when to kill 2 steers for my freezer

[johnmcg]

Hello,

I have two March 2012 steers and wondering when the best time to get them ready for the freezer is.These will be the first time I have brought some to the butcher.

I've attached two photos to give an idea of their condition.

Thanks,
John

[JohnnyP]

Hi - I've only slaughtered one steer, non-short, 30 months, but he completely filled one chest freezer with a bit of overflow into a second. My point being that two steers would need a lot of freezer space! Cheers, John.

[SteveM]

for us it depends on what we have available, prefer to have beef around november when weather is cooler for handling, and it gets the steers away without having to feed over winter, some go close to 30 months, but sometimes under 24 months.

normally beef steers but the one time we did a heifer the butcher said she should have been killed a couple of months earlier as a bit too fat, but the customer who bought half thought it was great.

sold two feb/march 2011 steers last spring, buyer had them killed end of July and hung for 4 weeks, tells us its the best beef he has had and ordered two of this years steers to turn out next spring.

[Rob R]

Hi - I've only slaughtered one steer, non-short, 30 months, but he completely filled one chest freezer with a bit of overflow into a second. My point being that two steers would need a lot of freezer space! Cheers, John.

How big is your freezer? We worked out that each kg of beef, takes up 0.072 cubic feet or 2 litres, depending upon how it is cut, of course.

Re: when to kill, I'd go with what SteveM said - it depends how you want it and convenient it is for you, and your personal taste. We slaughter from about 22 - 30 months off grass or grass silage, year round. Shorts tend to go earlier than longs.

[domsmith]

Keep them under 30 months if you can. the tail heads look noce and fat, they look near as to me.

dom

[johnmcg]

Thanks for that, November would be my ideal time which would make them 20 months.

I only had my bull to compare with and I was guessing they were near enough ready. Where they would be lighter is in the front and rib area.

Would they benefit from getting some beef nuts between now and November? Or is there much impact on taste?

[Buryhill Dexters]

I generally look to slaughter animals to finish rather than age, wait until they have grown to their optimum size and have a decent covering of fat - the easiest way to see this is when you can see pockets of fat starting to show either side of the tail head (which yours do not have yet).

As for pushing on with beef nuts this will work and make them grow & produce fat more quickly but in my opinion will spoil the beef (both in texture & taste) and produce the wrong type of fat - for me anyway the whole point of keeping Dexter's is that produce the best beef and will happily finish on grass alone, which also produces a softer more yellowy coloured fat which disappears when cooking and keeps the beef more tender & flavoursome.

Finally I'm no tree hugging lefty (and run my Dexter's as a commercial single suckler beef herd) but I like to give my animals a decent length of life and if you let the beef mature to a sensible age & finish on the hoof (ie: live longer) the quality of the beef improves somewhat. It is only since mad cow disease that everybody has gotten hooked up with killing under 30 months and prior to this cattle were killed at finish with little regard to age and the only problem with over 30 months is that they have to be boned out at the slaughterhouse - which if you intend to have the beef boned & packed for you by the abattoir ceases to be a problem ???

I'm sure many people on here will disagree with my opinions and will advocate killing at 18 or 20 months but I can only offer my opinion from my experience and I prefer to eat beef from a properly matured animal not part grown adolescent.

[Rob R]

I agree with the above (Buryhill) - grass is the cheapest feed I have and cereal may or may not affect the taste, but it does affect the composition (fatty acids, CLA-levels, etc). I kill mine at what most people might consider underfinished but if you want to finish on cereals there are, IMO, breeds (and species) out there that will do it better and cheaper than the Dexter, and they seem to need more hanging the more cereal they've get. I like to get them away by 30m as it means they have a short ride to the local abattoir (our nearest fields are just across the road), rather than going much further to one that will do OTM, and the added cost that incurs means we'd need so much more beef to justify it. Everyone is different though, so it's best to do what suits you, particularly if it's for your own consumption.