Any of my vegetarian friends and readers might want to skip this post. My apologies if it is offensive but I am more than willing to discuss my omnivorous tendencies and beliefs at a later time.
Well, we now have 4 freezers full of fresh grass and hay fed beef that we need to sell to make some room for the pork that is coming and the broilers that need doing soon. This beef is from a 3 year old bull and is extra lean and absolutely delicious. We have had some of the steak and ground beef and I`m not exaggerating at all when I say it is delicious. It is some of the best tasting beef that I have had. I am sure others will agree.
At the moment we have ground beef, sirloin, t-bone and minute steaks, and a few varieties of roast...all priced below local market prices. It was processed at the local H&M Meats butcher so it is inspected. The ground beef comes in approximately 2lb portions and the steaks are, as I recall, 2 sirloin or minute or 4 t-bone per package.
If anyone in the Grande Prairie area is interested, shoot me an email for more information and pricing:
litetechca (at) gmail (dot) com
As I mentioned above, there will be pork available soon. Two gilts went to the butcher shop on Monday and we are excited to see how they turn out. Apparently our girls were the leanest and healthiest looking pigs of the week`s lot. It`s been years since my family raised pork but most of what is available locally is industrially raised in total confinement. This means pale and fat and chalk full of hormones. Our pigs are penned but have fresh air and sunlight all day every day. They are hand fed grain and grass or hay. We give them treats like coal and various roots as well. These pigs are healthy, lean and have had the best life we could give them, outside of fully pasturing them (which as I have mentioned before, is the plan for the future if I keep at this).
We will also have some free run broilers available very soon. I have been meaning to post about them as well as we are quite happy with their growth. The broiler type is so genetically shallow now and they can be prone to heart problem and limb breakage. But ours get lots of chance to run about and they are brought fresh grass every day, along with their regular diet. This means stronger limbs and healthier birds. I will post some pictures and give them a full post soon.
That`s all for now I think.
Saludos.
3 years ago
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5 comments:
Man I wish I were closer. Well actually I can get grass raised beef from across the street, but I'm just being supportive ;)
I recently had the chance to do a side by side taste of our pastures pork with supermarket pork ( didn't have enough homegrown spate ribs left for a party and went to the store to get extra) and I was shocked. I mean, I knew ours was better but how much better was a big surprise. Even smothered in barbecue sauce, the difference was obvious. Our pork tasted like - sorry - pig meat! Supermarket pork tasted like paste dipped in barbecue sauce.
Pigs are kind of destructive to pasture but man is the meat good. Good luck I hope you sell all your meat fast and at a good price.
I have to agree with Aimee --- I wish I lived closer.
Are you really feeding them coal as a treat? Maybe coal means something else besides just compacted plant matter that you burn for heat? I'm stumped!
Thanks for the support, Aimee. I have always been spoiled that way when it comes to meat, at least whenever I have lived in this area.
Ditto, Anna. I'm not sure why they like the coal so much but we do indeed feed it as a treat. When we burned some coal when I was a kid, we fed the crushed stuff to them as it would just fall through our wood stove grates. Now we have some crushed coal still left from those days so we toss them a pail every so often. They just love crunching it up and will work a bigger piece in their mouths like a dog works a bone.
I know that activated charcoal made especially for medicinal purposes is used for stomach problems in humans (I've heard it recommended for food poisoning especially) and I found out at the following link that this type of charcoal is also available for dogs.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-charcoal-biscuits.htm
But I didn't know that farm animals could be given charcoal as a treat. Interesting.
Thanks for the information, linda! I admit I have never really gone looking.
I guess bituminous coal must have similar properties.
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