corn twice a day until his "date". I believe he finished at 740 lbs....he did put on a little more "cushion" after this pic, I will see if I can find a better one.
the meat was tender, the best I have ever had. Love, love, LOVE it!


Here, he is relaxing. not a great pic either, but you can see no bony hips and decent "bulk". He is the one laying down. The little guy is still growing and about 600 lbs now.

[lakeportfarms]

Those of you who may be interested in finishing on grass only rather than grain, both the time of year and the quality of your pasture is key. Your best bet is to finish when you'll have 2-3 months of your best growth. More important is to stimulate the desire of the steer to eat whether he wants to our not by introducing competition for feed by frequent swath grazing moves. It's not uncommon for those who produce the best results to move them 3-4X per day, though once a day would still see benefits. They become conditioned to get up and eat whenever a new area is opened for them. I think a lot of the gain comes from the lack of wandering around, so if they can be kept close to water that's even better. We have many temporary lines set up so the moves can be accomplished in fairly short order. Although every few days we need to spend more time to get them prepared for the next 5 days.

We started doing this a few years ago with the ones finished for beef, but the results were so good that we now do it for our entire herd, though the ones destined for beef are usually in a different pasture than the others.

I don't have any photos to share of the beef we've raised this way, but I can assure you they look as fat as they would if we gave them a few pounds of grain a day in addition to the grazing or hay.

[Morning Star Farm]

Olga, I noticed what appears to be a white ring on your steers neck, any idea what causes that?

[Dahdo]

We slaughtered our first two steers in July at 26 & 27 months and they yielded 461 and 487 lbs hanging weight respectively. They were grass finished and moved every day through my best pasture for the last two months (may and June) when our grass is at its peak. They were gaining fast and I could feel the fat pads near the tailhead like genbo mentioned, but I also saw them develop folds in the skin of their necks.

The advice I keep hearing is to slaughter when they are on the gain, and its pretty hard and expensive to keep them gaining over the winter. Sounds to me like, based on your estimated weight alone, he would yield 425-475 lbs hanging weight. I'd go for it.

Dave

[lakeportfarms]

Arlen, one other thing to mention is the availability of your selected processor. Here in Michigan unless it's an emergency or you have a really good relationship, you won't have a lot of luck when deer hunting season starts in earnest. I would suspect MN is the same.

[arlen]

Thanks for all of the good advice.
lakeportfarms, you have a good point on the processor. I've been talking to him to get a slot. He doesn't do deer anymore, but he is always booked 2 months out. I don't really mind feeding him for another month or 2, he is really growing and eating right now!
It was a bit of a challenge for awhile because I had my 2 miniature donkeys in with him. I was trying to fatten my steer, and all I was getting was fat donkeys ;D. They can boss the whole herd around

Here is a picture I took of him tonite.

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[laughingllama75]

He looks great!

[lakeportfarms]

From the photo he looks good to go. Good you got the donkeys out of there, not only do they eat the food but they probably move him around more than he otherwise would.
Do you have any other cows that are a bit thin right now? Introducing competition for food from another cow is a good way to put on some pounds for a short time until the processor is ready for him.

[Olga]

Arlen, your steer does look great! Good luck and let us know how it turns out.
Morning Star, the white ring on our steer didn't show up till he was around a year old. It looked ridiculously similar to a hoof print - of a horse shoe. I often wondered if he got kicked by one of our horses and the hair grew out white due to trauma. I have no other explanation for it. Once the white developed, it stayed unchanged.

[jerryr]

Do you think this steer is getting close to being ready for slaughter? We can either take him in 3 weeks, or we have to wait 7 more weeks. I was really hoping he'd be ready in 3 weeks.

I'm going to go out there and feel around the tail-head and other things, but maybe some of you can tell a lot by looking at the picture. I'm really new at this.

Thanks!
Jerry

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[Morning Star Farm]

thanks, Olga and Gene. I have a heifer that has a white ring also and wondered if it could have been caused by some kind of trauma. The ring seems to be fading now, it's been about 6 months. ( sorry didn't mean to hi-jack this thread)