Cattle

It’s a New Year!: Let’s Get Those Orders In.

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Hello readers!

It’s so good to be back to our normal routine. The last month has been very hectic with marketing, communication with customers, finalizing orders, communication with the butcher (we’re BFFs at this point), picking up and delivering beef. It’s been great but I’m ready to get caught back up and start a new year.

2018 was a success! It was our first year reaching out to the public with our beef and spreading the word about Grant Creek. We, especially I, learned a lot about the process and I feel we had a pretty smooth year. Now we’re ready to tackle 2019 and expand our customer base. My New Year’s resolution is to get us even more out in the world and continue to bring you more exciting articles and recipes!

Speaking of, I owe you a recipe. I was very excited to try a cut I have never personally made before. It was great, but you’re going to have to wait to find out the details.

So what was the first dish I made in the new year with my new batch of meat?……

….Nachos. Not very exciting. I wanted to share this picture below though. I am admittedly horrible at remembering to thaw meat ahead of time. I’m not sure it’s something that will change anytime soon. I don’t love defrosting in the microwave but I made an exception this time. This picture is AFTER I defrosted. The first thing you should notice is the plate isn’t full of liquid! Store bought beef is so often loaded with extra moisture and half of it escapes during the thawing process. It was so nice to know that I got a pound of beef and a true pound was my end result. I didn’t pay for weight I wasn’t getting in the end. 

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1lb of ground beef AFTER defrosting.

So now we’re starting over and want to explain what exactly that means for us. Obviously by now you’ve picked up on some aspects of our process through our blog posts and you’re familiar with some of the pros and cons of purchasing locker beef. Pros: Cost efficiency, availability and convenience, and health. Cons: Upfront Cost, can’t pick and choose, only available for purchase at certain times.

Let’s focus on that last one. We are not a retail store in which you can pick and choose what you want when you want it. Our beef is only available once or twice a year. This is something we will definitely expand on as we grow, but for now it is crucial that we know the interest of our customers early! Below is a better explanation of our process, timeline, and why we must know in advance if you are interested in placing orders.

Calves are Born

We have two separate herds of cows, one group calves in the spring (February and March) and the other group calves in the fall (September and October). About two months after they are born the new calves are gathered up and given identification ear tags. The calves remain with the herd, drinking their mother’s milk and grazing, for at least 6 months. After this time, they’re gathered up and weaned from the herd.

Calves are Weaned

The weaning time for the spring calves is November (they are approximately 8 to 9 months old at this time) and for the fall calves is May (they are approximately 7 to 8 months old at this time). At weaning time, we have to make a decision to either retain the calves or to sell the calves. For the November weaning time we will retain calves for our beef program based on the interest that we have received from our customers. The remaining calves are sold. Our usual market for the calves being sold in November is either the Eureka Sale Barn or the El Dorado Sale Barn. The retained calves are taken to our Carney, Oklahoma pre-conditioning ranch where they are weaned and then wintered. Wintering refers to the care and feed that the calves receive during the winter months when there is no available grass.  These cattle will graze forage left over from the summer, they will be given hay, and they will be given protein supplements. There is a rather high cost to wintering cattle (cost of labor, cost of hay, and cost of supplements), and we only choose to winter cattle that we know can be sold later in our beef program.

We take the fall calves weaned in May to the pre-conditioning ranch where they are weaned and then put out on Bermuda Grass pasture for 45 to 90 days.  After this period these calves are either sold or retained for our beef program. Again, any retained calves will have to be wintered, so we only retain those calves that we know can be sold later in our beef program. For these calves, this decision making time is July or August.

Retained Calves

Retained calves are pastured in Carney, Oklahoma over the winter and following summer. All of our grass-fed beef is harvested approximately 1 year after the calves are weaned.  Fall calves would be available in June the following year and the Spring calves would be available in November of the following year.  Our beef supplies are very limited since we only retain what we know we can sell. Knowing customer interest helps us to be able to determine how many of our calves to retain at weaning time.

What we need from YOU

It’s so easy to wait until the last minute for most things today, however as you have read we need enough notice to know how many calves to retain. So if you are interested in ordering for the first time, or even if you JUST received an order and know you will be out by November/December, please email us! Remember, we need a deposit to actually hold your portion. The reason we ask for this is because we have too many people express interest but then disappear when it’s closer to time. While taking people at their word would be nice, we run into problems if too many calves are retained and we get stuck with the extra beef. We need that small commitment in the beginning, but rest assured the balance is not due until the cows are slaughtered and weighed. This gives you plenty of time to save and prepare. All you need to do is go to our Contact page or fill out a Purchase Request and we will reach out to you!

Questions? Just ask! We are here to help in any way we can. We understand it can be a lot of information to take in if you’ve never purchased bulk beef before and there are no dumb questions. I promise we’re all very friendly here 😉

 

 

The Nature of Grant Creek Ranch

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Calves and Beef are obviously the big business of Grant Creek Ranch. Understandably, this is what we focus most of our time and effort on promoting. We have a great product to offer that we all stand behind 100%. Naturally we want to share that with the world, or at least our small part of the world for now, but in fact there is so much more to Grant Creek.

Curious calves staring back at the camera.
You have to admire how they stick together

The drive to our ranch is not unlike most one would experience in the central part of the U.S. Once you leave Tulsa and pass through the suburbs to follow you reach what most people probably envision when you tell them you’re from Oklahoma or Kansas: Flat nothing. Of course there’s so much more than that, but to the untrained eye it can seem desolate. What you see are flat fields of grass, hundreds of cows, the occasional house, hawks gliding through the air. It takes you to a quieter time before cities pushed further and further out. It’s fun to wonder about the people who live out this far. How often do they go grocery shopping? What’s the closest town to them? How much work does it take to maintain this much land? What do they do??

Black-Eyed Susans

While I love outdoorsy things and have no problem getting my hands dirty, I am admittedly a city girl at heart. I love the convenience and easy access to necessities and entertainment. Most of all, I love the style and look of “City.” For being in a southern state I’m not much of a southern girl (regardless of how much I may love biscuits and gravy or beans and cornbread). However, having just recently moved out to the “country” myself I can definitely see the benefits. It’s much quieter. I have talked to my neighbors more than I ever did living in town. Traffic isn’t much of an issue unless you run into the occasional slow tractor or loose cow. There definitely is something relaxing about being in the country and time seems to slow down, especially at the ranch.

Going further in our hypothetical drive towards the ranch it gets increasingly quieter and calmer, towns are even fewer and far between. You can tell the people around have to rely a lot more on their local resources. It’s a completely different atmosphere. Luckily this is where the scenery gets better with rolling hills starting to form, wide open skies and beautiful flowers. When you get to the ranch there’s open space for miles. You can’t help but stand and take in all the beauty you don’t get in a city. While pictures won’t do it justice it’s certainly the next best thing and I wanted to share them with our readers!

An empty bird’s nest
Swift apartments built up inside our shop
A hawk flies through the clear skies

Birds, and their lodgings, are everywhere at Grant Creek. I find the nests of the Swifts/Swallows to be the most interesting. They are built up all throughout the shop we use to house our big equipment. They use such a unique design you don’t often see. Hawks are another common bird that are so beautiful to watch as they gracefully glide through the air, giving the impression its an easy task.

I am amazed at the people who can identify certain types of flowers. It’s certainly not a talent or skill of mine so please comment below if you know what these are. Google is letting me down. For now, I will simply admire their beauty and all the colors. Maybe I’ve watched Disney’s Alice in Wonderland a few too many times, but looking at the purple/blue flower with yellow in the middle I can imagine it’s a little tiny woman twirling her glamorous dress all around her.

A spider relaxes on his soft petal seat
Butterflies can be found everywhere on the ranch
Look closely…there’s more to this picture than you may realize.

Of course, where there are flowers there are insects. I can’t say they’re my favorite things ever but I can appreciate the pictures. Look closely at the pictures above. Do you notice the little spider chilling on his purple chair? Most interesting of all, zoom in on the picture of the tall violet stem. There’s more than the big bumble bee to find here. Putting their awesome camouflage skills to perfect use is an insect hidden on almost every one of those buds. Can you see them? Does anyone know what these are or what type of flower this is?

It’s almost hard to believe that in all these big open spaces you can find so much. You have to look closely or they’re easy to miss. Photo credit goes to Steffanie, the wife of one of the ranch’s managing members. She has such an eye for catching these magnificent images while most of us rush on by. Thank you, Steffanie!

Why Grass-Fed Beef?

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What makes Grant Creek Ranch Beef better than what you can get in the grocery store? There are many differences and we will discuss a few of the them in this post. Grant Creek Ranch Beef is from Angus cross cattle.  These cattle have been specifically bred to produce great taste from grass-fed animals.  This cross breed also produces cuts of meat that are restaurant quality; cuts of meat that you would be proud to serve to your dinner guests.  These animals are raised in a sustainable fashion: born in a pasture and allowed to roam freely until weaning time.  They are weaned at our preconditioning facility in Carney, Oklahoma.  Here they can be observed on a daily basis to make sure they are not under any undue stress.  Once weaned they are turned out onto our pastures in Oklahoma where they eat a mix of native and Bermuda grass.  During the winter they are supplemented with native or Bermuda grass hay and protein cubes, as they continue to forage in a pasture unconfined, through to the finishing process.

At Grant Creek Ranch our cow herd is a closed herd.  We are not bringing in new cows unless we are sure they are disease-free.  Because our herd is closed, the animal health is excellent and disease is held to a minimum. As a result we are only handling the cattle a couple of times a year (spring and summer) and the rest of the time they are busy grazing away on our pastures.

We are not interested in rapid weight gain or incredible size, therefore neither growth hormones nor steroids are ever used. This is because our customers want and expect naturally-raised, high-quality beef worth every penny.

To sum this up in one simple word: Flavor. Our grass-fed process results in some of the most tender and flavorful meat on the market. Why would you want anything else?

We are currently delivering sides of beef for no charge in the Tulsa area.  It is also for sale in the Wichita, Oklahoma City, Bartlesville, and Stillwater Areas (Delivery available for a small fee). Please check out our For Sale page for more information.

Once your try our meat you will never want to buy store-bought beef again!

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