Many families raise beef to put in their freezers for family consumption. You would need an area to feed and care for the calf. The facility has to be designed to keep the calf in the pen and has to allow for treating the animal for health problems, if necessary. You would need to work with your Cooperative Extension educator to develop a feeding program and make sure that you are able to do it. If the calf is bought and started on feed weighing 600 pounds, it will likely take 200 to 220 days to get the calf to a finished weight, if it is fed to gain 2.8 to 3.0 pounds per day. As you can see, taking on this project means that the calf needs to be cared for and fed daily. If the calf weighs 1,250 pounds at harvest, the weight of the hanging carcass will be 63% of the live weight, or 788 pounds. About 50 to 60% of the hanging weight will be the packaged take-home weight, or 394 to 473 pounds. There are usually harvest facilities in the area that will harvest and package the calf for a price.

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