MM Livestock Co

This is an excerpt from "A History of Shelby County Iowa 1915" Perry McDowell born May 17,1866 "Poets often tell the truth and the old song which contains the refrain "The farmer feeds them all" states a very fundamental economic truth. Without the farmer the rest of the country would starve within a week despite the large amount of food in cold storage. Every occupation might be done away with but farming and people could live. A total cessation of farming for a very short time would actually depopulate the whole world. A man can live without banks his whole life but deprive him of his bread and his career is soon ended. Farming is becoming an honored profession: Our district schools are teaching it as a science and our colleges are granting degrees for agricultural courses. The farmers of any community sustain the people dependent on every other profession. Without the farmer the banker would close his doors, the manufacturer would shut down his factory and the railroads would suspend operations. Among the honored men of Shelby County, Iowa, who help keep the banker, the manufacturer, and the railroads is Perry McDowell of Douglas Township." I think it is amazing that something written almost 100 years ago still rings true today. The family farmer is the foundation on which this country was built. We Keepers of the Land are honor bound to produce the best foods, preserve our history, and honor the men and women that came before us. Meg

I forgot about the Kittens! Sox one of our farm cats presented me with 3 cute lil kittens a few days ago. Imagine the shock when a rescue cat with a spay certificate from the shelter brings her babies out to meet you. Someone messed up! The kitties are cute though and will go along with mommy to be altered as soon as they are old enough. Anyway, you have been asking why we are changing our name. Mostly because we want to identify more closely with my family farming history. I am the 7th generation of my family to make my living off of the land.(my mother swears there is a cowboy somewhere with a daughter that loves opera and the ballet. Boy is he confused!) I'll post a tribute to my great grandfather Perry McDowell, taken from "A history of Shelby County Iowa" in a day or so. His great grandfather is mentioned there too. Grandpa raised Beef cattle, Dad was a vet. So the progression is "in the blood". Another reason is I decided to take advantage of the farming exemptions and fee waivers by using my own name. Times are TOUGH! and every penny saved helps. Lastly I felt it was necessary to completely separate my operation from any connection with a former associate that refuses to raise their standard to what I feel is proper. I have worked too hard to get my animals certified, graded, tested, and verified to lose it all because someone else doesn't want to put in the extra effort. I want my customers to be absolutely confident about what they are eating, and if I don't raise it myself, I'm going to find a producer that raises animals the same way I do. (Ok Rant over) On a lighter note. The Red Wattle Hogs are on their way and should arrive in a few days. These hogs will be primarily bred for seed stock with a few made available to our customers. I'm very excited about our shift to Heritage Breeds. It doesn't cost a penny more to raise them and helps protect our history at the same time. Meg

We have 3 new Belted Galloway calves since my last post. A bull calf and 2 heifers. My "friend" calls them cookie cows because they are black on both ends and white in the middle. So in honor of him we named the bull calf Billy. The kids are having fun with the lambs. A ewe lamb this morning marks the beginning of our second lambing season of the year. We let our sheep breed naturally and thanks to our climate get lambs year round with the majority of the ewes lambing in September and June. Our cattle calve from March though July. The production herd is just about done and the Belties seem to have just as easy a time of it. This is our second season with them so we are still getting familiar with their habits. We will be butchering the first Beltie steer in a couple of months and that will be the real test. On the cooperative front. We are researching having a USDA mobile plant built for us so we can have even better control of our processing and be able to help other small holders bring their products to market. We will be limiting our services to beef, lamb, goats, and birds. Whew ! I need a nap!

Two posts in one day! I had to share this though. I just got a call from a fellow that had asked several days ago for Charolais steers and Duroc hogs. He was VERY specific about what he wanted so I referred him to breeders I know that raise these animals. He called to say Thank you. Nice. Did I make a sale? No. Did he get what he wanted? Yes. Is that good for my business? Yes. How? The customer got what he wanted and will remember that I didn't try to convince him that my animals were better than what he was looking for. If someone asks him for the type of animals I raise he will have no problem sending them to me. I am forever preaching about how farmers and ranchers need to cooperate with each other to strengthen our position in the market place. This is an example of how and why it is so important. One person being able to say," Megan didn't have what I wanted but she knew where I can get it" boosts my reputation as a producer. It's about doing the right thing, not just doing what's best for my bottom line. Meg

How can we grass feed our stock in Southern California? This question has been asked many times in many ways. From the nice lady that really wants to learn, to the flamer that wants to cause trouble. Here is the answer. We are lucky to have hay growers in our area that use our sheep to clean the fields after harvest. They move from section to section with a shepherd and portable fencing. We also cut our own grass for the dry season. We have irrigation that keeps our cow pastures healthy and productive, and we don't over graze. Our cattle only see confinement when they are being moved from High leases to lowland pasturage and during branding time. Another recent question that came up regarding our beef was, " How Can You Prove Its an Angus?" The answer is simple. We only use Registered Angus Bulls, and our Cows are either Registered or Angus Source Verified,with the exception of our Simmental Cows whose progeny meet the requirement. There are restrictions on marketing beef as Angus. There is a 10 point verification process that must be adhered to. Two of those points being easiest for the Direct Market customer to verify are 50 percent angus blood and 51 percent black hided. You can look up the regulations yourself for a more in depth explaination. If someone says they are selling Angus Beef and can't give you some verification odds are it isn't. Just because its a black bovine doesn't make it an Angus. We can trace many of our cows back to the Original Vail Ranch herds and one of our bulls goes back to an Animal imported by my great great grandfather at the turn of the last century. I guess what I'm getting at here is, if you want to be sure of what you are buying ask questions. If you don't like the answers, don't buy it. meg

I've had a lot of questions recently about why we have a sister farm raising our pigs. Well, there are a lot of reasons, the most important one being it is better for them to be raised within a reasonable distance of a USDA slaughter facility. If we raised the hogs here they would have to be in a trailer for over 5 hours just to get to a packer, add lairage time and that's 18 plus hours between the farm and the end. That's WAY too much stress to put on a pig. Phil is only 30 miles from the plant so its 90 minutes from pasture to processing. Another reason is we wanted Berkies. We believe that these Heritage Hogs produce the best pork available. Berkshire is to pork as Wagu is to beef. The Breeder we talked to agreed to raise them for us and his facility is AMAZING! He raises his pigs in family groups on irrigated pastures, They get grains and veggies in addition to being able to root and act like pigs. They never have to walk in feces or drink dirty water. When I told Phil about "The Stein Principle" he laughed and asked me if I wanted a camera in the pastures to watch the pigs grow. I said "Can we Do that? My customers would love it!" So we're looking in to how to make that happen. Cool Stuff! There are other reasons for doing things the way we do them. Pigs with poor genetics, poor quality feed, and that suffer undue stress produce what is called PSE pork. PSE stands for Pale Soft and Exudative. The common term is Soft Pork. The texture of the meat is spongy, and the fat melts at room temperature. Soft pork is also the packers nightmare, it gums up the saws and is a mess. There are also some health concerns with soft pork and you can e-mail me for links to the studies. So bottom line. We want to give our customers the best product we can raise as locally as possible. A 5 hour trip once a month for me to pick up my animals at the locker beats them having to spend 18 hours waiting to become supper hands down. Meg

Here is one of the ways we are transparent in our practices. We can trace our cattle and lambs from conception to consumption. Each animal is given a number shortly after birth, an ear tag with that number is placed in the animals ear. That number corresponds to the number that the mother has in her ear or the number branded on her flank. (butcher cattle are not branded until the fall of their birth year.) This number stays with the animal its entire life. As the young animals grow they are periodically weighed to determine rate of gain. We visually inspect our animals daily and if something is amiss we tend to it. Any animal that requires antibiotic treatment is given another tag so we know to keep it out of our production channels. We keep detailed logs on feed usage, pasturage, etc. I'm getting more computer literate and it still amazes me that with a click I can see how many cows Marcel bred, how many calves were born, and every detail of that animals life. So when someone comes in to buy beef I can show them where it came from, who its parents are, when it was moved, and how many times it was handled. I can even show them how much grass it ate! Most people don't want that much information, but for those that do I have it. We can also show the date and time a given animal went to the Abbatoir, lairage time, hang time, yield grade, and quality grade. We grade our animals to ensure consistant quality and sell no cuts that are not Choice or better. Select animals are ground and become hamburger or sausage. The system for our lambs is similar but we'll save that for another day. Meg

Sorry for my tardiness in posting its been a busy week. We had 3 steers butchered last week and one of them only graded Select. So, as per our protocols we Ground him. This time we decided to have some fun and have each primal ground seperately. Chuck, Round, Sirloin etc. Then we cooked up burgers from each primal and taste tested. Here's what we found. Sirloin was the favorite with Chuck being a bit too fatty and Round too dry. So we mixed equal parts of each primal and tried those. Sirloin still reigned supreme with the whole steer a close second. The consensus: As long as the meat comes from one animal and not a blend of several its great. And if he ain't Choice or better, stick with the plan and GRIND HIM. We are going to be giving you all an inside look at what we do here and how we do it. A friend has a theory about Transparency and we are going to share a modified version with you. We are calling it " The Stein Principle" and even though its a bit more work we think the education and peace of mind this practice will give our customers is worth the effort. So check back in a couple of days for the first installment. Meg

California is one of the most productive agricultural states in the nation and the small / family farmer is the hub around which the entire system turns. A group of us have asked Minnesota's Land Stewardship Project for guidance to set up a similar system here. The LSP has been very helpful, providing us with guidelines and protocols to help ensure that smallholders can and will be able to provide their customers with claims that can be easily verified. The USDA has quite a few good programs like Never Ever 3, Certified Grass fed, etc. but these programs are expensive. Animal Welfare Approved is the best program around currently and we want to combine the great work of these organizations into a workable system for California. It is going to take time and a Lot of work but we want to be able to give the Farmer a voice and the consumer peace of mind in a time when inferiority reigns supreme. meg

Well the kids are home from the fair and 3 of the 5 show steers came with them. We help 4-H kids with their projects by providing animals at a reduced price for the kids to raise and show. If the prices aren't good when the kids sell at the auction we "buy back" their animals and offer them for sale ourselves. It helps the kids and gives us a few grain fed animals for folks that prefer them. The kids did really well this year showing in the top 3 percent overall. I was very happy to see that our "pasture steers" were right up there with the fancy show cows. Great Job Guys! Meg

Ok you guys asked for this so here goes! Our first group of lambs are weaned and separated. Wethers to the big fields Ewe lambs at home. Our Angus cross cows are dropping calves in earnest! 15 in the last 4 weeks! Ole Marcel got his job done in record time. This is his last year as our primary sire as he is getting too old to hike the hills. Our young Aberdeen Angus Bull Chuck will be taking over his duties on the mountain. Marcel will move in with the registered gals where life is easy and the pastures are flat. We just finished our audit with Animal Welfare Approved and think the program is amazing. Gracie the youngest of our Border Collies "aka the Velociraptor" started formal training last Friday and took to it well. I think she's destined to be a cow dog, but we shall see. It's hot already here in So. Cal. so we've been busy putting up misting systems, building and repairing watering and irrigation systems, as well as trying to keep up with our Farmers Market and Farm Sales operations. We are also going to be hosting a series of seminars focusing on Natural Production and Livestock Management. I'll try to keep it interesting and the rants to a minimum. Stay tuned It could get Wild. Meg