The meat you eat, is it time to partner with a landowner?

[SF-TX]

Originally Posted by craigepo

I live in cattle country, and a large percentage of the locals buy either 1/2 a beef or more at a time. Some raise their own, others hook up with a farmer/neighbor who has some pasture. They call the local locker plant, and set up everything from pickup to hanging time to how and which cuts are to be made.

The difference in taste is significant. Also, being able to tell the locker plant how long to hang the beef gets you a much more tender steak than what you might purchase at a supermarket.

Some of the locals have started raising buffalo as livestock. They do really well on a diet of grass only.

The only beef I have in my freezer is all-natural, which I have fed out and had slaughtered at a USDA approved processor. I can attest, the taste is vastly improved. Additionally, there are some significant cost savings, albeit with a lot more risk.

[tonyz]

Originally Posted by cbtengr

You actually get to see the hogs? In Iowa we only get to smell them. Oh for the days of free range pigs.

Yup, free range porkers - how else they gonna charge the yuppies the big bucks at WholeFoods!

[booker]

Originally Posted by craigepo

I live in cattle country, and a large percentage of the locals buy either 1/2 a beef or more at a time. Some raise their own, others hook up with a farmer/neighbor who has some pasture. They call the local locker plant, and set up everything from pickup to hanging time to how and which cuts are to be made.

The difference in taste is significant. Also, being able to tell the locker plant how long to hang the beef gets you a much more tender steak than what you might purchase at a supermarket.

Some of the locals have started raising buffalo as livestock. They do really well on a diet of grass only.

Most of the farmers here in the mountains do that as well - I have no qualms about eating beef from local farmers, even if they do use some grain in the finishing. We buy a half beef every year from a farmer down the road, and my kids see that cow from start (calf) to finish (steak) and understand where their food comes from. It has turned them into snobs about their beef though, they can pick out store bought beef by the poor taste and texture (did a blind taste test, in the name of science).

[Penn]

The farms sells mostly wholesale

Tonyz, can you send me the POC for the farm, maybe they ship.

[craigepo]

Originally Posted by tonyz

We purchase many pork products direct from the farm. A brother and sister run the operation and invite you to inspect anything on the farm that you wish.

You pull in - drive a half mile or so and turn the corner and there are literally hundreds of hogs walking around the farm.

I was talking to some folks here, originally from Texas, who had bought a farm here. There were wanting to put up new fence, and were complaining that the old fence was hog wire. I explained to them that the old timers let the hogs run free on their places, eating whatever they rooted up. The perimeter hog wire was to keep the hogs on the farmer's farm.

All the old timers knew how to clean a hog, render lard, make cracklins, etc. A hog is a pretty easy-to-raise source of proteing.

[tonyz]

Originally Posted by Penn

Tonyz, can you send me the POC for the farm, maybe they ship.

Penn - pm inbound.