By Heather Smith Thomas
In the past 60 years, most people in the U.S. came to believe that cattle must be finished on grain in order to provide an excellent eating experience, and with the advent of feedlots, animals could be “finished” at a younger age. Most countries around the world, however, finish cattle on grass, and many of them do a great job of it. As grass-fed beef has begun to gain popularity in the U.S. for health reasons, a growing number of producers are moving into niche marketing to supply the desired grass-fed products. Stockmen in this country are beginning to re-learn the key aspects of what it takes to produce a good grass-finished beef animal. Kathy Panner, a beef producer near Riddle, Oregon, raises grass-fed beef. “I remember reading Joel Salatin’s advice when we first started. He told people to make sure they had a quality product to sell. He said to grow some, eat some yourself, give some to your neighbors and see if they come back and ask for more. You need to find out if you actually have a product that somebody wants. We’ve found some grass-fed beef in the stores that is poor quality—basically not edible. You need to find out if you can create a quality product,” she says. The next thing is to decide whether you’ll try to finish cattle year round, having animals finishing at all times of the year, or just seasonally when your grass is best. In many parts of the U.S., the grass is not good enough to finish beef except during the months it is actively green and growing. “Most of the country does not have
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the proper climate for year-round grass finishing. We can’t even do it here in the Northwest. There are very small pockets of the country that enable you to do it year-round on a fresh basis. You might be able to market it yearround by harvesting the animals during the optimal months and freezing/storing the beef for later marketing,” explains Panner. You also need to decide if you want to direct-market your product (which requires a lot of time and effort, and a cooperating slaughter plant) or sell it to a branded beef program that does the slaughtering and marketing for you.
TIMING IS CRUCIAL “To finish well, cattle have to be gaining at least 2 pounds a day during that last 120 days. If you are trying to finish cattle on pasture, you have to look at your climate and determine which 120 days of the year can provide pasture of this quality. Irrigation can extend this period of time,” she says. “The first thing to ask yourself is what time of year you can finish animals. If you want them to gain 2.5 pounds a day for 120 days, do the math and arrive at the start of that period with an animal large enough to finish in that length of time,” she explains.
“That’s where more people run into trouble. Their management system is set up to get the animal to 900 pounds at the end of their best season of grazing, rather than at the start of the best grass. In order for this animal to spend his finishing time at home on pasture, you have to get him to that stage at the beginning of when you’d have 120 days of really good pasture,” she explains. This is very challenging for a lot of grass-fed operations. You have to think about when to calve, and how you are going to get the weaned calves through winter. “Any time you start to manipulate your resource dramatically, to do something like this, you run into trouble with Mother Nature because you will get out of sync and somewhere along the line it’s not going to work very well. You need to think this through and figure out how you can do it,” says Panner. “We are fortunate here in our part of Oregon that we have very mild winters. We calve in March, and by the following March, if we take good care of our calves after weaning, they will hit this crucial period of time at about 800 to 900 pounds. Then we’ll have the necessary 120 days of really good pasture to finish them. Those calves can be finished by the time they are 16 to 17 months of age,” says Panner. “But everything has to be working well, every step of the way, to do this. The cows have to be doing a good job raising their calves. Then you have to supply the calves with an adequate diet through the winter so they continue to gain well. Then they hit the grass at just the right time. It took us about 15 years to figure out how to do this just right,” she says. -- continued on pg. 50 Texas Longhorn Trails