Quote:
Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
Do we even use pasture anymore? I thought we fed all livestock bushel after bushel of corn.
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I'm not a rancher, just a property owner. The guy who runs cattle on our land runs cattle on several thousand acres in the area and makes out a decent living.
My understanding is that they raise the cattle to a certain age and then take them to a feed lot to be fattened, by the method you mention, before butchering.
Most of the beef in our freezer actually comes from another part of the state where another family member raises a few calves every year and lets us buy one at a bit under market price. They never see a feed lot and go straight from pasture (with some hand feeding) to butchering. Due to the drought this summer he sold the calves early on when his pasture was hurting and the cost of feed and hay sky rocketed. Luckily the acorn harvest looks good so the deer should be fat in a few weeks.
