A little horse anyone?

[grassfarmer]

You said it - I guess that's why we aren't fattening
40% of the cattle on grass - in fact we aren't fattening
0.4% of the cattle on grass. Might be better off if we
did.

[smcgrath76]

I think based on our experiece there is a significant
difference between grass fed and grass finished
beef. And while I know many fanastic graziers in
Alberta, I would say that there are very few as a
percentage of the overall population.
The knowledge may be there, but very few are
willing to do the application (that does not
neccesarily mean high intensity rotations either). I
think there is easily potential to double production
from the same pasture base with just small
management changes.
I think the grass management side is huge in grass
finished beef.

[grassfarmer]

Difference how Sean? do you mean in the end product
and if so what is your definition of grass fed versus
grass finished?

[smcgrath76]

GF - there is beef sold as grass fed that
has not been raised on high quality
forage, and may be extremely lean due to
diet rather than genetics (eg: skinny
rather than lean)
In my mind grass finished beef differs in
that it is raised on a high quality forage
diet and the animal has adequate condition
at harvest.

[grassfarmer]

Sean there is a lot of grain fed beef currently being
sold as grass-fed too. When you see Alberta grass-
fed beef offered year round its time to get suspicious.
Some of the highest profile, biggest turnover
operators are the worst. I see a lot of similarity to the
purebred cattle business - some guys are only in it
for the money and will cheat, lie and misrepresent
their product to get where they want to go.
Definitely buyer beware in the grass-fed beef
business.

[Happytrails]

Sean and GF you are right to note the difference between grass fed and grass finished beef. 60 years ago almost all beef was grass finished. But those steers were 2 1/2 or 3 1/2 years old. That had more to do with the climate than grass management. Its a little tough to keep them on fresh greenery year round with a 120 day frost free growing season. My friend in New Zealand is finishing beef on grass at under 24 months but they have irrigation and a 220 day growing season.

[grassfarmer]

Only a 220 day growing season? that must be South
Island is it?

In the parklands here we have an excellent 150 day
growing and finishing season each summer. Of
course we will never have them eating grass 365 days
a year in this climate but this powerful summer
grazing period in conjunction with the spring calving
most people do lends itself to fattening cattle off
grass at around 18 months. Not too difficult to take a
weaned calf through his first winter at 1.5-1.6lbs/day
gain then get 2lb a day gain through the summer
fattening period.

[grassfarmer]

Discussing this topic on another forum too and someone posted this link today from the US
www.agcentre.com/newcattlereport.aspx
scroll down to the steak pictures which they claim "any knowledge person could identify as grain fed because of the marbling" but was being passed off as grassfed.
I posted this picture of one of our steaks off a 17 month grass-fed Luing x steer by way of reply.
<a href="http://s481.photobucket.com/albums/rr175/ieaitken/?action=view&current=DSCF2270_zpse0cb6756. jpg" target="_blank"></a>

[grassfarmer]

Oops my bad! didn't use the American spelling of centre. The link should be:
www.agcenter.com/newcattlereport.aspx

[rkaiser]

Is that rib eye GF? Looks a little odd. Nice fat and fairly white; but fat and cartilage in odd places for a rib eye.

[rkaiser]

<a href="http://s206.beta.photobucket.com/user/rkaiser_photo/media/Quality-beef-sample1.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb286/rkaiser_photo/Quality-beef-sample1.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo Quality-beef-sample1.jpg"/></a>

Here are some barley finished rib eyes in the case at the store.

[rkaiser]

The steaks in the picture on the link to the American site are strip loins that have been extremely trimmed. Yes they look like grain fed, but I have also seen the right kind of cattle at the right time of year marble with the white fat consistancy as your luing cross steak. Especially open heifers. Looked at it again and I feel that it may be a bone in rib steak that you showed us.

The challenge of course in Alberta, no matter what breed or type of cattle, is to get the grass fed animal to show that kind of marbling or finish for more than a few months of the year.