Wild Brahman Cattle

[Loyalist Dave]

Wouldn't most of the world, and most of the beef in history, have been "grass fed"? How about American Bison and the Plains Indians, that was all grass fed. Must be something to it..., then again there is always dry aging..

OH BTW for all of us Yanks, 40° Celsius is 104° Fahrenheit. :shocked2: So yeah it was bloody hot.

LD

 

[talkingamoeba]

Ground up it would make the absolute best tasting hamgurger. When we butcher older cattle they are turned into ground meat as the age is where the best flavor in a burger comes from.

 

[FishDFly]

Wouldn't most of the world, and most of the beef in history, have been "grass fed"? How about American Bison and the Plains Indians, that was all grass fed. Must be something to it..., then again there is always dry aging..

There is a huge difference in the taste between grass fed and cattle from feed lots. Most beef consumed in the U.S. comes from feed lots. Very few cattle from the sale barn go straight to the butcher.

If the folks in the U.S. were forced to eat grass feed beef, there would be a revolt.

There is a vast difference between meat from cows and buffalo. All you have to do is cut a filet from each and you can see the difference and taste the difference.

When we did butcher, we took all the meat and had it ground-up or made into cutlets. Ground up is the only way to go for grass fed beef.

Steaks are not edible and the fat is not something you want to eat.

Crime does not pay, neither does ranching.

 

[crockett]

LD- now a days they are really doing crazy stuff- feeding beef animal parts, all sorts of things that personally I'm against.
A few weeks ago I was in Texas (great state) and one of the things I did was stop by the famous King ranch- they have a tour of the operation so I took that. Boy- things have sure changed. They have something akin to a barcode that they clip into the ear of every animal and this barcode has the date of birth, the entire record of that particular animal. When they got their shots, how much they weighed at different dates, etc. THEN the cowboys do a sonogram (sic?- they same thing they do on pregant women). This tells them how much marbling, etc THAT PARTICULAR animal has and that determines the price they get for that animal. So cowboys with barcode devises instead of sixguns.
Different world.

 

[FishDFly]

There is a 3 day course at A&M that takes you through the records of the calves total history, all the way through the actual butchering of them so you can "see" the marbling of the fat in the meat.

Yep, beef and processing has come a long way.

I use to use a place to butcher my calves, when they labeled, the meat you never knew what was in the package. It might be labeled hamburger and after you defrosted it, it might be tongue or kidneys, makes for creative cooking in the evenings.

 

[Patocazador]

About a decade ago they started pre-selling whole age classes of calves, etc. by showing them on camera over the internet. Now, with the guesswork over they make the sale over a webcam auction.

Right now the market is real good here. I just sold some 400 lb. calves at over $125/100 weight.
Over $600/calf.

 

[Kapow]

Isn't that where mad cow disease came from? Feeding offal back to beef? Scientists were worried that humans might be susceptible to mad cow disease. Then "line dancing" became popular and proved the theory correct!

I think the flavour would be awesome, with the age, for sausages but it just wouldn't be viable due to remoteness. I did have a calf in bow range a few weeks prior but just didn't have the heart to do it and I couldn't have eaten it all before it spoiled. I am told our water buffalo calves are unbeatable for bush steaks. That is planned for next year!

A mate fed me some of his venison sausages while I was up there. He used ground venison, little bit of pork fat and a little bit of cheddar cheese. They were very good.

 

[Spikebuck]

Congrats on the bull...sounds like they are pretty tough if they can go 300 yards with a double-lunger.

At 100 degrees plus I'll sit in the air conditioning and watch a hunting video and sip a beverage! When I was in Australia I wouldn't even go three feet off the fareway to collect an errant golf ball with full-length pants and sneakers on! Absolutely gorgeous place, but I think I'd have to have a full-body Kevlar suit made in camo! :wink: :grin: The bluff country around me is known for some good sized Rattlesnakes, but as was said previously, that bite isn't going to kill you before you can get out of the woods.

 

[Vaino]

Most of the beef consumed in the US comes from open range, grass fed animals until they hit the corn feedlots. This "system" of producing beef is very economical but doesn't produce the best tasting beef nor the most tender.

Visited my cousin in Finland who is a beef farmer and sells his beef to the EEC countries. First off, no hormones as dictated by the EEC and secondly, all the animals are "bulls" and not steers. Asked Hannu why only bulls....his answer..."bulls are heavier at 1/1/2 yrs than steers".

Once a calf enters the barn, it never leaves until it's on the truck to the slaughter house 1-1/2 yrs later.

The operation is quite mechanized....2 hrs in the AM and 2 hrs in the PM. A large vehicle w/ a tremendous bin is loaded w/ a variety of feed and vitamins and is driven down the aisle dispensing the feed to the penned animals.

The feed consists of wet barley from the local breweries, soured hay from the farm and whey from the local cheese factory.

Tasted this beef and it's much more tasty and tender than that produced by the US system. ...which is quite understandable.

Don't have a problem w/ killing any animal except when the meat isn't utilized .....Fred

 

[crockett]

On the mad cow- that's my understanding- the disease was in nerve tissue that was fed to the cattle.
In Austrialia- I think I read about drying meat, like jerky but it has a different name. It seems that any critter could be dried and used as trail food at a later date. How do you handle meat in a really hot climate?

 

[Patocazador]

If Northern Australia is like Florida, the humidity is about 98% all the time. It's hard to dry out anything even though it's hot out.
When I was in Namibia, which is basically desert, they just sliced the meat and guts and hung it on tree branches and fence wire. It dried in no time.

Mad cow disease in England was traced to feeding ground up sheep mixed with meal to cows. It contains something called a prion that spreads through the nervous system .. it's an extremely bad process that should be outlawed worldwide.

 

[BGRooster1]

From 1988 till sometime in the mid 2000's. Our family raised Texas Longhorned cattle in the Greenbush ,Wisconsin township. All our cattle were grass and hay fed with no antibiotics or hormones. We butchered most at between 18 and 26 months of age depending on if we or a customer was in need of more beef. If a cow or bull was to snotty toward man or beast it was sent off to the butcher.
We still have people calling hoping we got back into raising these cattle. Grass fed beef is better tasting than any certified tasteless beef you find in the store.

 

[Ben K]

Brilliant scrubber, mate!

 

[Wolfbane]

I remember my mother shooting an eight foot taipan. Not nice.

 

[bigbore442001]

Excellent hunt report. It must be wonderful to hunt such a variety of species.

I just got back from a trip to Florida which included a hog hunt albeit with a modern handgun and not a muzzleloader. I asked the rancher-guide about wild cattle. He said they are found on some of the very big ranches and they call them "hairy d!ck bulls" . His neighbor owns 96,000 acres and has some on his place.

Some cattle just escape the round up and manage to live in the glades. I can imagine you could make a financial arrangement to hunt them.

 

[F.G. Ford]

Hi,
I'm sure that most of you may know this, but some may not.
If you marinate the toughest meat in Diet Pepsi ( only Diet Pepsi ) for eight ( 8 ) hours, and then cook it as you wish, it comes out so tender you can cut it with your fork.
This stuff is amazing! I wouldn't drink it though. Yech!
A good friend that was a master chef gave me that tip.
Fred

 

[Vaino]

When you said 40 degrees you should have explained to most on this forum that you were describing the temp in the Celsius scale. 40 Celsius is 104 Fahrenheit....."bloody" hot.

You'll have to excuse our ignorance....we are kinda ego-centric and refuse to change to more logical systems, eg...metric and Celsius....which most of the world uses.

Meat is where you find it and if shooting cattle is your thing, so be it....of course I know nothing about the cattle you're hunting and their wariness. Good luck on the eats....Fred

 

[Brokennock]

:rotf: Really?! Ha, ha. That's a good one. There is a whole rapidly growing community of people who pay more for pastured grass fed and grass finished beef and dairy products. The fat of grass fed and finished beef has comparable levels of omega-3 fatty acids to salmon. Unlike the toxic omega-6 rich fat of grain poisoned beef cattle. I find the color, texture, and flavor of the grass fed/finished beef and butter I get vastly superior to the junk produced by grain feedlot grocery store suppliers.

Or is one confusing grass fed with animals that aren't really grass or grain fed, but live on sage, chaparral, and other weeds and shrubs?

Kapow, congrats on your hunt. To me it sounds like a good time.

 

[wpjson]

I was raised on wild game and grass fed beef. I never found the beef tough, but it wasn't from a wild herd and as a rule it was from a yearling. Our cattle were calm as a rule, just ranged around the ranch within a mile or so of the house. Grass fed was the best.