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New Mexico | 2nd winter.
Matter of fact the best animal for grass/grain finish is a weaned fall calf from the say fall 09 put on grass spring 010 ( hiefers preferably ) and they'll be done by Sept/Oct 010.
Only takes a very slight fat cover to truely finish an animal.
Marbling is built in ( they either have it or not...that simple ).
Once cattle reach the point where they start laying on backfat ( thus muscle and frame growth have peaked ) feed efficiency pretty much tanks.
It costs over twice as much to put fat on an animal vs muscle and frame.
Granted though, there's plenty of folks who have NO customer base for the REALLY great meats thus are pretty much locked into doing whatever the consolidated processing end desires.
Also grant that in some areas it might make sense to simply background cattle to the 2 way ( 950 to 1,000 lb cattle ) stage and then let the consolidateds own em for the higher priced finish end of the old style traditional Fat bus.
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grass fed beef
