Summary of the Requirements for a Successful Program
by Walt Davis

1. Know what product meets the demand of the targeted market. Understand the difference between “grass fat” and “lean, grass fed” and make sure that the product advertised is the product being sold. It is critical that no grain be used in the production of the product in order to protect it's chemical composition.
2. Understand what management techniques are required to produce the chosen product. This is “fast track production” much like grass dairying and not a good time to learn grazing management or forage production.
3. Qualify and if necessary educate customers to insure satisfaction with the product. Even if the product is excellent and exactly as advertised, people will be dissatisfied if it is not what they expected. It takes twelve very pleased customers to undo the damage done by one dissatisfied customer.
4. Understand that tenderness and other meat qualities are controled by genetics, age, stress and rate of gain. Rate of gain is important at all times but especially so in the weeks prior to slaughter when a high rate of gain is critical to quality meat. Starting with genetically tender cattle is a must. Cattle that stop gaining or lose weight at any point will produce tough meat. It is especially critical that calves recieve proper nutrition during their first two weeks of life and during the adolesent period that will vary from 10 to 16 months depending upon genetics. It is during these periods that the fat cells that become intramuscular fat or marbling are formed and animals that are nutritionially deprived during either of these periods will not have the ability to fully marble.
5. Understand the differences between feeding a high energy grain ration and a lower energy forage ration. Energy will be used first for maintenance, then for growth and only last, if any is left, for depositing fat. It will be necessary to create a forage flow plan to provide the quality and quantity of forage needed to produce finished animals that maintain good gains over the entire period from birth to slaughter. In most cases annual plants such as cereal grains and warm season annual grasses and legumes will be needed to provide the quality of forage required.
6. A cattle becomes efficient in converting forages into gain only after it is old enough to have a well developed rumen. If very young calves are to be fattened, they will require rations with more energy than is available in all forage diets.
7. Intramuscular fat has great effect on what most people consider to be desirable eating qualities while rind or exterior fat has little effect on the same qualities. Very little intramuscular fat will be deposited until a cattle reaches 65% of mature body size.
8. Success is much more likely if the producer starts with the right genetics. As a rule of thumb, steer cattle will finish at a weight about ten percent greater than their dams' mature weight. Large cattle mature slowly and utilize a larger percentage of energy intake for maintaince than do smaller cattle. Moderate sized, early maturing cattle are more apt to be easy fleshing and will finish at a younger age. Tenderness is highly heritable and seems to be correlated to high butterfat content of the milk.
9. Animals must not lose weight at any point in the process or quality of the meat, especially tenderness, will be reduced. To produce high quality meat, the animals must have access to feed and water continuously up to the time of slaughter. Fasting reduces the glycogen in muscles which raises pH causing darkening, off flavors and loss of tenderness. If fasting is prolonged, marbling will be reduced or eliminated.
10. Lean carcasses are prone to too rapid cooling in units designed to handle large numbers of fat carcasses; this causes muscles to be cold shortened and toughened. It may be necessary to shroud lean carcasses for the first 12 hours to lengthen the cooling period. If meat is frozen, it should be done quickly to prevent the formation of large ice crystals that rupture muscle cells and cause loss of juices on thawing. For the same reason thawed meat should never be re-frozen.

Walt Davis © 2004
262 SR 70E
Calera, OK 74730
580-434-4021
wwdranch@brightok.net