beef farmers

[Windhorse]

Are there any falang beef farmers on TV

[kickstart]

We have a few beef cattle ,one a dairy cross Brahman,she has an Angus calf ,just sold a Thai cross Brahman cow ,could not get her in calf, she has a 11 month old Angus bull. just brought some Thai native cross Brahman heifers .

For some years we have reaed dairy heifers ,buy them in ,feed them up ,get them in calf sell them 2-3 months in calf.

But the market is to volatile do not make a lot on the heifers.Allways had a few beef cattle,to go with the dairy heifers,do not like all my eggs in one basket

Going to expand th beef side, but I work full time so not a lot of time,so we are only ticking over at this time.

This time last year maize picked ,on the cob was 5 Bart+/ kg, this year 4.50 Bart /kg talk of sugar cain price droping,

beef prices are good now ,but for how long,watch this space

Yours reg

KS

[David48]

Look at these ...

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/401007-beef-cattle-farms-chiang-rai/

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/47761-raising-beef-cattle-in-issan/

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/607716-local-beef-sour-taste/

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/494154-looking-for-cows-to-buy-can-butcher-and-sell-your-beef/

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/498023-wagyu-beef/

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/610402-sourcing-brahman-cows-livestock/

Farming forum ... always happy to help ...

[teletiger]

'Ya should have asked for ex-beef farmers. We'd all come out of the woodwork then.

Regards.

[NeverSure]

Having grown up on a beef and wheat cattle ranch in the US, I can tell you why I don't go into the biz in Thailand.

One is refrigeration. After you kill, clean and skin an animal, it must hang for at least a week until rigor mortise has relaxed or the meat will be really tough. The temperature must be just above freezing, and up to about 40 F. In other words, a big refrigerator. We were able to use nature for that at no cost.

Hanging for another couple of weeks allows enzymes to break down the structure and the meat tenderizes.

A second is that if land is good enough to grow feed, it's probably good enough to grow something more valuable. Giving good feed to an animal, having it convert it to meat is wasteful. Our grazing land was rocky and good for nothing but grazing. The cattle harvested the grass for free and it otherwise would have gone to waste. It was economically advantageous to put cattle on it. That was about 1/4 of our land. The rest was good farm land and we grew some high protein feed (alfalfa) and the rest we grew wheat for market.

If I was determined to grow beef in LOS, I'd build a small refrigerated building, buy yearling steers and feed them to about 15 months old, or about 3 months. Then I'd hang them for 3 weeks as said, and sell them to high end restaurants for top shelf beef.

What they eat that last 3 months affects flavor and marbling and tenderness, and then if hung for the 3 weeks you have top drawer beef.

I don't know if it would be profitable, but raising calves from birth wouldn't be very, if at all.

[teletiger]

No steers to be had in Thailand. You've got to do it yourself and on a larger animal it's not much fun. 'And yes, it will put them back at least a month.There are a couple of pro beef operations here where you grow out beef for the company. They supply everything including the feed. Going it alone is tough, as more than a few of us have found out. Finding a market for your "Beef" is a big problem. Your boys are priced up the same as the wanked out dairy cows that are processed for God knows what. There's not a lot of call for beef in Thailand. Try explaining the "hanging for 3 or 4 weeks in the fridge" part, without them turning green around the gills. Then when they've recovered from that, explain how the moldier bits are trimmed off as they appear. I'll bet even Westerners would baulk at that part.

Regards.

[IsaanAussie]

Teletiger and Neversure, guys I am renewed. At last someone who understands meat. Regardless the differences for pork. Why do you think I targeted chefs in 5 star restaurants as my main quality product customers? They have cold rooms and monitor the hanging meat until they consider it ready. My job was to get the temperature out as fast as possible and then stabilise the meat at 5C without losing 1 to 2% moisture . Pack and ship overnight to the real deal cold room.

Raise it, take the best care then slaughter before noon and mince before lunch aint gunna get ya more than Talat prices for the meat.You may as well leave it out in the sun and sell to the bootmakers.

[kickstart]

What I do is beef suckler cows ,use Angus or Charolais semen sell the offspring at 12 months old to a local guy, I just sold a Charolais bull 11 months old 25,500. bart. Feed is cheap 14% concentrate, brewers grains ,grass siage, and gratin in the dry season. I will get about the same for an Angus bull when we sell him soon.

When they are on a back of a pick up, the money is in my hand, it is some one else problem, bugger all this killing , hanging bit ,just do the rearing bit.

Other members will say, we have been there, ect,ect, we have been doing this for a few years,it works for us.we are not a hoby farm ,if it did not pay I would not do it.needles to say ,we will never be rich but doing OK is good enough for us.

As for makeing more money try to grow crops instead of growing beef that depends on how much land you have, I have only 6 rai can not do a lot on the crop side with that ,on a per rai basis I think I would make more with beef than crops.

Yours Regards

KS

[teletiger]

I presume all the girls are Brahman? Gratin is Gatin? Leucaena leucocephala?

http://www.tropicalforages.info/key/Forages/Media/Html/Leucaena_leucocephala.htm

Great stuff. 15/25% protein. Free. Available on most hedgerows. Just don't feed more than 25/30% daily. Hair falls out and they become photosensitive. Someone mentioned it's poisonous.....and Thai farmers avoid it like the plague.

We turned to a cow/calf operation after the feedlot. Made a decent profit on one droughtmaster/charlorais pair.....forget the rest. We had nice deep Brahman cross cows producing at 11 months on average and were only offered wanked out beef prices for them. I should stop here...

You will be tested.

Regards.

[kickstart]

TT

Sorry should have said, Charolais mum is a Simmental/friesian cross Brahman, she is 5 1/2 years old ,with her 3ed calf a Angus,the Angus bull's mum is a Khow-Lumpon,a northen Thai breed with white eye lash's,cross I think with a Thai native.The 2 cows have had 8 calves between them 7 bulls and 1 heifer calf, sod's law.We would have liked some heifers to keep back for breeding,the only heifer we had we sold with a bull 5 years ago for 14 000 bart the pair they where fit to,but as has been said a lot of times on TV, market dictate's the price,and that was at the time, the price.

Gratin is Leucaena, it is a good feed ,feed it up to 20% of the DM ,(dry matter), of the diet, or about 6-8 kg a day /head,fresh weight

The poison is mimosine,it can be a problem, touch wood I have never had any problems,had a few heifers go off they feed for a day, I put down to mild mimosine poisoning,but they got over it themselfs.

Round here Gratin is an industry,it is cut ,choped,dryed,sold on for animal feed ,one guy sells it as silage about 45 bart a 30 kg bag.

Will I be tested? my system works for me,sounds darft, but would it work eles where, it helps living in a big dairy area,ready suply of brewers grains,BKK only 150km from here lot of buyers and sellers of cattle,feed is very loacal, if I can keep growing my own forage,+ the gratin, keep costs down I think we will be OK.

Yours Regs.

KS

[NeverSure]

I don't know LOS. There's a lot I don't know. In the US, beef is graded by expert graders either on the hoof or hanging. The higher the grade, the higher the price. That's all the way from wholesale to packages in a retail market. We wanted USDA choice. One grade up was the top grade - USDA prime - but there isn't much market for that because it is really fat and people are fat conscious.

The flavor in beef is in the fat and that's why you care so much what you feed them the last 3 months. For instance, a deer killed in the woods will have been eating what we call browse. Deer aren't ruminants like cows and elk are, so they don't eat grass. They will eat sage brush (same as the spice called sage) before grass and it gives them a really "gamey" flavor - no good. But the deer that would sneak into our alfalfa fields were prime. That was good meat.

So I have no idea how you could convince someone in LOS that your beef was the best unless you were close to a city and could give out some samples to high end restaurants to build a customer base.

My experience in LOS is that if I ordered beef even in a good restaurant, it was a crap shoot as to whether it was any good, and it was never as good as US choice, or some beef I've eaten from Argentina. I'm sure they must grow good beef in Europe, but the only time I tried it was in Paris and it was so under cooked it almost was raw. The waiter was really insulted when I asked to have it put back on the grill.

[meatboy]

looks like beef is on the way up in thailand,last weekend the wife's sister picked us up 10kilo of steak and other from a pon-yang-kram co-op suplier in rangsit.she said the shop was very busy with thai's.one of my neighbours has asked me to get him some next time,this is the best i have had in los i can compare it with our home breed the hereford black.my wf.has always loved steak and roast beef and yorks.pudding.so i would think if thai's that can afford to buy it once they taste it will yearn for more,but not with rice please.

[kickstart]

Meat boy

Sounds a good place to buy beef,what I can get from there web site there are based in Tak province,there stock are Charolais cross Brahman .

Tak Charolais are well known in Thailand allmost a breed on there own,along with Kampangpet Charolais,they are about 65% Charolais 35% Brahman ,must be well hung and kept well ,for the flavour,useing the Charolais will help .

Yours Regs

KS

[RedBullHorn]

Deep ! Really deep ! Thank you all for the very good read. I'm saving this page...

[NeverSure]

What I do is beef suckler cows ,use Angus or Charolais semen sell the offspring at 12 months old to a local guy, I just sold a Charolais bull 11 months old 25,500. bart. Feed is cheap 14% concentrate, brewers grains ,grass siage, and gratin in the dry season. I will get about the same for an Angus bull when we sell him soon.

When they are on a back of a pick up, the money is in my hand, it is some one else problem, bugger all this killing , hanging bit ,just do the rearing bit.

Other members will say, we have been there, ect,ect, we have been doing this for a few years,it works for us.we are not a hoby farm ,if it did not pay I would not do it.needles to say ,we will never be rich but doing OK is good enough for us.

As for makeing more money try to grow crops instead of growing beef that depends on how much land you have, I have only 6 rai can not do a lot on the crop side with that ,on a per rai basis I think I would make more with beef than crops.

Yours Regards

KS

Someone else said there are no yearling steers in Thailand so maybe there are?

It's possible someone paid a premium for your bull for breeding purposes. We used to get US$25,000 for a prime breeding bull (one that was proven to give offspring that would grow fast and big and produce lots of meat) and we paid the same when we bought one. Often we traded bulls and this was all to keep the gene pool mixed. Don't fail to do that by using your newborn bulls as future bulls. Or, buy semen.

We usually had about 400 head of cattle so it paid to have bulls.

[meatboy]

Meat boy

Sounds a good place to buy beef,what I can get from there web site there are based in Tak province,there stock are Charolais cross Brahman .

Tak Charolais are well known in Thailand allmost a breed on there own,along with Kampangpet Charolais,they are about 65% Charolais 35% Brahman ,must be well hung and kept well ,for the flavour,useing the Charolais will help .

Yours Regs

KS

if you have one of the co-op outlets near you lucky man.in 30yrs i had always found tops beef steak ok.price as well,but since moving to korat no tops nearest is 2-3hrs.away.so i have had to put up with well anything.i found out about these supliers when my wf.was told by a freind that her husband has been eating this beef a long time,i know him and he wouldnt eat crap.if you google their web site and look at the price list of cuts its a good list. check out the food forum western food there is quite a bit of info on there.taff.

[kickstart]

What I do is beef suckler cows ,use Angus or Charolais semen sell the offspring at 12 months old to a local guy, I just sold a Charolais bull 11 months old 25,500. bart. Feed is cheap 14% concentrate, brewers grains ,grass siage, and gratin in the dry season. I will get about the same for an Angus bull when we sell him soon.

When they are on a back of a pick up, the money is in my hand, it is some one else problem, bugger all this killing , hanging bit ,just do the rearing bit.

Other members will say, we have been there, ect,ect, we have been doing this for a few years,it works for us.we are not a hoby farm ,if it did not pay I would not do it.needles to say ,we will never be rich but doing OK is good enough for us.

As for makeing more money try to grow crops instead of growing beef that depends on how much land you have, I have only 6 rai can not do a lot on the crop side with that ,on a per rai basis I think I would make more with beef than crops.

Yours Regards

KS

Someone else said there are no yearling steers in Thailand so maybe there are?

It's possible someone paid a premium for your bull for breeding purposes. We used to get US$25,000 for a prime breeding bull (one that was proven to give offspring that would grow fast and big and produce lots of meat) and we paid the same when we bought one. Often we traded bulls and this was all to keep the gene pool mixed. Don't fail to do that by using your newborn bulls as future bulls. Or, buy semen.

We usually had about 400 head of cattle so it paid to have bulls

The guy who brought our Ch bull said he was going to be used for breeding,if that is true I do not know.

Bull breeding here is a bit different from our ways on the dairy side ,a good farm with a good cow 25 lt/day+,bred wih a good bull ,the bull's offspring will be used for breeding,semen from that bull being sold the ,Thai's look at milk yeild only ,never seem to think about calf size,important on heifer's,or feet ,legs,udder shape.

Only the DPO at Mortlek ,Sarlburi,(the Thai /Denmark milk brand) ,they do a progeny testing scheme,in conjunction with a university in the USA,some of there bulls are good for Thailand ,with the heat ,poor feed and even poorer managment,

As for the the beef ,difficult,a look at the Thai farming mags you see nice bulls with a picture of the owner very offten a pollitician, I get the idea there are in it for the money only.

I think the best beef farm in Thailand is near Pattayar,there are all Brahman ,semen from the USA+ some of there own breeding ,they have some very nice bulls and semen for sale about the county,the Thai DLD brought a bull ,and are selling the semen to loacal farmers , my neaibour has a calf from a Pattayar bull doing well to .

My Charolais he was from a Thai bull ,but his father I am certain ,was imported ,you can say the same for most beef breeds thay all have impoted blood in them some where .you can buy imported Charolais semen about 500 bart straw.

My 2 Angus bulls are USA semen ,impoted by CP ,I tryed to googel the bull, I used,could not find him,I suspect he was old stock, a proven bull ,semen still good, succeeded by better bulls, the company wanted to sell the old stock ,so CP brought him probaly cheap, I only payed 170 bart a straw on price alone he can not be that good,but good enough for Thailand.

My local shop has some beefmaster semen from the USA , I might try that this year ,but at 500 bart a straw wil be put on my best cow we might evon get a heifer calf.

Yours Regs,

KS.