Homesteaders

[GerbilsOnToast]

Yes grass is much better for them. Cattle really are not made to digest grain. Grass-fed takes longer to grow, you will need to give your calves 2 years instead of one, but it is worth it.

One year is not beef - it's veal.
Even grain-fed beef with hormone implants takes a *minimum* of fifteen months, usually it's harvested at eighteen. How long it takes to finish a grass-fed steer depends on genetics and quality/quantity of feed. Two years is common for harvest - but many people are harvesting by age & not condition - which is why so much of it is dry and tough. Most grass fed beef needs to be about 28 months to have a proper finish (fat cover and marbling). If you're raising a steer for beef, you need to be providing enough quality/quantity of feed for it to gain 3 pounds per day - every day.

 

[KlopKlop]

Been busy playing in the dirt tonight just about have all of my plugs transplanted into bigger pots. I have all kinds of repurposed pots that i have saved over time, found around my farm, and also some washed/used solo cups! I have about 30 more tomatoes then they are done. Peppers are still quite small and will need more time before transplant

 

[OrganicFarmWife]

Yes grass is much better for them. Cattle really are not made to digest grain. Grass-fed takes longer to grow, you will need to give your calves 2 years instead of one, but it is worth it.

One year is not beef - it's veal. 
Even grain-fed beef with hormone implants takes a *minimum* of fifteen months, usually it's harvested at eighteen. How long it takes to finish a grass-fed steer depends on genetics and quality/quantity of feed. Two years is common for harvest - but many people are harvesting by age & not condition - which is why so much of it is dry and tough. Most grass fed beef needs to be about 28 months to have a proper finish (fat cover and marbling).  If you're raising a steer for beef, you need to be providing enough quality/quantity of feed for it to gain 3 pounds per day - every day.

I am no expert on grain fed, but here it is just over a year, maybe 14 months. As far as grass fed we always process at around 2 years. Great marbling.

 

[OrganicFarmWife]

Been busy playing in the dirt tonight just about have all of my plugs transplanted into bigger pots. I have all kinds of repurposed pots that i have saved over time, found around my farm, and also some washed/used solo cups! I have about 30 more tomatoes then they are done. Peppers are still quite small and will need more time before transplant

They look great! Jealous, someday I want a proper greenhouse

 

[GerbilsOnToast]

I am no expert on grain fed, but here it is just over a year, maybe 14 months. As far as grass fed we always process at around 2 years. Great marbling.

Pictures, please!

 

[Raech]

I actually did some hard yard work today and yesterday. Pulled 2 yard waste cans worth of thistles by hand, then mowed the backyard and the front. I need to go take more wood off of the original chicken house for the neighbor's garden beds she wants to build. Lets just hope the wall doesn't fall on me, she needs 40 boards if my math was right. All I have to do is pull it off and stack it by the pasture fence, she will come and pick it all up to bring it up here. Need to call Grandpa first and make sure he doesnt have anything planned or the horses in that pasture first, I will have my boys with me and they arent allowed in the pasture with the horses. I can fight the cranky mare off, my kids cant, she has went after me before and I had to dive under the hotwire to avoid being trampled. I love animals but I wont be horribly upset when she passes away, she has a good reason to be the way she is but I have never been mean to her.

 

[MoonShadows]

Window for new chicken tractor made from a microwave oven plate. Couple chicken rockers made from the scrap.

Very ingenious window!

 

[OrganicFarmWife]

I am no expert on grain fed, but here it is just over a year, maybe 14 months. As far as grass fed we always process at around 2 years. Great marbling.

Pictures, please!

Pictures of meat? Or cattle?

 

[OrganicFarmWife]

Pictures of meat? Or cattle?

Both.
I'm asking for credentials.  It's obvious you love to see yourself type - you've been on BYC for five months, and made over 3k posts - an average of 20 posts a day.  Posts as vital as "I don't know" in response to other people's questions, other posts containing misinformation. Real farmers don't have that kind of time on their hands - especially in spring, and choosing a username doesn't make it reality.

 
The direction of the thread was trying to figure out how Raech could come as close as possible to what she WANTS to put on a small piece of land.
If you were a farmer, you'd know that you don't bring in livestock just assuming you can depend on another farmer to feed that livestock.  Only cash crops are grown with an eye to having more than you need - and they're sold as quickly as possible to the highest offer.  Cash flow is vital to farms. Your neighboring farmer is not a grocery store for animals; unless you have a pre-existing *very* good relationship, he's not going to happily go pull out the tractor or skid-steer to fetch you a bale of hay every few days, and if he does so at all, you'll be paying premium prices.  He is also not going to hold back enough to get *your* animals through the winter if he has a chance to sell it to someone else first - and when hay is scarce, he WILL have that chance. The feed store, OTOH, *is* a grocery store for animals - but the hay they carry is often expensive and quality varies widely.

 

If you were grass cattle farmer, you'd know that an adult brood cow consumes approximately 75lbs of hay per day, and in the two months that has to be prepared for anywhere besides the deep south, that's 4500 lbs of hay - about five 5x6foot round bales, or approximately fifty squares per cow. Raech lives in Washington; winter may or may not be grazeable any given year - but it's guaranteed to be wet.  If Raech is going to prepare for winter with hay alone, and have a reliable store of it, she's going to need another building to store it in. That building will require ingress/egress areas; the total space requirement, on a very small homestead, is significant. Organic certification is all about record keeping, and much of farming is about making calculations based on those records and other data you know - often on the fly.  You haven't demonstrated any of these skills.  

I am uninterested in providing you credentials (though if anyone else here needs them I would be happy to provide) the key words are farmers wife. I am home with two little children 24/7 I live in the middle of no where so have no one to talk to except a girlfriend who calls to discuss children. I do help as I can on our farm, and hopping as they grow I will get more freedom. Generally I am on here while sitting on the couch wrestling babies. All of my posts were over winter, they will probably, and have reduced as things thaw out and I can get everyone out of doors.
We keep our hay outside, hundreds of bails, not a problem. I agree if she is going with square bails she will need at least a tarp over them, I do not know many people that still make square bails.
Many people around us rely on other farmers to buy their hay, we have sold our excess numerous times. I will agree it will be harder to get dairy quality hay, but I still believe it is a very viable option. And I think it was chicken girl who is looking for the cattle.
ETA: Oh and as far as that poor girl on the other post goes that just wanted organic eggs. I disagree there is a difference between organic you produce at home and organic you buy commercially. Commercial standards are strick, mostly to prevent conventional farmers from flooding the market. A person can grow chickens, happily eat their eggs and enjoy all the benefits (probably more benefits) a store bought organic egg could provide. They do not need to follow the same standards a commercial farmer does. As long as she does not try to sell them organic, there should be no problem with medicated chick feed

 

[Raech]

We still make square bales, we have an old barn and a hay barn that we store it all in, we have sold some extra because we only have the 2 horses. Grandpa doesn't like to deal with the people to get it done so instead we just store it, so we have a large amount put up. We try to do the back pastures alfalfa and grass and when we need to hay the front pasture it is just grass bales. We have very mild winters compared to alot of you guys, we get cold to freezing temps but not alot of snow and never for very long. Most of our pasture stays semi green but we do feed in the winters just to keep the horses at the butterball shape. I will talk to Dad about doing Dexters instead of the Angus crosses we were looking at, he just left town for a short run before the birthday party. Any idea on how much a pregnant Dexter goes for, roughly?