Well around here, with beef cattle, calves are on pasture the day they are born.

With dairy cows,I would think about three months, but you would still have to supplement with milk or substitute. Just a guess on my part though.


7 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

The beef cattle on my farm are calved on pasture and stay alongside the cow on pasture all summer. They start eating grass almost immediately. There is no more natural nor healthier way to handle calves. Of course, I don't know what farmers did 80 years ago nor whether dairy farmers do otherwise.


7 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

Three to four months.

All of the cattle questions I have been asking have been directed mainly at dairy stock. I would say most people raise beef calves on pasture from the get go, but I look forward to further questions coming up and maybe there will be a book with questions pertaining to beef stock.


7 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

Jerry, in the day of your question source (some 80 years ago), I believe that beef cattle were raised primarily on western ranges. The rest of the country raised dairy and ate dairy steers. The beef cattle that were trekked to trains over miles and miles of rough terrain for shipping to places such as the Chicago Stockyards, then HAD to be fattened on grain (mostly corn) before being slaughtered. It was a very expensive proposition and this *superior* meat was mostly eaten by the well-to-do in the cities. Country folk settled for a nice, flavorful, tender Jersey or Guernsey steer. Beef in dairy country is a relatively recent phenomenon as dairy farms (at least in Wisconsin) closed operations and the new owners (or the old, aged owners) fell back on a less strenuous kind farming... run beef. Right or wrong, that's my take on it.


7 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

The calves born around here were born on range and lived on it until they were sold to feeders at 1-2 years old my calves are still raised that way only sold as weaning calves\.


7 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum