Beef - Where Does Your Food Come From?

Karna Dam Author

01/13/2021 Added

73 Plays

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Ag Literacy video to show younger children how beef gets from the farm to their plates.

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[00:00:00.552](bright music)
[00:00:05.440]There's something truly special
[00:00:07.190]a bout the taste of a steak or a hamburger
[00:00:09.670]right off the grill.
[00:00:11.230]The flavor is incredible as you take that first bite.
[00:00:15.000]But have you ever thought about how that hamburger or steak
[00:00:18.470]gets to your plate?
[00:00:20.270]Does it come from the grill?
[00:00:22.520]No.
[00:00:24.870]Does it come from our refrigerator?
[00:00:27.700]No.
[00:00:29.830]Does it come from the store?
[00:00:32.360]No.
[00:00:33.890]Today we're going to explore beef.
[00:00:36.650]Beef comes from cows.
[00:00:38.560]Now, there are two different types of cows:
[00:00:41.840]dairy cows and beef cows.
[00:00:44.810]Dairy cows produce milk.
[00:00:46.890]The most common dairy cow in Nebraska is a Holstein,
[00:00:50.450]which is a black and white cow.
[00:00:52.850]Beef cows are raised
[00:00:54.010]for the primary purpose of producing meat.
[00:00:56.890]Beef cows come in a variety of colors;
[00:00:59.630]black, white, red,
[00:01:02.090]or some may have white faces and black bodies,
[00:01:05.660]white faces and red bodies.
[00:01:08.090]But the thing you want to remember
[00:01:09.770]is that beef cattle provide beef to your diet.
[00:01:13.140]Hamburgers, steaks, roast,
[00:01:16.070]these are all meats that we get from a beef animal.
[00:01:20.060]I live on a beef farm,
[00:01:21.580]and I thought I would walk you through
[00:01:23.210]what a year looks like with our cows.
[00:01:26.310]In the spring between February and April,
[00:01:28.880]our mama cows have their baby calves.
[00:01:31.640]When a calf is born, it weighs about 70 to 80 pounds.
[00:01:35.890]It is almost the same size as you.
[00:01:38.440]If we do the math,
[00:01:39.940]estimating that you each weigh about 45 pounds,
[00:01:43.870]it would take two of you to weigh what one baby calf weighs
[00:01:48.040]when it's born.
[00:01:49.440]Because the weather can still be really cold
[00:01:51.740]when our baby calves are born,
[00:01:53.540]we do our best to protect them.
[00:01:55.770]Sometimes they get to sit in a hot box for a little while
[00:01:59.130]until they are warm and ready to go.
[00:02:02.010]Sometimes we put hoods on our baby calves when they're born
[00:02:05.170]to protect their ears from the cold.
[00:02:07.660]Just like you wear a hood
[00:02:08.920]to keep your head warm in the winter,
[00:02:10.800]we have hoods for our baby calves too.
[00:02:13.940]And sometimes they get to just hang out in the office
[00:02:16.770]until they are warmed up
[00:02:17.960]and ready to go back in the pen with the mother cow.
[00:02:20.900]We provide a warm bedded area for the calves to lay down.
[00:02:24.660]They enjoy spending time resting here.
[00:02:27.770]Sometimes, we have a calf that needs extra milk.
[00:02:31.630]So we have big baby bottles that we feed them with.
[00:02:34.790]They get so excited when it is feeding time.
[00:02:37.530]Their tail starts wagging.
[00:02:39.740]One of the things we do right away when the calves are born
[00:02:42.500]is put an ear tag in their ear.
[00:02:44.530]This is just like an earring,
[00:02:45.880]for those of you who have your ears pierced.
[00:02:48.440]But this is important
[00:02:49.600]so that we know which calf goes with which cow.
[00:02:52.720]Because we don't name our cows or calves,
[00:02:55.620]we use the information on their ear tag
[00:02:57.770]to know who is who.
[00:02:59.490]The baby calves will stay with the mama cow,
[00:03:01.710]drinking milk through spring and all through the summer.
[00:03:06.430]Once the grass grows tall, about May,
[00:03:09.170]we move our cows to pasture-worthy grass.
[00:03:12.230]During this time, the calves will not only drink milk,
[00:03:15.590]but they will learn to eat grass.
[00:03:17.750]Cows are amazing animals.
[00:03:19.520]They have a special stomach that allows them to eat grass.
[00:03:23.020]Cows are called ruminant animals.
[00:03:25.460]Their special stomach has four parts.
[00:03:27.910]So when they eat grass,
[00:03:29.360]they can turn that grass into a valuable nutrient.
[00:03:32.650]This is why Nebraska has so many cows,
[00:03:35.370]because we have a lot of pasture grass across the state.
[00:03:38.880]Cows can eat grass,
[00:03:40.400]unlike pigs who have a stomach
[00:03:42.170]more like yours and mine.
[00:03:44.320]In September when the calves are six to seven months old,
[00:03:47.790]it is time for them to not be with their mama cow anymore.
[00:03:51.340]This is called weaning,
[00:03:52.920]when we take the calves away from their mothers.
[00:03:55.730]The calves learn to eat a regular feed ration
[00:03:58.400]that doesn't include milk from their mothers.
[00:04:01.170]By this time, the calves weigh 500 to 550 pounds.
[00:04:05.600]So in a short seven to eight months,
[00:04:07.370]the calves grew from 70 to 80 pounds to 500 to 550 pounds.
[00:04:13.090]Let's do more math.
[00:04:14.810]Estimating that you all weigh approximately 45 pounds,
[00:04:18.720]it is going to take almost 12 of you
[00:04:20.940]to weigh what a calf that is seven to eight months old
[00:04:24.400]and weighs 500 to 550 pounds would weigh.
[00:04:28.520]The calves will now go into a feedlot
[00:04:30.870]where they will be fed twice a day.
[00:04:33.290]When the farmer gets the feed ready for the calves to eat,
[00:04:36.370]they follow a recipe.
[00:04:37.860]Just like you follow a recipe
[00:04:39.560]when you make chocolate chip cookies,
[00:04:41.400]the farmer has to follow a recipe
[00:04:43.270]so that the calves get the same amount of feed
[00:04:45.620]every time they feed them.
[00:04:48.640]Let's watch as their feed is mixed.
[00:04:51.850]Careful management and measurement is used.
[00:04:55.174](upbeat music)
[00:05:35.710]The calves get fed in the morning and in the afternoon.
[00:05:38.880]They will stay in this feedlot
[00:05:40.380]until they weigh about 1300 pounds.
[00:05:43.210]While in the feedlot,
[00:05:44.400]these calves gain between three and four pounds per day.
[00:05:48.290]In order for a calf to gain three to four pounds per day,
[00:05:51.470]they will eat about 30 pounds of feed per day.
[00:05:55.360]This allows them to grow very fast.
[00:05:58.200]By the time they are about 15 months old,
[00:06:01.110]they are ready to go to market.
[00:06:02.966](upbeat music)
[00:06:14.080]Let's go back to our math.
[00:06:15.780]Remember, when a baby calf was born,
[00:06:19.030]that was like putting two of you together
[00:06:21.140]to match what they weigh.
[00:06:23.030]Then when we wean them,
[00:06:25.420]they weigh as much as 12 of you put together.
[00:06:28.600]But when a calf is ready to go to market,
[00:06:31.160]it will take 29 of you
[00:06:33.430]to weigh what one market beef animal weighs,
[00:06:36.950]and all of that happened in 15 months.
[00:06:40.060]Pretty amazing, isn't it?
[00:06:41.980]What does it mean when a beef animal goes to market?
[00:06:45.070]Remember at the beginning when I said
[00:06:46.900]that a beef animal's primary purpose is to provide meat?
[00:06:50.720]Well, when a beef animal reaches 1300 pounds,
[00:06:54.330]it is ready to become the beef that you eat.
[00:06:58.370]Let's look at a piece of meat.
[00:07:00.600]The red is muscle.
[00:07:02.800]When we raise beef cattle,
[00:07:04.210]we want animals that have a lot of muscle.
[00:07:06.860]Can you flex your muscles?
[00:07:08.960]Just like you work to be strong, so do beef animals.
[00:07:12.680]The other important color in your meat is the white.
[00:07:16.580]This is fat.
[00:07:17.510]It is also called marbling.
[00:07:19.620]Marbling is what gives meat it's flavor and tenderness.
[00:07:23.310]So when you are at the store
[00:07:24.870]looking for a good piece of meat,
[00:07:27.060]be sure you choose the one that has some of the white
[00:07:30.000]or marbling in it.
[00:07:31.540]Once the beef animal is processed into steaks,
[00:07:34.380]roasts, and hamburger,
[00:07:35.910]a truck that has a big refrigerator in it
[00:07:38.290]loads all of that meat up
[00:07:39.800]and hauls it to the grocery store
[00:07:42.020]where you get to go and buy it.
[00:07:44.800]Beef is an important part of your daily nutrition.
[00:07:47.880]Beef provides zinc, iron, and protein.
[00:07:51.160]You can remember that
[00:07:52.270]by remembering that beef gives you ZIP,
[00:07:55.290]and it tastes great too.

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Tags:
beef
cattle
farm to fork
elementary agricultural literacy
agricultural literacy

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Beef - Where Does Your Food Come From?

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