If you are looking for great steak cuts or even ground beef or chuck, swing in and visit us at the Beargrass Farmers Market and the Douglas Loop Famers Market in Louisville. If you are in Lexington, never fear, we are at Cheapside Market every Saturday morning with your coffee and breakfast ready to roll and we can help you fill your bags for lunch and supper. We have great selections of your beef, produce and can always finish off the meal with a great bread from the table for desert!
We were sitting down the other night after the rain ran us out of the hay field when one of our family friends called us to tell us that we had made it off the cutting room floor and were on the Secrets of the Bluegrass Chefs. They had come to the Douglass Loop Farmers Market back earlier in the summer to tape a show based on products purchased from the market. Quarles Farm was proud to supply the beef that was used as well as June apples and Candy Onions. Both Chefs came to our booth and bought product and we can tell Kate was so excited to be on T.V. If you are looking for great steak cuts or even ground beef or chuck, swing in and visit us at the Beargrass Farmers Market and the Douglas Loop Famers Market in Louisville. If you are in Lexington, never fear, we are at Cheapside Market every Saturday morning with your coffee and breakfast ready to roll and we can help you fill your bags for lunch and supper. We have great selections of your beef, produce and can always finish off the meal with a great bread from the table for desert!
0 Comments
I was wandering around on the net the other day and came across a great post from a friend on how her family processes a beef carcass on their family farm. This got me thinking about how our animals are processed from live animals to the final product that you see coming across our table to your freezer and into you skillet. I do have some pictures that were taken down at Boones Butch Shop in Bardstown Kentucky of our carcasses after they have been harvested and hanging for two weeks before they are processed into steaks and burger. We schedule harvest dates with Boones Butcher shop several times a month so we can keep our beef freezer in good supplies. This requires me to have calves ready to go at anytime depending on the amount of beef in the freezer. Since the farm is about an hour away from Bardstown we get up to get the calves on the trailer early in the morning around 6am. We do this so the steers arrive at Boones by 7am and are ready to process before it gets too hot or a back up is created at Boones. We do not like to stress our calves in any way they are led into the trailer with their morning feed and are led off the trailer the same way. From the time they get off the trailer at Boones they are in his hands for the next phase. The cattle are slaughter in accordance to the USDA in the presence of an inspector. Once on the rail Quarles Farm likes our claves to hang for 14 days at the least. I like to go down and look at every animal that we slaughter to see what kind of meat the animal is going to turn out like. This helps with decisions that we make when breeding our cattle for the next generation. Our main goal in addition to providing your family with great tasting beef is a better cow and calf. I am able to keep the records on each animal that goes from the pasture to the program in regards of behavior, feed performance and quality of product. The Quality of product is looked at when I have Boones Split the Carcass for me to get a look at the ribeye. We look for marbling though the steak, we like more marbling for the least amount of feed. This saves us the producer money and you the consumer with a cheaper better tasting steak. From the point that I look at the carcass the animal has been hanging for two weeks, after I look at the animal it is then cut and packaged and back in our freezer by the end of the week. You are looking at a product that travels about an hour from the farm and is back at the farm within three weeks. You are always looking at fresh local product when dealing with Quarles Farm We have made the jump to the sheep business today! Quarles farm made the purchase of four Katahdin ewe lambs this morning and have brought them home to the farm. We also purchased four ram lambs that we will be selling for meat later this fall. We chose Katahdin sheep for our herd because they are a meat based breed with great mothering ability and best of all they have hair instead of wool. So we don’t have to worry about shearing sheep. Katahdin sheep are also very tolerant of heat and humidity which as we all know is a summer time staple here in the Bluegrass state. All our future ewes are twins so we are looking forward to having four sets of twins next year since twining is a very heritable trait with sheep and something that we desire. We have two red, one white and one black and white ewe, the ram lambs are all white with the exception of one which is black. The ram lambs are going to be offered for sale at a later date at our farmer markets outlets or by special order. In the area of pasture management cattle and sheep compliment each other in that cattle eat mostly grass and sheep enjoy mostly weeds in addition of some grass. Having raised Lankins the lamb earlier this year we are looking forward to have little lambs next spring in addition to our spring calving run. Come out to a Market-
So we’ve been selling at the Farmers Market for several months now, but we still have customers who walk up and say, “We had no idea you set up here”. On that note, we thought we would let you know at what markets we participate. In addition to the Markets, we also take internet orders and orders by phone both for limited delivery to Frankfort or pick up on the farm. Just drop us an email or phone call we can help you out. In addition, we can also have larger orders ready and totaled for pick up at any of the markets in case you are in a hurry. Advanced orders also help us out by allowing us to make sure we have your order in stock. Since we have so many markets on Saturday mornings, it is sometimes difficult to make sure each market is fully stocked, especially if you need ten pounds of hamburger for the family cook out the coming week. That being said, we do strive to make sure each market has a full stock of all our products. If you are looking for a particular product, just ask. A helpful family member or farm employee will be happy to assist you. We now take Credit cards at most markets, the Daylily Garden and off the farm sales. However, please note that in order to keep our costs down for you the customer, we do charge a convenience fee for credit card usage. Saturday’s Lexington Downtown Lexington at Cheapside Park in the Fifth Third Bank Pavilion 7:00 am until 3:00 pm or sell out There is free parking in the parking garage Can use EBT and Credit cards at our booth Louisville Douglass Loup Farmers Market 2005 Douglass Boulevard, Louisville KY 10:00 am until 2:00 pm or sell out Free parking Can use EBT and Credit Cards at our booth St. Matthews Farmers Market 4100 Shelbyville Road- Beargrass Christian Church 8:00 am until 12:00 or sell out Free parking Credit Card use is available at our Booth Frankfort Frankfort Farmers Market Riverview Park, Wilkinson Blvd, Frankfort KY 40601 7:00 am until 12:00 pm or sell out Free Parking EBT and Credit Cards available with the market Sunday’s Southland Drive Lexington Farmers Market Southland Drive near Sav-A-Lot 10:00 am until 2:00 pm Free Parking EBT and Credit Card use available at our booth Wednesdays Lexington Farmers Market at University of Kentucky Near the intersection of Alumni and University Drive 3:00 pm until 6:00 pm Free Parking Credit Card use available at our booth Apologies we have been super busy at the farm with the lack of rain, amount of hay needing to be cut all adding up. This all comes with the veggie garden and the opening of the dayliliy garden during the weekend. We have worked hard to get more of the hay in and are down to around 100 acres left to cut bale and move to the hay sheds. We will then start hoping for the second cutting but at this point we are not holding our breath.
We preg checked the fall herd cows the other morning before it got too hot and are pleased to announce that we will be having all 40 cows return to the calving schedule around the 1st week of October with new babies. Our 10 heifers will be gracing the fields with new babies the second week of September. Now the only thing that we are waiting on now is weaning last year’s crop off mom to give them a rest. Saying this most of the cows are weaning their claves off and are always laying under the shade without a care in the world. We will take the 2011 fall born calves and start feeding the heifers for replacements and the steers for the Quarles Quality Beef feeding program. You will start seeing these steers in the freezer early next spring! We are also working toward getting our spring cows sent out to our summer grazing farm for a month or two so they can harvest the grass and come home before the cold winter winds start blowing though the hills of Franklin County. We will look at weaning the spring in late October to help ease the cows into the winter depending on the rain. In the mean time we are hauling water so cattle do not have walk as far and we are able to utilize each part of the pasture by forcing cattle to graze next to the water. We are rotational in our grazing and are not wasting any bit of grass or weight gain which is better for everyone involved. Plus I am keeping my cows fat and happy, and fat happy cows don’t wonder far from home. I know its short and to the point but if I get a chance I will work on a longer post… Here at Quarles Farm we run dual calving herds, one group in the spring and one group in the fall. In the past our spring herd is generally the larger group of cattle calving since green grass is starting to grow in abundance. We calved this way in the past to provide the farm with two different times in the year that we would receive a pay check from the sale barns. We are changing with the markets, increasing our fall herd to capitalized on the market demand while keeping our spring herd at a stable number around 85-90 head. This year we are looking to increase our fall herd from around 35 head to around 50 head if all our brood cattle are bred. The reason behind calving all the cattle out in a short amount of time is many all rolled into one. When calves are all born at the same time you are looking at a more uniform calf crop in both size and weight gain when everything is bred to the same sire. It is easier to calve a large number of cattle in a short amount of time on the labor end; we would all rather lose a week’s worth of sleep verses three months. When your cattle are more uniform in size, age, and weight you are always looking at better prices at market because you have better bargaining power in sheer numbers.
Planning for a calving season for a group of heifers really starts a birth on our farm. We watch for calves that are up and moving within an hour of birth and easy handling when we go to tag the calf, if she is crazy acting when we try to tag her, she goes on a list of heifers to watch for brains and attitude for later in life. (We do not like crazy, head throwing cattle) We watch entire calf crop for animals that are not performing or gaining weight and mark those cattle in another list for potential culling later both on the cow and calf’s part. The next true test for our young heifers comes at weaning time, we start watching closely at this time for mental and attitude problems while we are developing heifers. Since we hand feed our heifers twice a day at this point problem children are quick to stand out and be eliminated from the herd. It takes one bad apple to sour the entire group of heifers. When heifers turn a year old we go though the herd and pelvic check the group and cull select animals that do not meet the standards that we have set for the herd. Late born heifers are generally never kept because of age and growth. We like to have heifers that are at least measuring 165 cm meaning that they should be able to have a calf weighing 75 pound unassisted. This is the low end, we would like to see heifers anywhere between 180 and 225, and this comes in handy later on in life when we breed them back to Simmental bulls. So starting from a group around 40 head or so in the spring herd we generally try and breed around 30 heifers each year to serve as replacement s in the herd. We then sync the heifers to all come in heat on a certain day and breed though Artificial Insemination. With heifers I generally try and calve around two weeks before the cows so I have plenty of time to devote to them if needed. By the time all is said and done we generally have around 25 heifers calving in each spring the same with the fall herd. Any heifer that does not breed during this time frame is eliminated from the herd. I will be honest and admit I tend to baby my heifers when it comes time to calves to be hitting the ground. Being that it is the second week of February I have a barn bedded down with a hay ring and water. Anything that looks like she might have a baby in the night is locked up in the barn so the calf would be protected from the elements. I check our heifers every three hours when they are close so if anyone needs assistance it can be given, heifers tend to give up easier and sooner than older cows. When a heifer calves, then next test so to speak is given, how they act when I go to tag the calf, some aggression is allowable since it is her job to protect her calf but she must allow for the calf to be inspected, vaccinated for ecoli, and tagged if she expects to make in long in the herd. We do not employ man eating cows. From there the heifer is monitored on her performance of raising the calf to weaning and breeding back. These are all factors that I look over when choosing when cows are bred back into the herd for the next year. One heifer that would be raising a nonperformer calf and breed back with the second calf may not stay on the farm to deliver another poor performing calf; While the heifer that raised a tremendous calf and didn’t breed back might be rolled into the next herd depending on her genetics and body condition. Cows that have been established in the herd might be eliminated on the sole cause of her offspring throwing problem children or lack of performance once off the cow. Now that we have been selling beef by the cut I have taken the knowledge that I have gained by looking at the finished product and doing more with the bloodlines that produce that better steak and have stronger marbling for that great tasting steak you have come to know, expect and select. Next time I will go in to how I select sires for our herd based on the information that I have on hand and where I look for the direction of Quarles Beef to take. Things have been a little busy around the barnyard the last couple of days. We have new babies hitting the ground every day and are working hard to get fences fixed and cattle moved out to spring grazing. Grazing spring re-growth can be gratifying and very dangerous all at the same time. Generally farmers do not have problems when turning cattle out to pasture in the spring. We just open the gate and watch cows and calves buck, kick and jump before settling in and getting down to business of harvesting the grass. Spring 2012 is proving to be a different kind of year where all farmers are very careful about when cattle are turned out on pasture. The mild winter has led to an explosion of white clover which is covering the pastures with lush rapid growth. While this is good for nutritional value this can also be very deadly for all age groups and types of cattle across the board. Generally the white clover is slower coming on due to soil temperatures allowing the other cool season forage to get ahead and balance out the pasture as a whole. Right now in several fields the white clover has overshadowed and taken over for the time being; this is making it the only forage that the cattle are consuming in large quantities. White clover is known to cause what is called Frothy Bloat. To make a long story short it creates suds in the rumen, largest part of the stomach. This does not allow the gas (methane) to be released. This builds up, putting pressure on the lungs and essentially suffocating the animals. This type of bloat is really quick and has been known to kill animals within an hour of being turned out on predominately clover pastures. Farmers can take several different measures to keeping this problem from occurring in their herds. Methods from using bloat blocks, keeping cattle on dry lots, or ,clipping pastures can be applied. If the right management tools are in place, farmers can reap the benefits of the clover and still have a complete herd at the end of the day. We use a combination of dry lots and timed grazing to feed our cattle when it comes to lush green white clover. This year only two of our fields have been overrun with white clover, so I went out the other day and established a fence across 1/3 of the field. I called our fall heifers and calves from their field where they had been camped out around the hay feeder all day. I waited till the late afternoon when I had gotten home from the mill so I would be there when they were grazing and also so all the dew/ moisture had lifted from the clover. Wet clover causes bloat much easier than clover that has had the dew dry off for the day. Having the heifers around the hay ring all day assured me that they were pretty much full of ha,y which helps keep the chances of bloat at a minimum. We always try to keep hay in front of cattle in the spring to help with digestion. I let the heifers have the field for an hour before I pulled them off and gave them their nightly grain. This type of management assures that our cows stay healthy and happ Sunday Night as we were finishing up feeding and getting ready for the "little" snow that was coming we looked down in the field where #73 was lying under a ceder tree trying to calve by herself. After a family discussion and a management call we walked the cow the 1/4 to the front barn so she would be close to the house just in case. Upon getting her in the barn I discovered that she indeed was not going to have the calf by herself due the the fact that the baby's front hoof was tucked back under him. Calves generally come out of the cow with both front feet forward and their head pointing that way as well. Think of it like a diver that has both hands in a point above their head as they are getting ready to jump from the block. So Anyhow I got the halter on the cow and started to work to get the feet coming the right direction; with Dad's help and the contractions of the cow the first calve was extracted from the cow with little excitement. I cleaned the mouth and nose so the calve had a clean air way to start life out with. That's when Dad asked for the chains that were still attached to the front of Calve number one's front feet. Single births are generally the norm around here and it came as a bit of a surprise to see another calve on its way into the world. We worked to get the second calve on the ground and air way clear before we placed them side by side for the cow to lick and clean off. Cows lick off the baby calves after birth as a way to get them clean and dry. This also gets the blood flowing through the calve and serves a bonding time for the animals. We generally try and give time alone for this process to occur; so we left the lights on in the barn and went to the house to clean up and eat. I came back an hour later and worked with the cow to get a pint of colostrum into each calve. Colostrum is the Cows first milk and passes on everything that the calf is going to need to get his immunity system up and running. Since the little boys were still having trouble standing up for extended amounts of time I milked the cow and gave the calves an old coke bottle of Colostrum, this seemed to have done the trick and when I left for the night they were both up and searching for more of Mom's milk. They are now just two days old and are jumping around playing in the stall when they are not curled up next to each other asleep. You can't tell the difference unless you look really close one has more white on his navel that his brother. They will both stay in the barn for a little while so I can give their mother extra grain to keep up with milk production so she can keep feeding her bouncing baby boys who tip the scales at 65 pounds a piece! Walking in from the barn tonight after the rains from this morning I heard the tell tale sign of spring coming from the creek bottoms. The spring peepers or frogs were just singing along minding their own business. This got me to thinking of all the other signs of spring that are subtle but are still jumping out everywhere you look. Spring calves are just the beginning of the really long list; it makes you grin when you see little babies racing around the field or curled up in a ball soaking up the sunshine. The difference that you can see in the pastures that have been grazed over winter are the first ones to green up telling you that spring is coming and your hay fields aren’t far behind. The wheat that we seeded into the pasture fields is marching along in straight little rows giving sign that better and sweeter grazing is coming soon and another year of hay production isn’t far away. Dog and cat hair sticking to my jeans leg let me know that Sadie’s spring shave is fast approaching as I brush off hair every night. What are your favorite signs of spring? |
AuthorEveryone from the Farm might be posting from time to time you never know what might pop up on the Blog. Archives
May 2023
Categories
All
|