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Feed vs Meat Flavor

A

Anonymous-0

Well-known Member
I'm trying to finish out a couple simmental cross steers for butcher. One has about 1 month to go and another about 2 months. I didn't get my weeds sprayed in the corn the past year so my silage has some weeds in it. You can sometimes smell the bitterness of it. I wouldn't want to eat it, but in the middle of winter the herd cleans it all up. I've isolated the steers and have been giving them shell corn instead. They also get choice of alfalfa and mixed grass hay. Will the silage bitterness change the flavor of the meat? Anyone have poor feed experience?
 
If you get them eating over 20 pounds of shelled corn they won't eat much silage. I think the feeders here try to get the roughage down to a pound and a half or 2 pounds.
 
The best beef I have ever had, and this is based on MY taste, are from a gent that puts them on full feed and only feed, right after weaning. I always try and pick the ones that are 1050 or so. These are Angus/Simmental cross. I dont like them "finished" because I beleive I am paying for too much fat at that point. We spilt about 4-6 steers a year with others and everyone says it's the best they have ever had and always repeat with another couple that want in on the deal. If corn stays low, that is how I will be finishing this springs calves in the fall.
 
I was a barley and proso grower, but I all ways thought that they were way better taste if fed shelled corn. The meat from the stores has been fed and fattened on silage--nuff said.
Kenny
 
The best tasting beef comes from steers fed corn and beer. I think the beer helps increase the fat not only from the calories but it increases their appetite to eat more corn.
 
I don't know if something like that will flavor the meat or not. I would think it would take an awful lot of it. I do know it'll affect the flavor of milk,but that's a little more imediate result kind of thing. I guess grass fed beef tastes different,or so I hear. But I don't think they get much,if any corn. I think I'd just push them up to more corn for a while before you butcher them.
 
If you can add a little supplement with the shelled corn to up the protein some would be a big help too. I would't feed them any more of the silage. Just my opionon from my experience.
 
We grass and grain feed to 3-400 Lbs then straight grain feed to about 900 Lbs then butchered. We raised beef and hogs on the farm and owned a meat market. Twenty years with no complaints and all the customers raved about our grain feed beef. I beleave it's the best I ever ate, tender, juicey, and good. Now I'm hungry ! LOL
 
No doubt feed has an effect on flavor or quality. Great Grandpa saw a hog following one of the dairy cows and her production was dropping off quite a bit. He told Grandpa who was going to put a stop to that to go ahead and let him have all the milk he wanted. He is going to supply our Christmas ham!
 
Same for animals as folks...you are what you eat!
Shot a deer one time that had been eating nuthin but ground ceder all winter...the bad taste was in the meat. Following year at bout the same time got a dear that had been eating out of a new clover field...great tasting meat!
As long as your beef do't eat too much of it before butchering they should be OK.
 
Feed quality definitely affects meat quality, had some wheat with to much wild garlic to sell, it gave preseasoned meat, you could smell it all over the house. Go to the store and buy as many apples as you can afford gives the meat a very sweet smell/taste.
 
That reminds me of one time,my brother told my sister "you are what you eat". She said "so you still taste like ....then huh?"
 
I got a 1/2 cow from a fellow farmer before I had beef cows he finished it out in the basement of a old dairy barn , a tiestall barn if I remember correct , finished on corn for the last 90 days.....was the worst beef I ever had...taseted like musty old barn thru all the fat , if you trimmed as much of the fat off it was barely palitable. some of the best beef I have gotten from a organic dairy farmer who feeds high energy sialage and good grass hay with little to no grain, had very good marbleing and exelent taste and very tender as well...
 
We finish beef on silage and hay and the taste is excellent. We don't feed grain, but the meat is tender and we have had nothing but positive comments from our customers.
 
I agree with Cowman, once they get over 900 pounds, their diet should have only a small amount of forage in it. It is simply used as in "scratch" the rumen to aid in digestion. As Cowman also said, at finish, there should only be about 1.5 lbs. of roughage in their diet. ALOT of big time cattle feeders blend in damaged corn and other damaged feedstuffs into their rations with their TMR mixers, so I wouldn't sweat giving them some low quality forage, as long as they are getting all the shelled corn they want. You may want to go to limit feeding them their hay as they go on full feed of grain, as some calves will eat all hay one day, then load up on corn the next. Not good. Some guys get along great this way, but I've never been brave enough to try. On an offhand comment, I wonder if a guy had alot of Pigweed in his silage, if nitrate poisionng would be a problem. Just a thought, and hopefully someone will have more insight here.

Good Luck!

Iowa Farmer
 
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