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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2013 21:55:08 GMT -5
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Post by tarsallat on May 22, 2013 22:05:16 GMT -5
Yep, sure have. We only eat Dexter beef. And the best dexter beef is the baby ones. The best one we ate was 5months old straight off his mum, still drinking milk. The meat was just so sweet and pale pink, just like veal.
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Post by jamboru on May 23, 2013 0:45:13 GMT -5
With you tarsallat. We have lived on Dexter meat for over 20 years. Processing 8 to 10 meat Dexters a year, we have experimented every which way; grass/grain; weanling/yearling/older; male/female; bull/steer; old cow/heifer 30 days incalf. The best meat of any kind we have ever had, anywhere, cooked anyway, was a big purebred 9 month old Dexter steer straight off a heavy milking mother, no grain that time, but not disapproving of some grain either. Some grain is good.
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2013 5:54:00 GMT -5
Well it's just me then.
I don't eat veal on principal and haven't since in my mid teens. Had two uncles on the kill floor who terrorized me with the baby calves crying all night in outside yards of abattoirs, starving , waiting to be slaughtered the next day stories. Full of stress hormones...............
I like my meat to have 'lived' and I would die without my 4-5 serves of rare meat a week.
Nope, hate grain-fed especially since the drought hit 10 yrs ago. It gave the meat a terrible after-taste, especially lamb *yuk*
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Post by djdewetsa on Dec 30, 2013 0:35:05 GMT -5
We slaughter after 9 or 10 months for ourselves or for the abbattoir. After that your feed conversion ratio gets poorer (young animals grows better) - ask any feedlot So if you feed the animal after 10 months it cost you more as the animal must eat more to grow a kg. However if you slaughter for the home and you have plenty feed then by all means
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Post by dexterfarm on Dec 30, 2013 12:25:49 GMT -5
but wait, you cant just consider what it takes to feed that calf for the 9 or 10 months. You also must consider the amout of feed the dam ate for 1 year to make that calf. So to get a calf to 10 months it takes what the calf eats plus everything an adult cow ate for one year. when you add that up I dont think it cost more to feed the calf for 1 more year.
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zephyrhillsusan
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Caught Dexteritis in Dec. 2009. Member of this forum since Oct. 2013.
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Post by zephyrhillsusan on Dec 30, 2013 15:06:20 GMT -5
Just to throw in another factor-- Do any of you do the genetic testing for beef tenderness? We don't, and I don't know much about it, but apparently genetics do influence tenderness. So how might that factor in? Do you know which bloodlines your best-tasting animals came from? Do you see a correlation? For instance, the only Dexter beef we've eaten is a steer we bought from Gabriella Nanci. We butchered him at 24 months in November 2011 with about 2 weeks on ad lib hay after the first frost when the grass had stopped growing. (This was our butcher's advice.) He was quite fat and well-marbled and very tender. Our butcher was quite impressed! Of course, Gabriella gets the credit for his breeding; all we did was feed him. So how much depends on genetics and how much on feeding?
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Post by northstar on Dec 30, 2013 15:41:11 GMT -5
If I ever get a steer, two heifers so far, he'll be butchered at 18 months, because of feed costs up here. If he's born in the spring, I sure wouldn't butcher until he took advantage of summer grazing (free) the following year. Marsha
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Post by ian on Dec 30, 2013 16:50:59 GMT -5
If I ever get a steer, two heifers so far, he'll be butchered at 18 months, because of feed costs up here. If he's born in the spring, I sure wouldn't butcher until he took advantage of summer grazing (free) the following year. Marsha A steer at 18 months is still growing bone, it is in the last 6 months that he will lay down muscles and fat, I would grow him out to 24 months and on grass/hay only.
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Post by northstar on Dec 30, 2013 17:36:12 GMT -5
I'm just thinking that would mean butchering at the end of an Alaskan winter. If I kept him that long, I'd wait until 30 months in the fall. Thanks, Marsha
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Post by emsshamrock on Jan 11, 2014 14:38:14 GMT -5
As far as genetics affecting tenderness, they do test for in in other breeds of cattle like Angus and Hereford and have it registered in their genome for the use in EBVs and EPDs. However, meat quality as far as heritability is quite low. Meat quality has way more to do with what it was fed, how it was fed, and how it was slaughtered. I have seen thousands of carcasses that came off feed lots throughout the USA, what they were fed and what region of the US they were from were the biggest differences in quality.
We generally butcher our steers at around 20 months and have been doing so for 20+ years. They are on grain the last couple months just to put a little extra cover on them.
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Post by carragheendexters on Jan 12, 2014 6:03:31 GMT -5
I have to agree with you Emily, and the latest research also seems to be showing that. Breeds also affect meat quality, eg British breeds vs European and Bos indicus. Over here in Australia, in many of the hoof and hook competitions will deduct 5 points straight up if there is any Bos indicus in the animal.
I think grain at the end is most important, it is needed to get the glycogen levels up, so that after slaughter the pH will drop to a good level, otherwise you risk the carcass having too high a pH, and the meat being too dark, resulting the meat being tougher and with a bit of a taint. Grass fed only won't get that high glycogen level, not enough carbs. Many people are unaware that the pH affects the quality of the meat, and that grain will get a higher muscle glycogen level for that higher lactic acid level after death and when hanging. It's like an athlete eating pasta and rice before a competition, they do a carb load for higher glycogen levels.
regards Louise
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Post by ssrdex on Jan 12, 2014 14:31:12 GMT -5
Louise said I think grain at the end is most important, it is needed to get the glycogen levels up, so that after slaughter the pH will drop to a good level, otherwise you risk the carcass having too high a pH, and the meat being too dark, resulting the meat being tougher and with a bit of a taint. Grass fed only won't get that high glycogen level, not enough carbs. Read more: dextercattle.proboards.com/thread/3258?page=2#ixzz2qDKyX5KTHi Louise. What grain do you finish with there? Do you feed for a certain amount of time or a certain weight? Thanks
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Post by kansasdexters on Jan 12, 2014 19:19:13 GMT -5
Louise,
We finish (fatten) our Dexter steers and Kerry steers on good, green growing pasture. It is really "grass finished" meat. A properly grass finished carcass has about 0.20 inches backfat thickness and a quality grade of "Choice" or "Select +". We do not use any grain to achieve this, and the meat tastes beefy-sweet, with no off-taste or wild taste to it. The quality of our pasture grasses (mostly brome grass) must therefore have sufficiently high levels of sugars and complex carbohydrates, that the glycogen levels are elevated, at the time of slaughter.
We only harvest our beef animals between June and November, the time that we have pastures that are producing abundant amounts of good grass. We feed high quality brome hay during the winter months and early spring; however, we don't process any animals for beef while they are on a hay diet. They have to be consuming good, green, growing grasses for at least 90 days prior to slaughter.
Patti
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Post by lakeportfarms on Jan 12, 2014 19:51:59 GMT -5
Louise,
You can get very good results with grass finished by doing managed grazing. This way the grass is at it's optimal growth stage and you can get excellent gains because they are frequently moved into fresh grass. Also by moving them frequently and only providing small areas within the temporary hot wire, they are not running around large areas expending a lot of energy to do so.
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