The Freezer Has an Echo

Opening our deep freeze lately tells a story.  In the compartment to the far right which you can't see, it is full of chickens we butchered early this summer.  The chickens will last us until next summer.  However, as you can see below, the two beef compartments are empty.  There is 1 two-pound pack of ground meat - the last of it, two briskets, and not much else.  The deep freeze is so empty it has an echo.

Fortunately, we are blessed to have two bulls in the pasture.  With the Covid-19 craziness, people have been concerned about disruptions to the supply chain and lack of supply of beef.  As a result, many locals are having their animals slaughtered to have provisions on-hand in the event of an emergency.  Months ago, we called to get an appointment to have our two bulls butchered.  We found it was a four month waiting list!!  Anyhow, December 19th was our date.

The first step was separating Rosie and Clarabelle from the two bulls, Aussie and Clarabull.  The two bulls are not halter broken.  Clarabull does not have a halter on at all.  Getting them into trailer was going to involve trickery, deception, slight of hand, and raw will.  

We lured them to the gate with buckets of sweet feed.  They walked to the end of the trailer and stretched their necks out.  The bucket was placed just out of reach.  Coaxing the bull with a taste here and there, we got one foot up, then another and then pushed from behind and pulled from his halter until Aussie was up!

Clarabull required a bit more time and effort.  He fell getting in the trailer, but we were finally successful.

We closed the divider in the trailer to push them all the way to the front.  They finished off the sweet feed that we used as a lure to bait them into the trailer.

My best guess is that each bull weighs about 750 pounds, but I can't tell for sure.  Their weight sure made the truck sit down in the back, with the weight of both bulls on the tongue of the old trailer.  The trailer looks rough, I know.  It is a 1978 model that belonged to my grandfather.  I have been patching up rust holes in it with Bondo and fibreglass patching kits.  I will soon sand, prime and paint it.  I'm thinking about a navy blue color.

We drove through Jennings, Mermentau, Midland and Morse and arrived at Elliott's Slaughter House.  It sits in the country in the middle of pasture lands, rice fields, and crawfish ponds.  We watched a crawfisherman in his boat baiting up his traps.

The building itself is unimpressive.  It is a plain, white cinderblock construction.  Nothing fancy about it.  What we did notice is that on a Saturday morning, IT WAS PACKED with people.  The parking lot was full.  The interior had a line of people buying fresh meat.  You can't get it much fresher than this.

We unloaded the two bulls into the corral.  The attendant filled the water trough.  These guys will be butchered on Monday.  The meat will age for a while in coolers, and then they will grind and cut up the meat.  We will be called when it is all packaged and labeled and we'll go pick it up.

Here is a photo of the Cutting Instructions that they get from us.  I'll explain further below:

First thing is that when you bring an animal, it is ALL YOURS.  You can have everything you want, except the moo.  This sheet shows you what we get:

We want everything cut to 3/4 inch thickness.  For the front: We want the neck and chuck steaks made into ground meat, we want shoulder steaks, seven steaks, rib steaks, short ribs and brisket.

For the back: We want 3-4 lb roasts, T-bone, sirloin steaks, round steaks, shank.  We want them packed 2-3 steaks per package.  We want ground beef in 2 pound packages, the tenderloin whole.  We want the flank/skirt steaks for fajita meat.

For the debris:  We want the liver, but no kidney.  I'm not interested in the "Rocky Mountain Oysters."  We do, however, want the fat for soap-making and the bones for making beef broth.  We opted to not get the hide.  I'm sure that the items we decline, they will have a market for it all.

Upon getting a call in a couple of weeks, we'll journey back to the slaughterhouse and pick up the meat.  It will be all packaged, labeled and frozen.  We'll carry it home and re-fill the freezer.  The deep freeze will no longer echo, but will be full of grass-fed, hormone-free, fresh, natural, non-medicated beef.  The good stuff.