Beef too high in the store?

[Cowbaby]

If you can't climb up on a chute and push a 1/2-3/4 inch dent in its back with your thumb that stays a dent and don't snap back up she isn't ready for PRIME TIME. That's a sheath of back fat that has to be put on first before you start to get a good marble. Marbleing is the last fat to be put on after the animal runs out of places to stick it and starts placing it inter-muscle. And your never going to get there with grass. JMHO. 85-90 days min on feed and a little more if you got it up to 120.

You don't need no teefs to eat my beefs. Heart transplant maybe, but I don't plan on sitting in an old folks home staring at the door.

 

[dennishoddy]

If you can't climb up on a chute and push a 1/2-3/4 inch dent in its back with your thumb that stays a dent and don't snap back up she isn't ready for PRIME TIME. That's a sheath of back fat that has to be put on first before you start to get a good marble. And your never going to get there with grass. JMHO. 85-90 days min on feed and a little more if you got it.

You don't need no teefs to eat my beefs. Heart transplant maybe, but I don't plan on sitting in an old folks home staring at the door.

She?

 

[dennishoddy]

She?

If you can't climb up on a chute and push a 1/2-3/4 inch dent in its back with your thumb that stays a dent and don't snap back up she isn't ready for PRIME TIME. That's a sheath of back fat that has to be put on first before you start to get a good marble. Marbleing is the last fat to be put on after the animal runs out of places to stick it and starts placing it inter-muscle. And your never going to get there with grass. JMHO. 85-90 days min on feed and a little more if you got it up to 120.

You don't need no teefs to eat my beefs. Heart transplant maybe, but I don't plan on sitting in an old folks home staring at the door.

She?
I know that was a typo. I make em all the time.

 

[Cowbaby]

Oh yes, wrong pronoun for most but you can feed out either the same way, The feed lots do some of both. I personally like a fat heifer unless I want to go 1500+lb big carcass and platter sized steaks. But that's just me.
The feeder guys like to aim at around 1080-1150 slaughter weight for no other reason than that is the size steaks and cuts American consumers prefer. Today's shopper doesn't want them bigger and view them as being tougher. Up to the 20and30s they feed steers all the way to 2000lbs for those humongous steaks John Wayne sits down to at Del Monico's in the movies or those steaks for two you get at the Ft. Worth Stockyard restaurants or Amarillo.

I won two trophy plaques when I was younger made from the original stockyard fences in Fort Worth in the 1800s. One of each for Champion same sex Boxcar Load of Steers and Heifers. That award takes not one but the best 144 steers or heifers in a single sale lot or what they consider how many they can cram in a boxcar. This particular sale was invitation only of the big boys where they are matching volume buyers and sellers.

I would like to say it was because I am one expert cowboy to win that but I am not. The owner of the ranch was the Vice President of the East Dallas Bank and like everything else it was political. Cronies. Plus, they wanted him to keep bringing his loads there so they give you a trinket to impress you. HA some things never change.

I still have the one for the steers after all these years. The only thing I ever won I am proud of, a piece of our 1800s history, longhorns, the now defunct Fort Worth Coliseum-"The Wall St. of the West", Life before Billy Bobs and The tourist trap it is now, end of the Chisholm trail drives all of it.

 

[dennishoddy]

View attachment 207111 OH yes, wrong pronoun for most but you can feed out either the same way, The feed lots do some of both. I personally like a fat heifer unless I want to go 1500+lb big carcass and platter sized steaks. But that's just me.
The feeder guys like to aim at around 1080-1150 slaughter weight for no other reason than that is the size steaks and cuts American consumers prefer. Today's shopper doesn;t want them bigger and view them as being tougher. Up to the 20and30s they feed steers all the way to 2000lbs for those humongoous steaks John Wayne sits down to at Del Monico's in the movies or those steaks for two you get at the Ft. Worth Stockyard restaurants;

I won two trophy plaques when I was younger made from the original stockyard fences in Fort Worth in the 1800s. ONE of each for Champion Boxcar Load of Steers and Heifers. That award takes the best 144 steers or heifers in a single lot or what they consider how many they can cram in a boxcar.

I would like to say it was because I am one expert cowboy to win that but I am not. The owner of the ranch was the Vice President of the East Dallas Bank and like everything else it was political. Cronies. Plus, they wanted him to keep bringing his loads there so they give you a trinket to try to impress you. HA some things never change.

I still have the one for the steers after all these years. The only thing I ever won I am proud of, a piece of our 1800s history.

Very cool!
Ex wife worked in a beef processing plant for awhile. They made burger for Dairy Queen and other places.
The buyer was always looking for beef that was no longer usable on the meat market. Old bulls, cows, etc that could just be made into burger.
I won't discuss some of the shenanigans she talked about while on the finishing line.

 

[JR777]

It's the same with lumber. The producers aren't making any more than they did before. It's the middlemen who are cleaning up.

The only solution to this is to go local. Let the city dwellers have their factory farm food and meatless hamburgers, and people who live in rural areas start producing only high quality food based on time tested methods and start selling them locally. You don't even have to go to farmer's markets anymore. You can do it all online through FB communities. You're about to slaughter a cow, your neighbor has a crop of heirloom tomatoes coming in. Not hard to figure this one out.

 

[retrieverman]

They need to recruit in the Rio Grande Valley. Lots of people coming out of the water needing work.

It’s been done, and I’m sure is still being done. When I first went to work for Pilgrims in the early 90’s, it was an urban legend that Bo Pilgrim sent a weekly bus to Laredo to pick up his new labor force for the processing plants. It was said he provided them with towels to dry off with and fake green cards, and then put them to work. It turned out to be at least partially true. Since that time, every town I know of in east Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana that has a poultry processing plant is overrun with mexicans.

 

[Blue Heeler]

They need to recruit in the Rio Grande Valley. Lots of people coming out of the water needing work.

LOL. Previous administrations actually enforced laws and made the meat plants hire those with legit ID’s. The current administration seems a bit indifferent to the law if it will provide a voter base for the “Democrat Plantation”.

Other issues ... in parts of Mexico and south America, the homes don’t have the ability to flush toilet paper. So what they do after dropping a deuce is wipe their greasy bums and put the used toilet paper or towels in a basked next to the toilet.

So they come to a meat plant in the US of A and they don’t see a basket, what do they do? They typically will just drop the toilet paper on the floor.

Even with such safety protocols as footbaths, special boots and the precautions taken in either a raw or cooked meat facility ... that’s a problem.

One more ... sometimes employees in meat plants will drop a big ol’ chunk of meat on the floor. Knowing that the management is not to keen on throwing good meat away, they will wash it off. In fact, some years ago some plants had “meat washes” on the floor for such.

Back in 2000, I was in an IBP plant just outside El Paso. I see someone drop a huge slab of beef on the plant floor. The plant foreman ... who grew up in post war Germany where they boiled weeds for soup ... picks the meat, says something in Spanish to the employee and takes it to the meat wash.

I ask, “What are you doing?” and he replies rather indignantly, “Washing your meat.” I inform him that is against our production protocols and to trash it. He then says, “It is going to be cooked ...there is not danger.” I told him I understand but trash it. He then is kind of pissed and says, “So what makes your meat so special?” All I could think of was, “My wife says so.”

 

[CHenry]

My experience with “grass fed” hasn’t been that great, so I plan on sticking to grain fed from now on and endure the cost.

Depends on what type of grass you have and what breed of steer I believe. Mine was a black angus on bermuda grass, then when it went dormant I put her on bermuda hay till she was heavier and no bloat from the green grass.
turned out good. Not quite as good as grain feeding for 120 days but a heck of a lot cheaper.

 

[CHenry]

I’ve eaten a lot of both and prefer grain fed. Meat gets its flavor from fat sub-q fat and marbling. There is a slight color difference between the 2. Grain fed cattle will get to butcher weight faster but cost more to achieve that weight than grass fed. It’s probably a toss up when weighing the pros and cons. I know I do love me some good home raised beef and will continue to consume it no matter the cost


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I should have addeed, I had one sack of cracked corn that I gave to my grass fed beef. To get rid of the corn as well as add some fat to her. Gave her a coffee can a day till it was gone.