Two Steaks, part 1

I'm a livestock fire I see if cattle go through here every day they how many steaks they'd make and some of them will make better stakes than others some steaks are tender others tough it could be the cooking but more than likely the differences in quality one was better than the other even before it was cooked I'll tell you why in the cattle business I take trips out west it seems to me that the West is as glamorous now as it was in the old days here's where a lot of our beef cattle are bred and raised why shouldn't they be raised out here their basic feed requirement is roughage which they can get from pasture and there's acres and acres of that and the wide open prairies oh there's a little more fence and some of the buildings are painted today but the ranchers and cowhands still live miles back from the road and spend hours riding horseback over the range tending their herds ranchers usually graze their calves until they are 6 to 18 months old depending on the market and the quality of their pasture every fall the rancher and his Cowboys round up the herds after he gets them in from the hills and valleys he sorts out the cats and yearlings that he wants to sell cowhands used to spend months driving these critters across rough country to the railhead but today it's different these calves have been on pasture long enough it's time they were brought into the great Corn Belt for fattening some western ranchers sell to buyers who come to the ranch other cell at auctions some through feeder cattle dealers many go to the central markets today each rancher has his own moding corral where the young bell ring calves can be loaded into a semi eastward across Nebraska and the Dakotas in late summer or early fall the big movies on from Texas Wyoming and Montana they come by trucks and trains the feeder cattle start moving into the stockyards at Omaha do City Kansas City and st. Joe you hundreds of cattle go through here every day I think of this as the crossroads of quality for some of the cattle it's the end of the line first thing you know there are steaks what kind of stakes will they make the crossroads of quality that's why the beef producer is here at the stockyards to buy grass-fed western cattle he's quite a guy he'll fatten them with a high protein in corn ration and turned them into a tender high-quality beef he has the nerve and courage to invest many thousands of dollars in these Western cattle he has to be willing to feed him his entire corn crop and has to gamble on rate of gain disease feed costs and market fluctuations he has to put in a lot of downright hard work to give you a really tender steak not all of the cattle are headed for slaughter now there are trucks filled with calves and yearlings being hauled away from the stockyards they're going to feed Lots in the Corn Belt these are the ones that will later end up as the most tender steaks yes some steaks are better than others the really good ones come from a Cornbelt feedlot so each fall thousands of calves and yearlings are brought to the feedlots the beef producer is quite a guy he has to buy them right beat him right and sell them right and the corn is there waiting for them when the feeder first gets them they have to make an adjustment to their new location he feeds them roughage and a small amount of grain after a few days he begins to increase the amount of corn before long they are on a full feed of corn with a limited amount of roughage and supplement this is beef production it's a bigger business than most people think for example pile well think of as a corn State ranked seventh as a beef raising state but ranks first in pounds of beef marketed instead of selling his corn for cash this cattle feeder is turning it into high-quality beef you