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They are per hundred weight. So 181.00 would be the equivalent of 1.81/pound. If you sold a 500 lb steer at that rate, you would get $905.

Correct. That would be the price per pound.

If you're just looking to send it straight to the butcher, I'd buy a fattened steer in the 1200 lb range. Make sure to go beef and not holstein or other dairy. Not saying dairy can't taste good, but it takes a lot more work and grain to make a dairy animal taste good, and if you don't know the background you'll never know what you're getting into. The same applies to beef as well, but beef were bred to make meat, so there is more leeway. We grow out our own beef, and the more grain you can put through them, the more marbling in the meat, the better the taste. Hard to tell exactly what you're getting at the slaughter market until you pull the hide off, but a 1200 lb Angus, Hereford, or any other beef breed should be good. If you know the background, it's good to look for maternal breed in the background, ie Red/Black Angus, Hereford, Shorthorn, and avoid terminal to some extent, ie charolais, brahman, gelbvieh. Again, not to say they can't taste good, but the slower growing maternal breeds tend to lend themselves more naturally to better marbling and better flavor.

According to that report, they didn't sell any fat cattle (fed and ready to butcher)on that day. Unless there's another page, they don't sell fat cattle on Thursdays, or maybe there's another report that include fats. If you attend a few sales you'll get the idea of how they do things, but typically there's a time slot each week they'll run fats through the ring. These are the cattle that are going to give you the best product, they're the right age group and have been fed properly to produce a good carcass and marbling. At least here, you'll also see some dairy steers run through that are ready to butcher. Meat quality is fine though yield is not what you'd get from a beef breed. Price reflects the lower yield.
That's not to say you can't buy an older cow or bull, but it's not something I'd suggest. Meat quality is going to be a crap shoot, some will be great and some will be like leather. Whatever you choose, don't buy an animal that's bouncing off the rails when they come through. An animal that gets that worked up just going through then ring will also get worked up when taken to the butcher, and you end up with a freezer full of meat you can barely chew. Been there.

Unless you know exactly what you're looking for, and have a trailer to haul it to a slaughter facility, you'd be better off buying from a local farmer. Most sale barns are not also slaughter houses. Maybe yours is. If not you'll need someone with a kill truck and a cooler to age it. Unless YOU are set up and knowledgeable or have got friends to help and somebody with a good cooler to age it in, think twice before you bite off more than you can chew. Aging beef is the key to tender meat.

Right now beef breed fats are at about 1.25 a lb. live weight or about 2.00 a lb. hanging weight, Dairy breed fat steers are at about .85 a lb. or 1.40 a lb. hanging. I raise and am partial to beef breeds but most people could not tell the difference to a corn fat Holstein steer.

That is, assuming the meat reached the same level of marbling. You can feed a Holstein to taste good, but it takes a lot more grain. We've done both, and you could easily tell the difference. Beef are genetically inclined to fatten better. Dairy has a lot of leather, hip, and leg, little yield, and less fat, generally.

So where does a longhorn fit in?

What are you wanting? Finished out for you or are you wanting to finish one yourself? Typically, like stated above most yards finish them up to about 1200 lbs. Generally steers will finish heavier, quicker and you definitely want a beef breed when paying by the pound or the pound price will be offset as you see on the market report on the Holsteins.

Between two hamburger buns.
People that think they like lean beef would be fine with it I guess. It's fine for hamburger, but for most of us that like the flavor from marbling, the steaks are barely worth cutting.

Longhorns are hardy, and can live off of dust and cacti, but because of that, they're usually tougher and more gamey. Once again, depends a lot on how they're raised, but if buying live, buying a beef breed is like buying insurance. Beef will cost a little more, but typically better eating.

If you like pork, don't forget that you can buy hogs at auction or straight from the farmer, at huge savings, compared to grocery stores too.

Keith

Only terms I’ve seen used are fat cattle or fed cattle. Fat cattle is by far the most common term.

What are meat hogs bringing now on the hoof? 240 - 300 lbs.?

Butcher beef. Cows have had calves. Not what you want.

About .55 to 60 cents a pound in our neck of the woods.

Here’s a link to our local barn report. There’s a separate fat cattle report, but in this overall report they refer to them as “choice” and “good” at the top. You can also see prices for fed holsteins. I tried to check your local barns Facebook page but can’t get it to load on my phone.

http://muskingumlivestock.com/?page_id=9

This is correct. Another term is just “Fats” . I put 46 on the show list last week and they went out today. They where heifers and paid on 1260. On a calf this size you should expect them to yield 63% of there hot weight. Yield is bone and meat hanging.

thats impressive yield... must be well taken care of!! what breed ? my guess blacks

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.