Fat is not considered derogatory. It is fed or finished cattle with grades starting at prime and on down. Those grades typically correlate quite well with dressing percentage as well.

Bryce

If your just going to butcher any breed will work. your dressing weight, the amount of meet you will get back is usually going to be better on the beef breeds. I did have a Holstein that dressed out at 63% last year, which is more of a beef breed percentage. our Holstein steer was very lean and tasted great, but we raised up from a calf.

if your just looking to grind everything into burger a butcher cow would be ok, but if your going to get the cuts (steaks) they will not be very tender

With the advent of AI and sire matching programs holsteins are getting beefier all the time .
if you are looking to make it all in burger . the cheapest fat beef will be a fed jersey steer .they sell at a discount because they generally don't cut stakes out of them because the fat is yellow (dad calls them yellahammers ) and looks odd they sell along same prices as hamburger cows . They make good little steaks if you don't mind yellow fat . you wont see one at every sale but when you do you can buy them cheep .

Kind of off topic but here goes. I've thought about buying a bottle calf or calf and raising to butcher. About how long would I need to raise it to get the 1200lb mark and ballpark cost of calf and to raise it that long. Same question on a baby pig. I've got 15 acres here at the house with pond and have access to hay and corn. Don't have any type of fence up yet and not sure what would be needed with a cow. Would acouple acres with hot wire work? Thanks

Few years back you could get dairy bull calves for free. Those are generally the only bottle calves you'll find. Not sure what the market is like for them now. Otherwise you could buy a beef feeder at $1.50/pound, costing $600-800 for the calf, raise them for a year. We typically put 2-3000 lbs of grain in our butcher steers over a year. Then there's hay, which we figure about 8000-10000 lbs of hay for mid November through mid April with a full grown cow. You can likely figure every bit of 16000 lbs of hay to feed out the steer, if no pasture. But, if you've never raised a steer, be careful, ease into the grain. If you feed too much too soon, it kills the microbes in the stomach that help digest grasses. This will make them sick. And, I believe, in extreme cases can kill them.

1 hot wire works for conditioned cattle, but I wouldn't trust a cow I didn't know not to go through 1 hot. We run woven with 1 hot or 5 high tensile, 2 of which are hot. These are perimeter. Then interior can be 1-3 high tensile with 1 hot, depending on location.

There is a significant over production of milk in many areas of the Mid West and the nation. Many large dairy operations are reviewing the economic and genetic value of their herds and several are breeding the lower percentage say 25% to beef breeds at this time as the calves are worth twice what Holstein bull and heifer calves are selling for. The most common bulls used in our area for this are Angus-Simmenthal type crosses.

As to Holsteins getting beefier due to AI I would question that in most major dairy areas. Larger cows yes but not beefier as a breed. The only extra beefier aspect of culled Holstein cows or steers is that they are raised or fed to have a higher cutting score and thus worth more per pound. They are not bred for beef characteristics like they are in northern Europe.

Bryce

It is a good expected yield, but our cattle usually are close to that. 61%-63%. I got the paperwork back today on the set that went out, there yield was 63.74%. 71% choice or higher. I think they made $100/hd, so i was very happy. Had some death loss and medicine in them, otherwise they would have made $110 or a bit more

I put about 1000 head of 400lbs calves a winter on wheat pasture. We put a 15’ hot fence in the pen with them in the corner of the pen with some hay behind it for about 3 days to fence break them. They don’t give any problems after that. I’m pretty sure they can smell the hot fence (sense the magnetic field around the wire) and stay in unless it gets really dry like we are now and they don’t make a good ground with the dry ground. Neighbors and I put thousands of cows on corn stalks with just a single 14ga hotwire. It’s all about conditioning

Thanks ya'll just trying to decide which way is better, to raise one or buy at butcher weight and cost differences between the two.

Sire matching consultants or semen brokers have had amazing results in targeting specific problem characteristics plaguing several breeds .The success that they have had with making Holsteins beefier is one of their most obvious and astounding victories . if you have an eye for conformation you can tell which herds are using these consultants while driving down the road .there are a couple herds in this area that look like black and white beef cattle with huge udders . they have achieved this level of success by matching each specific cow to the best bull out of their extensive catalogue of traits .These bulls are proven to pass along very specific traits to there calves .this cow needs a broader rump and more depth of loin so she gets semen from a bull that passes those traits on . now her daughter from two years ago has a broad rump and good depth of loin , she could use straighter legs and a face that looks a little less dairy select a bull that throws straighter legs and small eyes .
It's the big operations doing it in my area . we have very few small operations anymore . you just don't see as many bone bag Holsteins anymore .

If you’re loking for what makes most sense economically, its not raising you’re own. Most of us do it because we enjoy it. But you always end up with a ton.of roasts, more than most people prefer. The most econmical way is to take the money and buy only the cuts you want from a butcher shop.

Grind the roasted into burger. You can never have too much burger. It's cheaper to buy a fat beef than feed it your self if you pay far market value. The guys that feed hundreds or thousands of head of cattle a year do it way more efficient than you can yourself.

Yes I didn't really think it would be cheaper. I'd just know what went into it and would probably split it with friends to recoup some of the cost.

I tend to disagree with some of the "beef" guys as far as not eating a dairy animal. I am fortunate in that we have a choice of Angus, Holstein, Holstein/Fleckveih crosses (the Fleckveih is a "beefy" looking dairy strain of Semmentals)and jerseys and jersey crosses.

Of all the breeds, I always pick jerseys. The yellow fat is easily trimmed, if there is any, and it does not taste bad at all. The dairy breeds are not going to fatten soon enough on just forage, but will fatten and be ready quickly with lots of corn/grain. They actually are more tender, and if fed properly will be even better marbled.

Right now I can get jersey bull calves for $35, Holsteins for 75, and beef or fleckveih crossed with Holsteins are 110. We don't eat our homebred Holsteins as they are all sold as breeders, unless we have a sterile heifer. We buy the jerseys and dairy crosses and Holstein calves and feed them out. We buy the jerseys for ourselves to eat. Typically we buy 10 jerseys at a time(eat the best 4 or so and sell the rest as fattened)...unfortunately a 10% death loss. We also buy the dairy crosses and feed those for selling to packing plants. We also have our own beef herd...angus...but don't eat them anymore.

I have eaten lots of dairy cows of varying ages, and they are often excellet as Canners/Cutters. We typically only grind them, and can them. Canned old cow is awesome. Simply cut into 1 inch cubes and pressure can them.

My wife is from the "big city" originally, but took to the small town/farm life very well. We had a very good old milk cow that was named Salt, due to fact that she was almost all white. When she was 11 years old, she would not get pregnant and when production of milked dropped too low we decided to be rid of her. She was very lean, even for a dairy cow...probably due to her high milk production, and would bring a very good price. We decided to butcher her for ourselves. We ended up with 400# burger and about #100 of canning meat. We did another steer at the same time, so my mom canned them, but wrote on the jars which animal it was in case the old cow was not as good.

After having the first two jars of canned cow, my wife asked my mom how much salt she put in the meat before canning, and why she only put salt in some of the jars. My mom was confused as she always put the same amount in every jar. My wife said that she must not have done it to all the jars, because some of them had "Salt" written on the top! My mom figured it out, and said that "Salt" was the name of the cow that was in the jar.

So even the city girl approves of an old dairy cow above all else.