I am fortunate in having a local butcher [small chain of shops] who buys his
own animals on the hoof, finishes them on [his own] grass and has them
slaughtered and returned for sale. The product is so tender and healthy
tasting at times, it's as if the beast was shot at night while dreaming
peacefully. The contrast with the stress tainted, low pH meat from animals -
raised on grass - that have gone through the trucking to auction, purchase
by abattoir at noisy auction, run into another truck and then off to a dusty
yard before being slaughtered, is enormous. It's no wonder people think that
such animals, purchased at auction, make better beef if they have three
weeks in the feed lot, from which they are usually direct-sold to the
abattoir.
I think the best solution in our circumstance - but hard to achieve in terms
of social and commercial organisation, would be for coalition between
organic beef farmers in harsher and softer pasture circumstances, to bring
the [predominant here] one to a handful of beasts per square mile cattlemen
into an arrangement where their animals can be finished on [equally
certified] West Virginia-equivalent soft pastures. But that seems pie in the
sky here; maybe if it were done in Texas our good ole boys might take
note...
best wishes
Dennis Argall
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