Wayside Valley Beef
Nowell & Rachel Moore ∙ David & Leanne Fogle
Our cattle are a heritage breed of beef cattle that are small to medium framed. The breed is known for their excellent foraging abilities and producing delicious beef. Our calves begin life nursing from their mothers until they are six months old or weaned. After weaning, the cattle graze all types of excellent forages –grass, turnips, rye, and protein-rich hay. During the final five months before they are harvested, they eat grain (or corn). Grain marbles the meat and gives it excellent flavor. Our cattle are happy cows, raised in an all-natural pasture setting, with no stress that cattle in feedlots may experience. On the day our cattle are harvested, they are delivered to the locker plant, unloaded, and processed on the spot, to ensure stress-free meat from farm to table.
Because our breed is small to medium-framed, many cuts of meat will be smaller. For example, rib-eyes are typically 8-10 inches–just perfect for your summer barbeques. Many people purchase meat or a quarter of a cow because:
They LOVE beef;
They like knowing where their meat originated from;
And they like to know that the animal grazed naturally and was treated humanely;
Plus, buying beef in the bulk is more economical.
The price/pound is calculated on what the butcher shop calls hanging weight. Hanging weight is the final weight before the beef is processed into various cuts. A quarter of a beef typically totals around 150 pounds. It will last all year–thanks to your freezer. Once you commit to purchasing a quarter of a cow, we will contact you and give you the anticipated date of harvest. We will later contact you to give you a weight of your quarter. We will instruct you to call the butcher with your specifics about how you like your cuts of beef. We will send you an invoice with the weights and the amount owed.
You may not know what exactly to do with each cut of meat or how much of each cut you will need per package. Here is some advice for a quarter of a beef. A quarter of beef is divided into a split side so you will get some of the front quarter and the hind quarter from a side of beef. The front quarter consists of chuck, pot roasts, rib steaks, short ribs and soup bones. The hind quarter consists of ground beef, top round, bottom round, T-bone steak, top sirloin steak, tenderloin, flank steak, sirloin tip, and rump roast.
For packaging purposes, you will be asked what thickness you would like for each steak, typically 3/4 in to 1 inch. Also, what weight you would like for each package of ground beef? We opt for 1 pound packages. If you have a large family you can easily request 1 1/2 pound or 2 pound packages. The bottom and top round are usually tougher cuts, so they will offer to cube them and tenderize them.
We ask for roasts to be 3 pounds. Italian Beef is a favorite in our family – one can of beer, one can of beef broth, one small jar of vermicelli peppers, plus one chuck roast slow cooked for 8 hours. We ask for larger, chunky short ribs. We place our short ribs in sauerkraut, sliced onion and sprinkle with brown sugar. We enjoy celebrating our German heritage!
If there are any cuts you are unsure about, you may ask that they just be ground into ground beef. Typically, for a quarter you’ll get 25-30 pounds of ground beef. The cost of processing varies because of how you have your meat packaged. The processor will give you an estimate of their fee at the time you give them your processing instructions.
To place your order contact us:
David and Leanne at (309) 310-2905 or leannefogle@gmail.com or
Nowell and Rachel at (309) 397-4062 or nbmoore2@gmail.com.
A great resource to learn about the benefits of Belted Galloway beef please visit http://beltie.org/statistics-on-beltie-beef.php