How to Raise Prime Beef
To raise prime beef, begin with young cattle bred specifically for beef production such as the Black Angus or Hereford breeds. These beef breeds tend to fill out and achieve ideal weight for butchering by about 13 months of age. The younger the cattle are at butchering the more tender the beef. Allowing beef calves to nurse for four to six months before weaning helps prevent common health problems that plague bottle-fed dairy steers.
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Instructions
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Begin feeding your calf a high-protein supplement while it is still nursing from the cow to raise prime beef. Calf feeders, as the one pictured, have gates that prevent cows from getting into the calf feed, yet allow unlimited access to young calves.
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Castrate your bull calves prior to weaning from the cow for prime beef production. Calves tend to heal faster and suffer fewer setbacks from castration when left with the cow during the healing period.
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Vaccinate your calves and apply a topical wormer while you have them in the shoot for castrating.
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Start weaned calves on a mixture of pasture, hay, silage or other roughage as well as minerals and a protein supplement. Do not allow calves full access to the protein supplement or high protein-roughage mixture initially as it can cause bloating and death. Instead, give them a measured amount, increasing the amount each day over a 30-day period, until they work up to unlimited access.
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Slowly decrease the protein percentage as the beef cattle age. Specific formulas are available for optimal feeding of each breed of cattle at specific ages involving protein percentages, mineral supplements and forage. Links are provided in the Resource section that provide this information, or follow the directions provided with your brand of feed.
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Tips & Warnings
Mineral supplements may be rationed into the feed and roughage mixture or you can set out tubs of supplement licks. Antibiotics, wormers and fly-protection applications have specific withdrawal times that must be adhered to prior to butchering, some nearly two months.
Unlimited access to high-protein supplements can cause any cattle not used to unlimited feed to founder or bloat, which can result in death.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Julia Fuller
