Raising your own beef? Anyone else trying this for the first time?

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Crabby-Chicken

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Here is our first steer. It has been fun to have the cows, less worry than the minis for sure! They can handle all that green grass. Not real sure we will follow through with putting him in the freezer but that is the plan. Anyone else trying to be more self sufficient,or just realizing what is being put into the meat we buy?

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A while back our in-laws would raise a steer and a hog and we would have meat in the freezer, a good feeling. We mixed beef with pork and made sausage. My husband made a smoke house for the sausage. I miss those days. We didn't eat any cheaper but we knew what we were eating. Don't name the animal if you intend to put it in the freezer.

Barbara
 
Don't name the animal if you intend to put it in the freezer.

Barbara
We name them, but... they get names like: Turkey, Sir Loin, Hamburger, Chocolate, or no name at all.
 
We have done it...it is delicious!!! I read eatwild.com...and saw all what was fed to our cows we eat...the meat tastes better...more tender and juict..and its cheaper than buying it. We plan on filling another freezer this year.
 
nice steer...yes we raise our own beef cattle. have pigs last year and they were so much tastier than store bought pork. havent butchered any steers yet as we have only been in this for a 2 years. er got two yearling heifers which cant be bred until this fall. then we bought 1 bull and 2 cows with calves at their side, one heifer and one bull. we sold the yearling bull calf as a breeding bull, but did breed the two heifers to our bull last fall. they are due sometime this month and maybe one will be steer. i dont want to eat hamburger anymore because of the pink slime problem-yuck. be careful though if you buy registered cattle as we really got took on both the cows we got...great idea to raise your own animals to eat. gosh when we get a steer to eat iam just going to call it, yum. i have gotten really attached to the bull, heifers and cows and couldt eat them. because of what has happened us getting cows who no good, we are thinking of taking the two to a sale for meat as i cant eat them with getting attached and names like, bo, promise, buttercup, daphne and dixie.here is a picture of daphne my fav, they are miniature herefords and the tallest of the miniature breeds. oh for sure dont give them names. i scratch them and our bull and two cows are halter broke and have been shown.

blessings on this beautiful sunday...80 here today..

jenny

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We do raise our own cattle - to sell and to eat. I agree it is MUCH better than store bought beef as we know how it has been handled and what it has been fed.. Anyways -- I agree on the not naming them part -- If I have to bottle raise it or handle it upclose everyday there is no way I could eat it.. But if I know from the beginning that it is one that will be eaten I just avoid making "any connections" with it...

Now saying that though I do have a pet longhorn and I know I could never eat her and would hate the idea of ever having to sell her just in case someone else would eat her..
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There is nothing like home grown meat of any kind! It actually has flavor- and isn't full of steroids, hormones, antibiotics and all the other crap that is added. My neighbors raise all their own meat- pork, beef and goat. DELICIOUS. We used to but no place for me to keep any now. I do however, get some of my neighbors stuff. MMMMMMMMM
 
not for the first time :p But I'm fencing off more of our property to start again. My grandfather was a small rancher and we always had a cow or two in his herd for raising our own beef. I don't want to do it on the same scale as my grandfather. First of all I don't have that much acreage but I do want to raise my own beef again. I'm also going to be raising my own chickens, some just for eggs and some fryers. We'll bring the beef to the slaughter house (too big a job for me to want to even try) but we'll probably process our own chickens. I currently have a few ducks that need to be eaten. I bought the ducks for my working dogs to learn how to herd them and I'm done with them for now. I probably won't raise ducks again until we have our pond dug. I'm not wild about pork generally enough to want to have that much pork in my freezer otherwise pigs would be in the food chain too.

Nothing like home grown food sources. I'm planning a huge garden for next year too (incorporating the chickens for clean up and fertilizing too!)
 
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Nope, I am such a wus. I can't look anything in the eye and then eat it. Never could either, can't eat crabs or pick a lobster out of the tank, or eat from one of those pig roasts where they leave on the head... ugh. Just can't stand my food looking at me.

Just entering some humor... not trying to fry anybody here that raises their own beef.. better to know where it comes from, but then again, there is that looking at me part I just can't get past...
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Like shorthorsemom, I'm too much of a wimp. I have nothing against eating meat, and it certainly is better when you know that it has lived a good life and hasn't been fed hormones and garbage. I just can't do it. I couldn't even eat one of our chickens, so they'll have a graceful retirement.
 
I forgot to add...when we raised the hog we feed it lots of corn soaked in goat's milk which made very tender meat. We were raising goats at the same time. I had bottled fed a couple of calves and then couldn't have any part of the killing or eating.

Barbara
 
Thanks for sharing everyone!

Jenny she is such a cute little cow, I would want her to be a pet too.

Susanne, I couldnt eat one of our chickens. They live til old age here too. But the cow does his own thing and I really dont do much with him. And in my mind I have always said,,, not a pet!
 
When I lived in Oregon we had a small family farm we bought some very nice grass fed organically grown beef from.Cut and wrapped in nice white paper.

Here, the price is incredibly high, is like it is gold or something. Side of really good beef in Oregon... $400 to $650 depending on the size of the steer... here.. $1,500 to $2,500 for the same amount of meat!!!! That is crazy!

Once we get the fencing finished, hopefully by next summer, we plan on running 2 to 3 steers. Will have someone else make them into neat white wrappers.

And next summer, I plan on putting a garden in too.
 
Once we get the fencing finished, hopefully by next summer, we plan on running 2 to 3 steers. Will have someone else make them into neat white wrappers.
We raise beef, and still send our butcher steer out for processing; hubby has a thing about knives (he cut himself with a machete when he was younger, so he and big knives are not friends). Suits me fine to send them out, even though it costs, as I really don't want to cut it up. [Or dispose of hte parts you don't use.] Its very nice to fill the freezer with all those neat white packages, that someone else prepared for you.
 
my in laws have been raising beef almost as long as their children have been alive. She names her babies, handles them daily, gives them hugs and kisses and knows when they "pass" that they had a happy life. She has a cow now who was born on Christmas day and will be 22 this year, recently sold the rest because she can't imagine having cows in the barn without her old girl around. With their children grown and gone they really don't use most of the meat anyway.
 
. With their children grown and gone they really don't use most of the meat anyway.
My inlaws, just the two of them, eat way more beef than Shayne and I eat, its amazing how much they go through, especially hamburger. But, I think they eat little else, and we have chicken, fish.
 
I've raised a few calves in years past. Many years past. I had Moo 1 and Moo 2. Then later came Mork and Mindy. Mork got out of the pasture once and ate the flowers in my flower bed and the screens off the windows. He got a date at the processor for that!
 
I don't do well with cows. They always die on me. However, we have raised pigs, goats and ostrich for our own use. Our pig was Miss Piggy. The goats were Fill Up and Ribs. Our Ostrich had fallen off the pads of her feet so her name was Ugly Foot and we did have a Roster Ostrich that was Romeo. I don't think it makes a differance if you name them or not. The only thing is I will not ever allow the meat cutter to do a farm kill again. I like to put them in the trailer, drive them away and bring home the little white packages.
 
We are fortunate enough to have plenty of small butcher shops and enough small family owned farms that we can purchase a half or whole steer when butchering comes around. Parents raised a cow when I was a kid, I couldn't eat the meat. with that said, if I had to do it in order to feed my kids, I would do it in a heartbeat, but given that we have such a wonderful local source of fresh grass fed beef, I prefer to purchase it. My husband hunts and it really doesn't bother me to butcher deer.

Neighbors have several steer, they really need to take a good look at some photos, way too thin for one and two year olds. They are kept on approx, 2 acres, but there are 5-6 steer and there is very little hay ever offered, just short grass. I always refer to them as breakfast, lunch and dinner when talking to my kids.
 
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I wish I could, but I know that I'd end up getting too attached!

LIz N.
 

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