Got the Bull Loaded and Delivered

A while back I posted about making cheese and explained how rennet is used in the cheese-making process to separate milk into curds and whey.  I talked about how rennet is obtained from the stomachs of unweaned calves when they are butchered. I also mentioned that there are non-animal based sources of rennet for those who are vegetarians.  I was not prepared for an email response to the post from someone VERY unhappy with me.  The writer called me vulgar names for supporting the killing of calves for making cheese and said they were vegan and I was barbaric for eating meat. This was a very angry person.  (Good thing they didn't read my annual chicken-butchering posts!!)  I believe in freedom.  Personally, I eat meat, but if someone chooses to be a vegan, to each his/her own.

The preceding paragraph serves as background for the following disclaimer:  If you are a vegan or are offended by eating meat, read no further.  In this post we'll talk about loading up our 2 year old Jersey bull and bringing him to the slaughterhouse for processing.  Over the previous week, I had fed the bull in the trailer.  He was getting rougher and rougher by the day.  When he would see me coming with the bucket, he would run at a full clip and try to hit me with his head.  I would run into the trailer with him in pursuit, I'd dump the bucket of feed and then I would exit the side door in the front.

Friday night I repeated those steps, but then circled back and slammed the back door shut.  After Friday night, there would be no more crazed animal on the pasture.  I wouldn't have to worry any more when the neighbor kids wanted to go pick up eggs.  No more buckets destroyed or electric fence reels knocked around. No more water troughs being turned over.  This bull was always breaking something with his hard head!

Saturday morning we took him to Elliott's in Morse, Louisiana and had to get him there by noon. After a teal hunt where we killed nothing but mosquitoes and time, we hooked up the trailer to the truck and departed.  It didn't take us long to get there.  The sign is not very impressive, but they do a great job in processing grass fed beef.

An attendant came out of the shop and directed us to back up to the holding pen. We opened the back gate and unloaded him. In some ways you might say that it was sad dropping him off, but this was the same guy that terrorized the barnyard for quite a while.

When I was a young boy and in 4-H, I showed sheep in the livestock shows.  I worked with them daily and named them and they were very tame.  I can still remember their names to this day (Fluff & Snowball, C3P0 and R2D2).  The problem was that these sheep were market lambs.  I didn't really understand this until the day of the auction and I learned that my sheep were being sent to a slaughter house.  It was very hard to deal with as a youngster.

This taught me a valuable lesson - Never name an animal that you are going to eat. We incorporated this with this bull to a certain extent.  We did call him "Chuck" from time to time, realizing that he was intended to be food.  Speaking of food, we went inside and talked to the gentleman behind the counter, explaining how we wanted the animal cut up.  Two years ago we brought a steer here and didn't request enough ground meat.  We remedied that this year, increasing the percentage of ground meat and having it packed in 2 lb packages, while getting roasts, steaks, soup rounds, oxtail, liver, tongue, bones, and fat.

The animal will hang and dry age for a little while and then they'll cut him up and package him and we'll go pick the beef up and transfer to our deep freeze.