It’s time to decide if you want to participate in our pasture-to-your-table beef program. We are about to stock the pasture for this year. It’s now, or you need to wait until next year. We need to know as soon as possible.
Last year, we put beef into the freezers of 13 families at approximately $7/lb. Some folks decided to come on the slaughter day and got hundreds of pounds of extra items like ox tail, tongue, liver, and tripe that don’t go to the butcher shop.
That $7 price was for all cuts from ground beef to T-bone steaks. Don’t you wish you could buy organic grass-finished beef of any cut for $7/lb.?
We sell a share in an animal for several reasons. If we sold meat by the pound, the animals would have to endure the stresses of leaving the herd, traveling to a strange place, and dying in a USDA-approved abattoir. It’s hard on the animal that feeds us, and meat quality suffers as well. Animals that die with high levels of stress hormones just aren’t as tender and flavorful.
Our cattle die in the pasture where they live. They are with friends and family, no confinement, no chutes, no corral. They are killed with a bullet to the brain, effectively instantaneous death. No fear and no anxiety is the goal.
We buy mature cows, adult females, that are being culled from herds. Usually, because they don’t get pregnant or are poor mothers. Cattle in this country reach only two years of age if kept for breeding and milk production. If you don’t make a baby a year, you become food. Otherwise, they go to a feedlot as yearlings, spend 5-6 months eating grains and hay, not green grass, and go to a slaughterhouse before they are 20 months old.
Mature cows are the best tasting; babies haven’t accumulated enough compounds from their food, especially if it’s grain, to have the flavors found in adult animals. Cattle aren’t done growing their bones till they are four. Cows taste better than steers. Cows have a higher percentage of body fat, which is important for flavor and tenderness. That is why those male babies in the feed lot have ear tags that infuse them with estrogen to feminize them.
After months on our pastures, those cows are sleek, shiny, plump, and very contented. They aren’t just eating grass. Our pasture is a very diverse spectrum of plants. Grasses, forbs, and even trees that they feed on. Dozens of species in multiple plant families. A diverse diet is better for their health as well as yours. I grow over 100 cultivars in my garden to feed my family and friends, as well as the local food bank.
There is a big difference in the nutrients of pasture-raised animals versus standard corn/soybean-fed animals. Pasture-raised has Omega-3 levels comparable to wild salmon; grains don’t have much Omega-3, dominated by Omega-6. Both are essential fatty acids, but the ratio matters. Gotta eat green living plants, the source of these essential fatty acids! All animal fats are definitely not the same.
“Grass-fed “ versus “Pasture-finished”
The label “grass-fed” means the animal was on pasture or hay except for the last 30% of its life, when it was in a standard feed lot. Which means most of what is at the supermarket. 30% of an 18-month-old animal is 5.4 months. Its last 5 months will be on a questionable diet.
Organic really is no better, except for not eating glyphosate-dosed corn and soybeans.
Ideally, the ruminants don’t eat grain except as part of the plants they graze. Ours get no grain supplement, only what they graze. They die with a rumen full of plants. Even being on pasture for the last month makes a huge difference.
A lot of evidence suggests that toxic E. coli is associated with eating concentrated rations, i.e., grain.
What Your Food Ate: How to Heal Our Land and Reclaim Our Health (Montgomery and Biklè, 2022) is an excellent book that explains what we have learned about soil and plant health and how they affect us. Montgomery and Biklè are scientists and good authors. Chapters 11 and 12 are excellent for understanding how “all flesh is grass” (Isaiah 40:6) and many others over the centuries. Explaining how plants we can’t digest can still become food for us.
We buy big cows. When they are slaughtered, they weigh 1,600-1,800 lbs. Each one is divided into six shares, yielding about 100 lbs. of wrapped, frozen cuts. We try to get every share as equal as possible. Same amount of ground beef and T-bones in each share. If you understand the value of bones as we do, you can get an additional 20+ lbs. for bone broth, tallow, and your puppers. I really value beef tallow for its nutritional value and its function as a cooking “oil.” I use bone broth for cooking rice, yeah Organic brown rice!
A share of 100 lbs. seems like a lot. But for two people over a year, it’s a fraction over two oz. per person per day. Some folks share a share. We don’t sell half shares. We like to keep 2 shares for meals with friends and for little presents to family that doesn’t live with us.
As you’ve no doubt heard, cattle prices are up almost 20% this year over last year and up 100% from 2024 (in case percentages are confusing, cows cost twice as much in 2026 compared to 2024. Processing is also going up a little. $700 shares aren’t possible this year. $850 shares are. We are eating the processing increase, so to speak.
So, take a look at the grocery market. Give it some thought. Give Paul a call. Do some research. Check out what is possible on the Internet. We think you will find that our rates are the lowest you can find for the quality of meat you will get.
Our buyers keep coming back. We have the capacity to increase quite a bit. Taking care of 20 cows and moving them to fresh pasture daily is not much more work than caring for 5. I’d rather not rent out extra pasture to someone else’s cows.
Final note: We have always offered free delivery of your beef, in the hope that you will buy lots of wine to go with it. That hasn’t happened across the board, so we are introducing a $50 delivery charge for beef orders without at least a case of wine to go with it, at the time.
