“Don’t give it away it’s worth money”.

We have all heard that old saying but in some cases we as producers of grass fed beef have been guilty of even worse. We’re paying to give it away. When we take an animal to the processor to have it cut into retail cuts we usually pay a fee to haul off the guts and bones. As grass fed producers we are in a unique position to sell more of our animals to maximize what we receive for all our hard work. The obvious is of course the steaks; roasts and burger that we all love to partake of out of the freezer. We can sell some bones if you have the customers that use them. Maybe move some liver and tongue, even whole head sales if you have the right group who appreciates them. I don’t know about your customers, but mine are interested in Steaks, Roasts and burger. Less than half want the liver and most would rather not hear about the tongue. Once we take a look at the potential of what is typically left behind at the processor we find there are real dollars being hauled away in those gut buckets..

During the last visit from Ken and Prue McDowell, somewhere between Prue out playing me on the golf course and Ken out fishing me on my home waters, and numerous cups of tea, Ken helped me process a lamb for the freezer. During this hands on tutorial, my family and I were introduced to what he referred to as dog Tucker. Even though I have been selling grass finished beef for years I had not really given serious consideration to the Raw pet food market as an addition to our saleable product from each animal. Ken told us that in NZ he would take his culls to the “works” and they would give him a credit for so many pounds of dog tucker. Ken would then pick up what Tucker he needed and use it to feed his dogs. He told us his dogs did wonderfully on this for many years. He cautioned us on feeding sheep livers but everything else was good Tucker. 

My daughter was having trouble keeping weight on “Moose” a new Great Dane puppy she was raising and so she decided to try feeding him the raw diet instead of commercial dog food and wow what a difference. The dog maintains perfect weight and a nice slick hair coat. After plenty of reading and investigation on the web she found what she believed to be the appropriate answers to how much, how often, and what to feed. She joined a chat room on the subject and instantly she had requests to buy our products upon reporting about all the raw grass fed items she just put in the freezer after one trip back from our processor. Moose is really flourishing on the raw Tucker diet and is growing like a weed headed toward 150 lbs of lanky long legged lovin’. One of the advantages of a raw diet for big dogs is the size of the stool that is produced. Without all the filler which is used in most commercial dog food the size of the stools are greatly reduced. The raw diet can even help reduce that “doggy smell.”

We have all watched wild animals on the Discovery Channel take down their version of a fast food meal and they seem to dine on the organ meats first. The organ meats are very healthy being full of vitamins and minerals. The dogs love all the insides of a carcass that some of us have been allowing the butcher to haul away to the rendering plant. When I asked my processor if he would keep me all the organ meats and cut open the tripe and just spray it out and bag it, he said he would be happy to. I received my typical grind which we turn into hamburger, sausages, and hotdogs from a cull cow but then had a nice bonus of organ meats, tripe and bones that we can use to feed the dogs or sell to our more progressive dog friendly customers. Take a look on the web and see for yourself what the going rate is for a grass fed tripe and other pet food items. The prices might just surprise you and the market is there for the taking. We all know that eating grass fed beef is better for us than grain feed beef, the same goes for the raw pet food diet. I have read of dogs that have allergy problems that disappear on the raw grass fed diet.

Recently we processed an open cull cow and the weights and uses are as follows:

Live weight 1150 lbs

Hanging weight 637

TAKE HOME

Ground beef , Tenderloins 408 lbs

Pet food items:

Tripe

Organ meats

Bones 90 lbs

That’s 90 lbs more of saleable product off the same animal at little additional cost. I’m probably late to the party on this but maybe some of you can maximize a few more dollars out of each animal to help the bottom line. From now on the gut bucket will be a lot lighter when it leaves our processor.