Part of being an ‘ethical omnivore’ is knowing where your food is from and how it was produced. At Rainbow’s Edge Gelbvieh we start with a deep love, pride, and respect for our animals. Each one of our animals has a name and is raised with care and respect.
Our animals are raised in an open pasture system on grass in the summer and on open forage in the winter. Our farm system is designed as part of a sustainable agriculture model which uses rotational grazing on native grasses and forage, solar power, and leverages natural animal behavior and safe handling facilities to raise sustainable, safe, and humane beef.
We don’t use hormones or antibiotics to increase growth (most producers don’t, and many of those practices are illegal in Canada anyway.)
The way we raise cattle translates to low animal stress and a clean natural beef that is safe for our family, and yours, to eat.
People keep asking me for beef and how they can buy beef locally. How to buy beef cattle to fill your freezer:
1) First and foremost, farmers cannot sell you beef unless it goes through a provincially inspected butcher and is marked for resale. They can, and most will do that for you, but it’s expensive and it takes a long time to get a butcher date.
Most farmers will sell you a live animal and book a date for butchering with a local (and usually uninspected) butcher. Uninspected is not a dangerous thing if you are buying a quality animal from a reputable farmer. Uninspected beef just means you trust that the animal is healthy and don’t need to pay to have it medically tested to prove it. Note here again, the farmer can’t (and you can’t) sell the uninspected beef. You can buy uninspected livestock and have it slaughtered for your own use as beef. Any beef you obtain this way will come stamped ‘uninspected not for resale.’
A half a beef is about a years worth of beef for a small family depending on how much beef you eat etc. If you figured out how much beef you buy in a year from the grocery store you probably will spend slightly less on beef from a farm. Farmers can’t make it any cheaper, and won’t sell it any cheaper to anyone.
2) Types of beef cattle
There are two types of beef cattle when it comes to buying live animals for butchering. There are young animals (under 2 years of age known UTM (under thirty-month animals) which are good for steaks. Older animals OTM (over thirty-month animals) are better for ground beef (though some chefs disagree and the newest fad in the culinary world is ‘aged on the hoof steaks.’)
Young heifers are smaller but usually taste the best and are most tender. Steers are bigger and are usually almost as good as a heifer. Young bulls are not bad either. Older cows and older bulls make good ground meat that is lean, flavorful and fragrant like game meat (moose, elk, deer etc.), but tough if you try to make steaks out of it.
3) Buying Livestock
Buying ‘beef on the hoof’ (which is how you buy from a farmer) means buying a live animal and you have to pay for the live animal from the farmer and for a butcher to slaughter, and process it into beef for you.
4)Livestock price
Young animals cost about double what older animals do per pound. Basically, on the cheapest side (meaning you are getting a pretty good deal) young animals cost about 2.50-3.00 (or more depending on the year and feed costs) per pound ‘on the hoof’ and 5.00-6.00 per pound dressed (after most of the inedible bits are removed.) Older animals are about 1.50-2.00 ‘on the hoof’ and 3.00-4.00 dressed. Dressed means after most of the parts you can’t eat are subtracted from the weight of the animal. After you have paid for the animal, you must pay the butcher to slaughter and process the animal for you.
Some producers cost less, some cost more, it depends on how much it cost to raise beef cattle year to year because it changes. Adding in requests for grass-fed, organic and other specialty feeding and care programs may add to the cost of your beef, because they make cattle more expensive for the farmer to produce. (Organic might cost you 9.00 per pound dressed.)
Some farmers maybe frustrated by requests (and decide not to sell to you) for asking for ‘hormone free’ beef and other buzz words. It’s illegal to sell animals with medications in their system. You are basically accusing the farmer of selling sick animals. Most farmers don’t use any type of growth hormones and find marketing campaigns that mislead people into thinking the beef industry is selling sick animals to consumers offensive. I understand both sides and understand how harmful these campaigns are to farmers and consumers.
5)How big are beef cattle?
Young animals are usually 600-1100lbs
Older cows about 1200-1800lbs
Older bulls can be over 3000lbs
Different breeds weigh in differently.
You usually 2/3 of the dressed weight in Beef if the butcher is skilled. If they aren’t (i.e do it yourself for the first time), you might get less.
5)What does the butcher cost?
The butcher will charge a slaughter fee, plus mileage to go out to your newly purchased beef animal, slaughter it and take it to the butcher shop for you. They will hang the beef in a fridge for a week to three weeks to let it age properly before cutting and packaging the beef for you. I pay about 120.00 for the butcher to come out and about $1.10 per pound of beef he cuts (steaks and roasts) for me. He charges less to make ground beef.
6)Beef Cuts
You can usually order whatever cuts you want from a butcher. 1” steaks or 2” steaks, filet mignon or prime rib, but remember you may have to choose between certain cuts of beef.
You may also have to specifically ask the butcher for certain things like soup bones, dog bones, ox tail, liver, heart, or sausage.
Things like sausage usually are mixed with pork the butcher may or may not supply and will cost more because they are more work and because you need to buy pork to add in.
7)Pick your beef up
Aside from making sure you have freezer space for a years worth of beef, (1/2 a young beef animal is about 3/4 of a big freezer) you go to the butcher and pick up your beef. Usually they will pre-freeze it for you and put it in boxes but bringing a few boxes of your own, some coolers, and a tarp to cover the back seat or floor of your vehicle is recommended.
8)Final notes
Beef farmers do not have beef ready for butchering all the time. Most have beef ready in the late summer and early fall. Which is good news for people who want grass fed beef, it tastes best then. Later in the fall, winter and spring, you will be able to get forage developed beef and grain fed beef.
Forage developed means cattle eat hay, silage and standing winter feed which is basically grass fed beef where grass doesn’t grow 12 months of the year.
Grain fed beef looks the nicest, has more fat and a milder flavor.
Farmers also don’t usually have as much beef as there is demand for farm fresh beef. It may take a while (a couple months) before they can fill your order but if you are patient they will work with you to fill your order and if you are a repeat customer will probably start making sure they keep a beef animal for you every year.
Rainbow's Edge Gelbvieh 