the meat is absolutely the best we've ever had. Maybe it has something with rate of growth - ours was 15 months old and 870 lbs. He was still getting the extra milk from his mom that we didn't need. I guess the next most obvious thing would be genetics, I think someone already mentioned that. Were your Jerseys high strung? It has been proven that these type of animals are bad for meat. A high percentage of them turn out to be what they call "dark cutters," whose meat is dark, very tough, with poor flavor. Beef producers are starting to cull against these type of animals. We raised an Angus like this one year and learned the hard way. Now whenever a calf that we had planned to raise for beef turns out like this, we don't even fool with them. They're off to the sale barn as soon as they're weaned. Anyway, just wanted to let you know our meat turned out great. The steer was a real deadhead, by the way. Probably couldn't have found his way out of a wet paper sack.

-- Joe (botaur2@yahoo.com), December 29, 2001

Answers

There are many retired dairy farmers that swear Jersey is the best. It is just not marketed like the other "beef" breeds are. I had a Half a steer from a neighbor that was great. My inlaws came out from the city and loved it. They wanted to know who raised angus around me. When I told them it was jersey they did not even know what a jersey was. LOL. I could not beleive how yellow the fat was and he said that is why some people do not think it would be good. Good for you.

-- phillip (raines@rainesridgefarm.com), December 29, 2001.

In France, beef with yellow fat is considered to be superior. The yellow is basically the same chemical (or whatever) as in carrots.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), December 31, 2001.

Thanks for the reply Joe!

hmm, now that you mention it, those steers were rather high strung. I guess we'll never really know what happened.

-- Tracy (zebella@mindspring.com), January 02, 2002.