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Doug and Carolyn Rief have been putting food on American tables throughout their entire lives. Doug, a western Iowa native, grew up on a family farm and began working at a cattle feeding operation in his early years. Carolyn, born and raised in Medina County, has been involved in raising cattle since childhood, also. Together with their families, Doug and Carolyn now farm close to twelve hundred acres around the Spencer area and their Black River Cattle Co., started in 1999, has grown to be one of the most impressive cattle feeding businesses we've seen in a long time. It's not easy to talk a farmer out of the barn and into an interview but we managed to coax Doug into sitting down with us the other day as he explained their operation like this:
We work to promote farm fresh, home raised beef that is raised without the use of any chemical additives. What we are trying to do here is to provide a superior line of grain fed beef that the consumer can buy at a wholesale price rather than paying retail in the grocery store. We buy the best cattle available and give them the best quality feed we possibly can to produce the very best beef available to local consumers.
We buy feeder cattle when they are calves weighing between four and six hundred pounds. Ninety-nine percent of the cattle that we feed here are Angus and Angus cross cattle. We buy a lot of certified cattle from farms in southern Ohio near southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia line. We choose black-hide cattle (Black Angus) because they produce more marbling in the meat. The more marbling, the more tender the meat will be. The cattle are usually bought in the late spring or fall and are fed an average of two hundred and thirty to two hundred and fifty days until they reach a finish weight of twelve hundred fifty pounds. We work hand in hand with a feed nutritionist who designs the feed rations for us and we follow those guidelines. Everything the cattle are fed is raised fresh right here on our farm. We feed them a mixture of corn silage and grain, known as a total mixed ration or TMR, and the soybeans that we use as our source of protein for the animals are grown and roasted right here, also.
Customers can call our farm and order their beef directly. We sell the meat by quarters and sides and we will arrange the processing through a local meat locker. They can customize your order to include the types of cuts they prefer and the meat locker vacuum wraps the processed cuts to preserve freshness for at least a year. Usually, a twelve hundred pound animal will dress at 62% of their body weight. That means that a twelve hundred pound animal will yield approximately 740 to 745 pounds of beef. We have charts that show the different cuts of beef to help the customer decide how they want their meat processed. We feed on average of 150 to 200 cattle a year at our farm here in Medina County and we usually have beef available nine months out of year. All of our cattle have been properly finish to provide the the most tender beef possible.
Most people know that the price of beef in grocery stores has really gone up. We can sell a superior product to the consumer without the use of so many middlemen thereby helping our customers save money. The meat that is sold by the Black River Cattle Company is guaranteed to be to the customer's satisfaction or we will make it right.
The next time you find yourself wondering "Where's the beef?", now you know! For some of the finest meat ever to grace your dining room table and save you money at the same time, call Doug and Carolyn at the Black River Cattle Co. and don't forget to tell them that The Advocate sent you!
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