Raising Grass-Fed Beef

By Helen Molitor
Published on May 1, 1980
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Properly pastured, raising grass-fed beef cattle can yield you more meat — up to 200 pounds more, with less fat and at less cost than commercial grain-fed beef.
Properly pastured, raising grass-fed beef cattle can yield you more meat — up to 200 pounds more, with less fat and at less cost than commercial grain-fed beef.
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LEFT: Your livestock can show a steady one-pound-a-day weight increase during their first winter if you feed them the right amount of good-quality hay. RIGHT: Test a sample of your cattle's hay by poking into a bale and pulling out a random wisp. Make sure it's dry, crispy, light green, and won't snap when bent.
LEFT: Your livestock can show a steady one-pound-a-day weight increase during their first winter if you feed them the right amount of good-quality hay. RIGHT: Test a sample of your cattle's hay by poking into a bale and pulling out a random wisp. Make sure it's dry, crispy, light green, and won't snap when bent.

Every year, North Americans waste more than 18 million tons of protein by feeding livestock on grain. A steer, you see, must eat 21 pounds of grain protein in order to produce one pound of beef protein . . . so 20 pounds of the valuable nutrient is lost in the process.

It is commonly assumed, of course, that grain-fed beef is the world’s best . . . and if you’ve ever wrestled with a chunk of elderly range cow, you may agree. However, the “fossil” you tasted then wasn’t typical of real grass-fed beef, because such meat can be as tender as any touted commercial cut . . . and much tastier, as well.

So if your land produces hay — or if your climate is such that you can keep cattle on pasture for a good part of the year — you can save money by growing your own feed and raising grass-fed beef. Furthermore, even if you have to buy your supply of hay, you’ll find such feed to be much less expensive than grain and a better nutritional buy than most folks realize: Average-to-good hay is more than half digestible nutrients, while grains–despite their high prices–are only about 80% digestible.

Production-Line Cattle

When you consider all the advantages of grass-feeding, you’d think there’d be more livestock raised in such a manner . . . but beef is big business, and commercial cattle operations are huge and streamlined. Young steers are weaned early and sent to large feedlots to fatten quickly on grain. Some such “cow factories” hold more than 10,000 animals, yet they don’t require much area, as compared to the amount of land needed by even a modest number of grazing cattle. Thus, the feedlot owner’s investment and taxes are lower than those of a farmer who pastures his or her beasts.

Then, too, when nobody pays much attention to individual animals (as is the case in feedlots), a grain diet produces a more uniform meat product . . . especially when it’s backed by hormone shots to increase the beasts’ appetites. Consequently, enormous feedlots supply the gigantic packing plants, and the assembly-line steaks just keep moving right along.

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