Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Testing. Okay, I got mine.
(00:04):
What about me? How do I sound?
I don't know, but I got little bars going.
Do I have bars going?
You got bars.
Heck yeah, we're live.
Final.
Okay.
Welcome to the Jake and Branson in the Morning podcast.
It's 1235 Central Coast time, San Luis Obispo, California.
(00:25):
You're on it.
Don't push this, you're going.
This is our first mobile podcast.
Mine as well.
This is my first podcast ever, period.
So, so it might not even get aired.
Yeah, or I could be a flop and just get a bunch of hate in the comment section.
I don't know if that was a comment.
I was just telling Jake, these would be so much better.
(00:48):
Don't mind that noise, guys.
That's that.
We're in the work truck right now.
We just got done doing some beef.
No, but I was just telling Jake,
these would be so much better if there was a comment section to see the good and the bad.
Because I want to see the bad too.
I think that's the fun part about social media.
I want to see the, I want to see all the trash talk.
(01:09):
You can always just comment on the Instagram page.
Yeah.
Tell us how much you hate it.
Yeah, or we were thinking maybe about putting it up on YouTube.
I think you guys tell us how much you hate us there.
Definitely.
It's a great platform to tell people how bad they're doing.
So, the only way we can get better.
Yeah.
How else are we improve?
We're trying to, we're trying to get to Joe Rogan's level.
(01:33):
A couple more subscribers and we'll be there.
Yeah, probably three or four.
So if you guys are listening, subscribe.
And we should be there in no time.
Okay, so I gotta do that intro thing.
So, just gonna bear with me.
Welcome to the Butchersbowl podcast where the hunt meets the harvest.
I'm your host, Jake Dilger.
(01:53):
And I'm excited to share my passion for hunting and butchering with you.
With 12 years of experience in the field and in the shop,
I have learned a thing or two about what it takes to be successful in both pursuits.
On this podcast, we'll dive into the grit of hunting from scouting,
tracking to the shop placement and recovery.
We'll also explore the art of game processing from field dressing to the final cuts.
(02:15):
And everything in between.
But it's not just about the technical stuff.
We're also here to share stories of venture from hunting trips,
as well as my friends and expert guests from the industry.
We'll talk about gear, strategy,
and we'll talk about lessons learned along the way.
Whether you're a seasoned hunter or just starting out,
whether you're a butcher or outdoorsman,
or someone who just enjoys a good steak,
(02:36):
I hope you'll join me on this journey.
And we'll explore the intersection of wildlife management,
sustainable hunting practices,
and the art of transforming wild game into delicious meals.
So tune in, subscribe,
and let's get started on this adventure together.
I'm excited to share my knowledge, experience, and passion with you.
And I look forward to hearing from you too.
Let's get into it.
(02:57):
So today, this is another work day,
but I'm here with Branson Mideros,
on arguably the biggest black tail slayer I know.
Wow. Wow.
What a reputation to have to live up to.
It's a hell of a title.
By the way, I like the intro.
I like the intro. Good intro.
Good intro.
(03:17):
Not too wordy.
No, it's nice. It's nice.
That was the first time I've heard it, so I got my...
Well, that's only the second time I've recorded it.
So I like it a lot. I like it a lot.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, no, thanks for being here today,
and give me some work to do.
Yeah. Well, we are, like Jake said, we're working.
That's what we do most weekends is work.
(03:39):
I'm a mobile butcher in San Luis Obispo.
And yeah, I've got a truck.
We do pigs, lambs, beef, even buffalo,
and some oddball stuff here and there.
But yeah, Jake's my right-hand man.
We both learned from the same guy in high school,
Mr. Mark Clement.
(04:00):
The great Mr. Mark Clement.
And yeah, Mark has since moved on to Oregon.
Jake's full-time at Cal Poly,
so weekends is what I got now.
But we do big days on the weekend.
We get a lot done, and it's a lot of fun.
Yeah, definitely big shoes to fill,
and have to live up to the name that we've come to our place.
(04:24):
We didn't really know that Mark had this many clients.
Over the years, he's kind of slowly passed them on
to other people,
but we didn't realize how many we'd absorbed
when Mark left.
I would say probably almost half of the county Mark was doing.
So now we're picking up the slack.
Have you noticed more new clients,
(04:44):
more new people popping up on your list in the last,
I don't know, four or five years?
Yeah, for sure.
COVID just changed everything.
We used to have, it seemed like you used to do
the same clients every year.
It'd be like your backyard beef,
a couple pigs here and there,
but repeat clients, and then once COVID happened,
(05:05):
it went crazy.
We started having a lot of people
scared about the meat industry,
and just buying stuff period.
So people started raising their own stuff in their backyard,
which is perfect for us,
because yeah, that's what we specialize in
is custom slaughtering.
So we started getting a lot of people
that kind of got scared by the pandemic.
(05:27):
And then I think what happened was they learned
that they liked it,
and cost-wise really wasn't much more product-wise,
much better, and they stuck with it.
So you think it was just that overall fear of food security?
Yeah, we're at the point where there was like,
people couldn't find toilet paper and paper towels,
(05:48):
and it was pretty bad.
People were loading up free,
it was just full of paper towels,
and yeah, they just couldn't buy stuff at hand.
We've never, especially in the United States,
we never have to deal with not being able to go to a grocery store
and buying something.
We have everything at our fingertips,
(06:08):
so when you don't have it,
you start freaking out a little bit,
and that's what happened.
Also, we live in a county that's got,
oh, you know, we're not in a poor county,
we're living in an area where there's,
a lot of people are doing very well.
So, you know, I think that has a lot to do with it, too.
People have the means to do it.
And we also live in an ag community,
(06:29):
where kind of a green revolution, I would say, happened.
I don't know if you'd agree with that,
but like, definitely more agriculture-based in that area.
Yeah, a lot of tourism,
but mostly rooted in agriculture.
Yes, and a lot of sustainable agriculture,
a lot of interest in the sustainable agriculture movement
as a whole.
Exactly.
And I think the custom stuff falls right into that.
(06:54):
So, I know how the process works,
but a lot of the people that are listening right now
probably aren't familiar.
How exactly would a normal, typical job
go for you from start to finish,
from calling in the booking all the way to the delivery,
which we're on our way to go do?
Yeah, well, let's do today, for example,
since it's fresh on our mind.
(07:17):
These clients each had two beef,
and they got to hold them well in advance,
usually a month, month or two in advance.
And at that point, they're correlating with the shops
who are going to cut and wrap the product,
because our job is only kill, clean, quarter and deliver.
So, they're correlating with the shops
when to bring them in, scheduling all that.
(07:38):
Once they get the green light from the shop,
they set it up with us.
And on big days like this,
Jake and I will schedule a time to show up.
We'll take care of our portion of the job.
That includes what I just stated, dispatch,
getting into carcass form, cleaned and delivered.
And after that, our process is done.
(08:00):
So, a lot of these places have different requests.
Some of our jobs will be, hey, I'm not home,
show up and take care of this beef for us,
leave everything there,
and take the beef to the shop for me.
And then there's jobs like the one we just came from,
where this gal had two beef,
and she wanted to keep everything edible off of both of them,
(08:22):
including insides,
which if we leave for them on site, we can do that.
So, we can leave.
She had friends coming to get the head,
and the tripe, and the minuto.
She kept the liver, the heart, the tail, the tongue,
and then she even kept lungs and spleens for her dog.
So, that's kind of the beauty of the custom side,
(08:45):
is we can really do whatever people ask.
And in terms of a normal day,
sometimes we don't have normal days.
Sometimes it's kind of crazy off the wall stuff.
Interesting requests, interesting locations.
Not all of them are always the easiest location.
But I would say that's kind of why people hire us,
(09:06):
because, you know, either they don't have a trailer,
they don't know how they would go about getting the animal taken care of.
Yeah, more flexibility,
able to add here and adapt to the environment at hand,
or the situation if you have a wounded animal,
or one that is not going to make it.
Yeah, and then sometimes we even have emergencies,
(09:27):
like Jake was just saying, they're not going to make it.
We get a call for an emergency to where,
you know, if the animal is still standing,
and they know it's probably not going to make it,
but it's not sick for any reason that it can't be consumed.
For human consumption, we can go and take care of it quickly.
They don't have to worry about transporting it or anything.
And like you were saying earlier,
it seems that the custom side allows the owner of that animal
(09:51):
to utilize it more fully from nose to tail,
which is really popular nowadays, and that's the sustainable agriculture.
Absolutely, absolutely.
And they're going from hot carcass to the fridge
with all their off-all product,
and then straight to the cooler with their carcass.
A lot of people are interested in the non-transportation side of what we do,
(10:14):
because, as you know, Jake, but maybe our listeners don't know,
if you go and you do one on site, there's no added stress of transportation.
So if you haul one and it's naturally a high stress animal,
they have a potential of being a dark cutter,
which means the meat turns like a cherry red color,
(10:36):
and it's not desirable appearance-wise, although it's still edible.
Right, and they can affect other qualities like marbling and tender.
Exactly, exactly.
And so that's what people are trying to avoid when they call Jake or I,
is to do it with the least amount of stress as possible,
and then they don't have to worry about trailering him.
(10:57):
And I would say cost-wise, there's really not enough of a difference.
If you haul them to a butcher, you could save where we're at.
It could be different everywhere.
Where we're at, you could save 50 bucks, but with the price of fuel nowadays,
6-1.5 does in the other, really, which way you decide to have them harvested.
Harvested, are we going to call it harvesting?
(11:20):
We're going to call it slaughtering.
I don't know how politically correct we're going to be.
Just enough.
I see no difference in those two words.
Exactly.
So yeah, the humane handling side of things obviously has a much easier avenue
with going with the custom side of the animals.
(11:42):
And it's field home, court advantage.
It's definitely more comfortable there.
That's where it eats.
That's where it sleeps.
It's normal movement patterns take place.
It's not contained in a trailer for a certain duration being transported
that always stresses an animal no matter how seasoned they are in that.
Yeah, and they could spend time at the kilpin too, at the facility.
(12:04):
Yeah, intermingling with other animals where they could actually catch
a zoonotic disease or get roughed up.
But if they're not getting along, injury or bruising to the meat, that's never good.
Yeah.
There's a lot of factors that a lot of people don't consider or know to consider
when trying to pick between the two options.
(12:26):
And it's definitely, I noticed a trend where if the customer is going to eat,
consume the animal themselves and it's for personal family use,
those people are much more concerned about the quality we do in terms of the processing portion of it.
Whereas a lot of USDA clients, if they're bringing in five or six head at a time,
(12:51):
it's not that they don't care about how it's taken care of,
but just simply the quantity that they're having processed at a time is not something we really do.
So they want to take it to a place that can do five or six at a time.
Because they have those five or six ready all at the same time.
They don't want to burn more feed or work with other logistics
that's trying to schedule different dates.
(13:12):
Exactly.
And also a lot of it's going to either boxed beef, quarter beef,
because USDA can be resold.
What we do cannot be resold.
I think a lot of the disconnect that they have too as producers,
they don't care about the quality of their product,
but at the end it doesn't end up on their plate where they would not necessarily hear about a bad experience
(13:35):
if someone wasn't willing to reach out to them.
Yeah, exactly.
Whereas if it was for their own personal use,
they would understand the ramifications of what goes into it,
because they're the end consumer themselves.
Yeah.
What do you like more?
Because now you're in a shop, well in a managerial position, in a shop.
(13:57):
Managerial? Did I get the right word there?
Managerial?
Yeah.
Okay, good.
In a shop for the last, gosh, almost six years now?
Yeah, about.
So he's about 50-50 where I'm only out in the field killing.
Would you say you like both?
Would you like them the same?
Or if you could kill all the time, would you kill all the time?
(14:19):
That's a tough question.
I really enjoy being out in the field.
I like being outside.
I enjoy the different variety that comes with mobile slaughter.
You're going to a different place, different location every time.
You get to see different people and talk to them,
work with different animals with different temperaments, different qualities.
Whereas inside, there's a lot more repetition.
(14:40):
Everything is very similar to what you did the day before.
You have the variety of changing via processes. Some days will be slaughtering beef inside.
Other days will be fabricating cuts.
Another day will be making a value added product like summer sausage or smoked sausage.
So there's the variation there.
I do enjoy the different facets of butchery and that I can get better in each of those processes itself.
(15:05):
It gives me time to focus and actually learn more about each of those processes.
Whereas with slaughter, I think it's a good avenue to kind of decompress
because I know the role. I can fill that role easily and I can kind of shut my brain off.
Yeah, and what we do is so free too.
Besides having a client every once in a while stand there and watch us the whole time,
(15:28):
which we don't really mind at all.
Yeah, it's so free.
Especially when they're interested.
Yeah, that's true.
If you have a client that's asking good questions and they're interested and they want to know stuff,
we love sharing that information because we kind of nerd out on that stuff too.
It's the same way we're teaching a class.
If you have students that are interested and engaged with the material,
it's a lot more enjoyable as a teacher than just being a demonstration for people that really don't want to be there.
(15:54):
Yeah, and the best is when this happens to us all the time too, when there's kids there.
And there's young kids there that are old enough to kind of know what's going on
and or maybe they were raised on a ranch or they have an uncle or a grandpa who hunted or something.
And the kids are the best.
They have the best questions.
They just say the most off the wall stuff.
No filter.
(16:15):
They say the most off the wall stuff.
They're interested in the stuff that we like to talk about, you know.
Well, a lot of kids nowadays don't get to see either because it's behind closed doors
and no one asked the question of where my food came from.
Yeah, exactly.
We always say it's the best biology class they'll ever take.
Yeah, and it's amazing that then everybody has the right obviously to choose what they wish to expose their kids to.
(16:40):
But it's amazing how many people don't want their kids to see it too.
We get both.
We get people that really that make their kids go watch because they're like, hey, this is important.
If you're going to eat this stuff, you need to know where it comes from and how to do it the right way.
And then there's people that say, hey, can you do it on Monday morning at 9.30?
Because I want my kids to be at school.
(17:02):
And either way, we don't mind.
We say yes, no problem.
But I think everyone's ready for that at different times in their lives.
For sure.
For sure.
When they can actually grip the understanding of the gravity of the situation.
It is for a purpose and a purpose that is needed for our lives.
Yeah, I would say if you, yeah, I would say they got to be old enough to see the cause of the factor.
(17:24):
Exactly.
There goes our beef racks again, just shifting.
Windy road.
Windy road.
A lot of traffic.
We, yeah, we work out of a Chevy Silverada, like a rock, three quarter ton four door Chevy with specifically designed slaughter rack on it.
(17:48):
Our ag teacher, Mr. Clement, marked the guy that taught us how to do it in the 80s had his shop class build him one.
And if you can imagine an H frame boom, I don't know really, there's not really another industry truck you could compare it to.
It's almost like a super overbuilt ladder rack that extends.
Yeah, if you can imagine a ladder rack of a standard work truck and then you just added another top rack to it that was extended out the back up and out the back of the truck via hydraulics.
(18:20):
That's kind of what we're working with.
So when the trucks all set up the booms at a 40 degree angle off the back of the truck.
So the animal is essentially hanging right off of our tailgate.
We do a lot of the work to start once we have the animal down.
We'll bring them out and with with ground racks or we'll call them chucks or blocks.
(18:42):
We'll get them on their backs and that's how we'll start it.
So we'll start by taking the legs off.
We'll make our seams, which is where we're going to start skinning from.
We'll split the brisket, get them hooked up to the gamble.
Once we get them in the air, then we can gut them in the air, finish taking the height off and then split them.
Some shops want them split in half.
(19:03):
Some shops want them split in half and then quartered.
And that's just determined based on the height of the facility.
So the rail height for the receiving and how they're going to store them.
That's right, rail height.
So where we're going right now, which we're going to take a little intermittent break from the podcast to deliver these two beef we have in the bed of the truck.
He's got high rails and this is a newer shop that was just built.
(19:27):
State of the art facility, state inspected and high rails.
So he takes them in halves.
Every other shop in our county takes them in quarters because they're older shops.
Unless it was a horse processing facility, really nobody had high rails.
Not really, you know, let's put some serious money into it.
At Paul, you have high rails.
(19:48):
Yes, Paul has high rails as well.
And there's only benefit to hanging in half besides just space efficiency of square footage usage.
Not quartering them until the day you cut them.
You do save probably a steak, but not much.
You're not going to be trimming as much between the two because you're cutting them fresh.
(20:09):
The New York strip and the ribeye side.
They're not going to be able to get to where they meet.
So it's real marginal, but I do like the efficiency of hanging in half just for the sake of one.
You don't have less pieces to keep track of.
So they're not going to get switched around on rails.
Yeah, that's true.
And then also you can hang four beef in the same area, square foot.
Yeah.
(20:30):
So that has been really convenient and efficient.
That's about it, right?
I mean, I can't really think of any other reason you'd want to hang in half.
If you go to quarter them, you're just making more surface area with that cut where you break between the 1213 for a mold growth to happen.
Yeah.
Now when you break, yeah, when you break them, are you going to quarter them before you start to work them in the shop?
(20:54):
Yes.
So typically what I'll do is I'll break a four quarter off and then I'll work on just that four quarter and then move to the high and quarter later on.
I actually let a high and quarter hanging on the beef.
And how do you guys make that transition?
You're able to get a butcher block table underneath the front quarter and then you break it down onto that.
Gotcha.
(21:15):
And then the high and quarter can come down with a real assist.
And you said you hang the high and quarter another week.
Why would you do that?
The only reason we do that is for a class schedule.
One week we'll have a laboratory section focusing on four quarter fabrication and then the following week the next lab section will be high and quarter fabrication.
So if we're not doing it for a lab or just doing it for a normal production or employee training, we could do the same, do an entire half week for one day.
(21:39):
How many labs you guys end up doing a week?
So we have, let's see, I got two on Tuesday, one Wednesday, and two on Thursday.
Oh, so you could have multiple in one day.
Exactly.
Gotcha.
And that's just this quarter.
All ag science students.
All animal science.
(22:00):
All animal science students.
Yeah, but that's the only reason we divvy up the front and high and quarter sections into different weeks is just for first class schedules.
If I was to do it for normal production, we would just continue from the front quarter then go to the high and quarter and do one half then the other.
Yeah, no benefit in terms of quality or process or anything at all.
(22:22):
And Cal Poly for our listeners, Cal Poly is largely educational facility.
So as they do have a retail store, it's not their focus.
Their retail store is not their focus.
They are happy and thrilled to sell product to local customers who just want to come in and buy stuff.
(22:44):
But really, if I'm not going to speak for Jake here, but it's really largely educational, right?
Yes.
It's an educational facility and the sales of our products are just a byproduct of that educational process.
Gotcha.
It's basically just the ends to a different means.
And you know what?
This is off topic, but I got to get something off my chest.
(23:07):
The washboard roads that we run into in our job is just off the hook.
I mean, we can't even get a podcast record because of these washboard roads.
No, not even.
I think you need an alignment.
Yeah, I know.
It's getting bad.
And we always joke we should charge more for the washboarded roads, but we're at the meat shop right now.
So we can't really hit this guy for much.
(23:29):
But yeah, we are going to, what do you think, Jake?
Should we take a little break and get these beef off and fire back up on the way back to town?
Yeah, let's get this beef in the cooler, get them chilled down, and then we can start the pot back up.
Awesome.
And with the power of editing, we are back.
Wow, we never left.
(23:50):
Never really.
It was only just a fraction of a second.
Yeah.
So we got some beef unloaded and talked to Garrett for a while.
It's always fun talking to Garrett.
We love Garrett.
Yeah.
Garrett Roff, that is.
Ranchita Meat Company.
Yeah, what takeaways do we have from that?
Beef or cold?
(24:12):
Beef or cold, beer is cold.
Beer is cold.
Yeah.
Yeah, just making sure we do everything the right way so that we don't mess up someone's product down the road.
Yeah, he wasn't there at first.
We were kind of on our own and loading.
And how all these unloads go is there's usually a winch to a rail outdoors that you can get them out of the truck and get them onto a rail.
(24:35):
In this situation, into a hanging room, you would say, non-chilled hanging room for a wash, lactic acid dip, and then a trip.
And then from there into the cooler.
And that's the end of our job for the day.
That's when we're technically we're done.
Sign seal delivered.
Yup.
So I didn't mean to kind of paint you into a corner or into a box earlier because you do a lot of things.
(25:03):
How exactly would you describe yourself?
What are you?
What's your job or multiple jobs?
Well, I would say career, job, career, this.
Mobile harvest.
Mobile harvest on this lot.
Yeah, mobile harvest for sure.
I pick up most of my days, especially in the summertime, most works in the summertime and then, you know, scattered work throughout the winter, the rainy season, the holiday season.
(25:28):
But then on the side, I have a small percentage of my income.
Some is hay.
So we have a family ranch on Creston, California.
And we are a very small operation.
So I make enough hay to kind of sustain my 12 cow cow herd, keep a couple of steers back every year, sell the calves and then the hay we grow there feeds them through the drier months per se.
(25:58):
And whatever hay I have left over, I'll sell, which is usually not a lot, but it's enough for some fun money.
But no, that's really it.
Those are my three kind of money makers.
But by far, this is my main job.
You know, spent a lot of time hunting, obviously.
So hope I'll fit in on this podcast.
(26:19):
Well, I think we'll have some good, some fun hunting stuff to talk about for sure.
We've got a lot of good hunting stories.
Spent a lot of time duck hunting this time of year.
A lot of time deer hunting the other time of the year.
But yeah, young family now we have our first daughter who's a year and a half now.
So that's getting really fun.
But yeah, busier now than I've ever been in my life.
And the family, I mean, having kids and Jake will tell you this because he's got three now.
(26:44):
That's a full time job too.
And yeah, it still takes a lot of time and a lot of energy.
No one tells you how much energy it takes to raise kids, but
No, it's just a, it's the requirement.
It is what it is.
You can't really change it.
Yeah.
But I think since I had a kid, I, it definitely, I think was for the better for me, for my
(27:07):
obviously for me and my wife.
Sometimes I wish we would have done a little earlier, but
It makes you change perspectives for sure.
Definitely.
Realist priorities in a better, healthier way.
Definitely.
Definitely.
Yeah.
And honestly, focus a lot more on work now because you want to have money and want to have extra money in case, you know, the
financial security.
(27:28):
Exactly.
And you know, when you're younger and you don't have kids, we're just out butchering for fun money and
Yeah, you're not really worried about what's going to happen.
Yeah.
Happen.
Whereas if you have a family, you have people to provide for and you want their future and
their security to be a non issue.
Yeah.
You don't want it to worry about.
(27:49):
Exactly.
Whereas when you're by yourself, you'll figure it out kind of thing.
Yeah.
And the only person affected is you.
Yeah.
At the end of the day, you're responsible for your own stuff, but as now you're responsible
for other people's lives that you could totally mess up.
Yeah.
And speaking to this job, asking about jobs, I've taken this job a lot more seriously in
the last few years for multiple reasons, that being one of them, but new regulations too.
(28:13):
So now before as a custom exempt mobile slaughter, you didn't have to have any state requirements
or you didn't have to pay for any licensing, I should say.
You're a registered on a list.
People can find your name online.
The state knew about you.
But recently, some laws have passed to where the same as kind of a custom shop, we have
(28:37):
to have mobile slaughtering license.
So they are going to monitor what we do, how we do it, our processes, processes, cleanliness
and stuff like that.
So kind of unfortunate.
We were lucky to get away with not doing that for a long time, but just more red tape.
The government will get their money one way or another.
In one third cut.
Yeah.
And you know, I don't want to talk ill of any of this, but we never got a call to tell
(29:03):
us that this licensing head was a thing.
It's a very abrupt transition out of nowhere.
Yeah, no letters to any of the people on the existing list.
They could have easily sent a letter out to everybody on the existing list telling them
that, hey, you guys, we've got some new laws coming into effect.
We need you guys to be licensed for this stuff.
Yeah, but that would take time.
No notice.
(29:23):
And also, while we're on the topic.
You can't find anybody that knows what the heck's going on.
No, no one knows.
So when you get their wires crossed, they're all pulling this information and they're
making up as they go, or they are new and have no idea what you're talking about.
Found a lot of that.
Found out a lot of new people are working at these offices.
(29:44):
I'm calling.
So four or five calls later, I got in contact with someone who knew some information.
So we're on the right track.
Got my paperwork in.
Now just waiting for an in-person visit from a USDA inspector, I guess it would be now.
So not USDA.
California Department of Food and Agriculture Inspector.
(30:06):
Yeah.
So many different accurate.
Yeah, it's tough.
All it really means is you have to give the government some of your money.
And they sign off that you get your money.
This guy paid us so he can work.
And he received it.
It's all they care about.
We're just out here trying to make a living.
(30:27):
Your name on the list is your receipt.
Yeah, that's right.
All right, you have permission to go kill.
Yeah, which I don't see.
There's no possible way they can enforce that.
And there's just too many moving factors and variables and it makes no sense.
Yeah, and I can't even get any answers.
Just from a logistics standpoint, I mean, it's very similar to the Prop 12.
(30:50):
It's either a verification or it would take a army of people to patrol and
investigate and enforce these laws.
From an establishment that doesn't have a ton of resources.
Exactly.
They're already under staff as is.
The liquid and under staff.
Yep.
And it doesn't help when their communication is very poor.
(31:12):
They just can't.
It takes a simple memo across the board.
Yeah, it's hard to know if you're doing it right.
You don't even know what to do.
Everyone on the same page so we can understand what's required of us.
Yeah, and Garrett's another good example of Garrett Roth, the shop we just delivered to.
It's another great example of a guy who wanted to do it the right way and went through all the legal steps and processes to do it the right way.
(31:37):
And did like four or five unnecessary steps because he just couldn't get the right answer from anybody.
No, no one.
And I understand niche industry, really small kind of a, not a lot of money flowing through this industry, you know.
It's a good living for the people that do it.
But it's just not a big industry.
(31:58):
I don't think they are ever going to have enough resources to keep a good eye on it.
But in the meantime, we'll pay our money and be legal.
Yeah, do our best to be.
Yeah, I made it a point to, in the process of getting all this information,
to the point that they would know my name for sure.
I called back several times until I could get the right answers, the right information, the right paperwork, all that stuff.
(32:22):
Just because you don't want to be the guy that gets blindsided and never tried to get his license or anything like that.
So it just shows you're being proactive and that you're trying to do the right thing.
Yeah, yeah.
Whereas other people might just try to fly under the radar.
Yeah, yeah, and you work USDA slaughter.
(32:43):
So Jake has done both.
Jake's done USDA slaughtering and custom exam slaughtering, which is what we're doing right now.
The USDA side, tell us a little bit about that.
They were on a mobile unit.
So the USDA harvesting would be done at a ranch and then they would transport them back to the shop.
Kind of made for a kind of a klugey setup, wouldn't you say?
Definitely a logistics nightmare.
(33:05):
A lot of moving parts, a lot of potential issues that became real for two fruition issues.
Mobile is not ideal when it comes to federally inspected product.
It just throws a wrench into everything and a lot of small minute details can be blown out of proportion.
And why would someone want to do a beef USDA?
(33:27):
I think we touched on it a little bit earlier, but what would be the reason for someone doing USDA?
The only reason you'd want to do a beef USDA is if you were doing resale on a interstate level.
Gotcha.
That would be the only thing.
And if you're doing cuts by selling by the cut.
Yeah, our box beef.
If you had a box beef program online where you wanted to ship anywhere in the United States, then you would need to do USDA.
(33:52):
The same goes for any other species or value added product being smoked product cooked, shelf stable, non shelf stable, all those things.
So bacon, ham, smoked sausage, any of those further processed products you would need federally inspected to sell on an interstate commerce level.
And then what about our average client that wants to sell a quarter beef to his cousin live?
(34:18):
Well, let's not say live, but non-packaged.
His cousin is going to buy from him the entire quarter and give the cut instructions to a processor.
Does that need to be USDA?
In my personal opinion, no, I don't believe that needs to be USDA.
And that's kind of what I was getting at.
There is a fine line with this, and there's some laws now that are coming into effect with how to split up beef in terms of if someone's going to buy it from you.
(34:47):
Well, and if you're doing it through a quality shop, there's not going to be any difference between that and inspection versus just a few different pages of paperwork and records.
You're going to end up with the same quality product at the end of the process.
And so we have a lot of clients that the way they get around it is they sell the beef live whole.
And if you sell the beef live whole before we come, then it's being harvested for the new owner and there's no sales happening, host, harvest or packaging.
(35:17):
Right.
So we just show up and we're doing that job for the new buyer.
In the same regard, some of the new laws are covering some of that.
So now we have to be licensed meat inspector or have to have a licensed meat inspector as an employee.
And that's just another thing, another requirement that we need that, you know, maybe it may apply to 10% of our clients, but that's the clients we're talking about here where, you know, half the families may be getting half of that beef.
(35:50):
One, what I want to see is we're required to be a licensed meat inspector.
Yeah, what I want to see after that whole another step in licensing is what actual effect will have on the ground. What is going to be prevented being having that certification.
Are we going to see a drastic change in what was the license being spectra supposed to do if they didn't deem that animal viable for human consumption.
(36:19):
Yeah, that's a good question. And as I go through this process, we'll be able to kind of update our listeners on the new rules.
The license being inspector one is brand new for us.
So that's a good question. That's a good question. Am I supposed to condemn them? Am I supposed to and at what point am I supposed to condemn them?
What's contamination? Is it going to be the same standards as USDA?
(36:42):
Well, and at that point too, because I've had experience with both, I have told customers, hey, I would not eat this liver.
It looks like it has some kind of infection or parasite in it. Let's discard it.
It's all at our own discretion or the owner's discretion, honestly, that that's where it should lie.
It's the owner's liability at that point. You're providing a service.
(37:03):
You can provide the knowledge and give them the information to make to allow them to make an informed decision.
Yeah, you can't tell them what to do. No, but you just give them the information and let them decide.
In that regard, you know, we talked about USDA being for resale and custom being for self-consumption.
(37:24):
What goes on differently during the USDA process that's different than what we're doing? The actual process itself.
So the only process itself that's different would be AFMI, which is a final meat inspection.
So it's going to be at the final rail before the carcass goes into chilling, before it gets washed, before it gets any lactic acid treatment.
(37:49):
An employee will look it over and trim off any potential contamination, be it hair and just melt the fecal.
And basically just removing any potential contamination that's visible on the carcass.
So that's for all visible contaminations. Then you have to have proper countermeasures such as hot water rinse, a drip dry, and then lactic acid
(38:11):
and a proper percentage mixture that can counteract for all those non-visible contaminations that aren't picked up during those trimmings.
And who's making the call on whether or not it's clean enough?
So the final call would be from a USDA inspector during a zero tolerance inspection.
And they're on site for this during a kill? Correct. They have to be there the day of the kill to do that inspection?
(38:33):
Correct. Yes. They have to be present.
Other than that, the process is very the same. I mean, one's inside, one's outside, so you do have environmental factors, but it's all very similar.
And if I'm right here, correct me if I'm wrong, they don't want to choose water in the USDA facility, so everything contamination-wise is like you said, it's trimmed away.
(39:02):
Yes, it's trimmed away. Water is not used. They don't even like water being put on the outside of the cattle postmortem because they claim that it would move into further dispersed fecal, which is possible.
That is true, but also those other countermeasures such as trimming hot water and lactic acid also counter those potential concerns and contaminations.
(39:28):
Yeah. So as long as you're doing your best to keep the animal clean and then taking proper countermeasures, you're going to end up with the same quality product at the end.
So that's how you implement those countermeasures and what is what determines your final quality of food safety for your product.
Yeah. Yeah.
If your countermeasures aren't properly, your interventions aren't properly reduced and don't control your hazards, then that's a different kind of issue.
(39:58):
That's an implementation issue, not a program issue, if that makes sense.
Yeah. And yeah, you're more educated on this whole cutting and wrapping side, including the USDA side than I am.
Would you say that the process that a beef is killed, USDA, is inherently cleaner or safer than what a custom kill would be?
(40:26):
From what I've seen, it really depends on who's performing the service.
Yeah, I'd have to agree.
I've seen one that is USDA that just doesn't care and performs, of course.
And in the same light, you could have someone who's custom who's dirty.
It depends on who is doing it and who's doing the work.
(40:47):
At the end of it, the government regulations supposed to do away with all that to make sure they meet the regulatory standards.
However, it depends on who the inspector is and what job is being performed.
There's people that work for the regulatory agency that do not hold the same standards that they should.
Yeah, and that's the big variable, is that it's all done, still done by humans.
(41:11):
So there's still room for error.
But luckily in the meat industry, contamination, especially long term, is so few and far between, really.
Well, there's so many different steps that are put into place to control these possible hazards.
It's very redundant. That way, if something wasn't caught at one step, it's caught at another.
(41:34):
And that way, we can ensure that we have a safe food supply.
It's the same insurance that you had if you were to do something yourself like wild game processing.
If you do it properly, you know it's done properly because you did it yourself.
You have a much higher percentage of acceptability knowing that you did everything and you possibly could
(41:56):
to ensure a safe product that you're giving to your family, yourself, your friends.
And that way, you can ensure that you have a safe food product because you did everything by your own hands.
Yeah, and that's the most, that's what I tell people all the time.
The more you can learn to do it by yourself, not only the more satisfying it is because it just feels good.
(42:18):
I mean, being a hunter and a butcher, it feels good to process all this stuff on your own.
And then when you pull it out of the freezer to make dinner for your family, it's kind of cool knowing that you're feeding your family.
Kind of manly knowing that you're feeding your family, you know.
Yeah, you took the proper steps to then provide your family with something that is necessary.
(42:41):
You didn't just go buy it from a grocery store, it's basically not a cop out.
You put a labor of love into gathering or raising that resource to share with people you care about.
Yeah, and you're talking a core necessity.
Water and food, I mean, that's what we need to live.
Water and shelter, yep.
That's where you can actually provide for a family.
(43:04):
Yeah, that's cool. That's cool.
It's rewarding and we have a lot of clients that know that and ask a lot of questions of, you know, how can I do this myself?
Would you be willing to teach me? We love doing that. We love teaching people.
What we talk about it almost all the time is that this is the sheer difference in quality or of a dining experience
between a farm raised local beef versus one that you would get from a big box store.
(43:28):
You'd be hard pressed to find or you'd have to pay a lot more to get that higher quality beef from a large packing plant
versus what you would be getting raising your own steer at home.
Yeah, and we hear it too often.
Man, this is getting expensive. Why don't I just go buy meat from the store?
Well, sure, maybe nowadays it's you're not really saving much money.
(43:53):
You might save a little bit of money raising your own at home.
But the difference in quality, like Jake said, to go buy what you just raised would be astronomically more expensive
because young choice beef is just you're really going to pay for it retail.
And even then there's variance between just the different providers that raise a quality beef.
(44:18):
You could go anywhere from a choice angus to you could try to find a premium like Wagyu.
It depends on what you want that dining experience to be like.
But when you raise it at home, you know exactly what that animal is fed and cared for through its entire life up to that processing
and even through processing if you do it yourself.
(44:39):
Yeah, and it's not like making a corporation that's going to be making beef.
It's not like a corporation making candy or making chips or making their processes are so set that nothing can go wrong during the process of creation.
(45:01):
But when you're talking about a live animal with feedrace rations, antibiotics, if applicable, conditions, dewormer, all this stuff that goes into it,
there's so many variables that the end product can be often so different.
Right, yeah. Just getting that consistency is a huge challenge.
(45:23):
But if you raise two steers a year, you're going to be fairly consistent.
Yeah, and most importantly, just know what they're eating, know what they're getting.
We're going to take a quick break here to use the gas station and then come back.
And I want to probably run it out of time, but we got a couple of questions for you, Jake.
(45:44):
All right.
And we're back.
That was my fault. My Zinventory was low.
Yeah, stock up on my Zins.
It is Sunday, so yeah.
Football Sunday too.
What's your preferred method of take?
If you had a haltered steer, would you prefer to use a long rifle open sight, long rifle with a scope or a bolt gun?
(46:12):
So the steer is haltered, bro.
Yeah, tame enough that you have the option to use a bolt gun, whether it be on my own or do I have someone else?
You have help, but you're the shooter. You're responsible for a humane shot.
If it's haltered in the steer, calm temperament, what are we talking about?
Calm temperament.
I go captive bolt on that one.
(46:33):
I think so too.
Yeah, up close and personal. I'm a short guy. It'd be hard for me to get a long rifle up at that angle, unless it's like a side shot or something like that.
Definitely going to be that short radius on the captive bolt would be helpful there.
Yeah, and the captive is nice just because if you can get contact on the head, you'd know where the shot's going.
(46:55):
And then what about a waspy one? What about a crazy steer, rounded circles in the pin, open sight or scope rifle?
25 yards. It's about average for us, I would say. 20 yards is a good average shot for us.
I'd go open sight on that one.
Gotcha.
Yeah.
(47:16):
And then like a full field of view on everything.
Yeah, I'd agree.
I'd agree.
And then older cattle. Older cattle. Would you prefer, now when we go into older cattle, we always step up to a 3030 or a 3008.
Yeah, some 30 caliber around something. That's just what Jake and I have 3030, 3008.
(47:37):
Really, any caliber above probably a 243 is going to do it.
Definitely.
In terms of velocity and projectile size.
So how old are we talking? Over five years?
Yeah, we're talking old, those old eight year old, 10 year old cows that we're doing.
Or a buffalo.
Or a buffalo. Could often be in a bigger pin, but let's just say 25 yards, like we're taking our normal shot.
(48:04):
So no problem with the 308, but my preferred, if I had a choice, if I could pick anything off the rack, I would have to go 3030 lever action.
Open sight or scope?
Open sight.
Gotcha.
Is that, I know, we know Mark has that gun.
I prefer that.
Is that what you say? Since you've had it and tried it and know it, that's the one you're going to pick up.
(48:25):
Yeah, that's the one I enjoy the most.
Gotcha.
See, on the other side, I think I'm going scoped, but I just think it's what you know.
So when I started with Mark, I would always shoot the open sights, but then when I started on my own, the only gun I had was my scoped 22 mag with a three by nine on it.
I learned to use that.
And now I don't think I'll go back.
(48:47):
But Jake made a suggestion the other day that I think would be the perfect slaughter gun, which would be a bolt action 22 mag with a one by six optic.
And that way, because often these steers are very, very close.
And with a three power optic, it really fills up the scope with forehead of the beef.
(49:09):
So I think a one by six would be the way to get around that.
But I still like the scope just for just for the range, because every once in a while we got a 40 yard beef and a 22 mag still has plenty of velocity for a 40 yard beef.
But I don't know.
I think just because I've gotten used to the scope, I think that's the difference.
(49:30):
Well, my whole school thought on it is I just like to see and survey the entire area of the entire situation.
What's happening?
If you got people moving around, you want to make sure you have a clear backstop around the animal.
If you have other animals in the pin, you want to see where their movement is so you're not engaging them by accident.
I like having a full open field of view.
(49:53):
And that's only when we're up close and personal with these animals.
Obviously, if we're hunting, then you're going to want to scope rifle because we're shooting at distance, long range precision.
And when Jake says hunting, that's what we call it when we have an animal that is.
Actively running from us.
Yeah.
Out of containment that in a large paddock or pasture.
We always recommend to our clients to have them contained in a small enough area that we can dispatch of them humanely.
(50:17):
That's not always the case.
And some of our clients either don't take it seriously and or don't have the option or want to work for the option.
So we end up having to do these bigger field kills where they're sometimes they're up on a hill or they're in the corner of the pasture.
And we end up hunting is what we call it. And yeah, the scope makes the scope makes all the difference on those.
But even similar to hunting wild game, I mean, with a bow, I like a clear field of view with my scope.
(50:42):
I like that single or double pin, maybe triple max.
I don't know how people do five, seven pin setups.
It's just too cluttered for me.
I like having that full field of view.
Yeah, you've always been a one, two pin guy ever since you started shooting the bows.
I just like being able to see what's going on so I know where I can more effectively put shot placement.
There's less likelihood of trying to get forgetting where you're holding and making a proper shot.
(51:10):
I will say the times that I've made poor shots on deer or misdeer, it's because there was a lot of pins there.
And I just chose the wrong one in my mind.
I thought I was choosing the right yardage pin, but there was so much going on.
I just chose the wrong one.
So I could get I see that.
And from other people too, I've heard that just time and time again.
(51:31):
So I think that whole, I think that's instilled a fear with me that I'm going to accidentally hold the wrong pin and make a non fatal shot.
Yeah, on animal.
Yeah, and that's the worst that that fear is putting this in me that I need to make that clean shot.
I need simplicity, I need a clear field of view, I need one aiming point.
(51:52):
That's what I need to make in a successful shot.
And are you ranging and sliding your slider so almost all the time, but every now and then I do practice my holds for a certain gap.
So I'll range something at 35 yards by how my slider set to 50 and I'll use my subsequent pins above that and I'll judge the gap and trying to get better at that.
(52:16):
Obviously at work though, we don't range anything.
No, no time.
Nope, never.
Not practical.
Not at all.
I mean, you could keep a rangefinder with you and it would be pretty silly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's kind of why we use a 22 mag.
We always go up in caliber on what we're using.
So if we have anything that's even on the edge of being old or being a bull or being, well, I don't know how you're on the edge of being a bull, you're a bull or you're not.
(52:42):
If we think for any reason they might not go down with the mag, we're going to go to the 30-30.
A little extra insurance, a little more grain weight and more speed.
Yes, exactly.
And Mr. Mark Clement, the great Mr. Mark Clement used to use a 22 long rifle for a long time for everything until he ran into eight bulls in one day.
And he said he emptied a whole box trying to get him down.
(53:05):
Went to war.
And that was the day that he switched to a 22 mag.
We learned from that.
Yes, we had wiser before.
I don't want a day like that.
No, no, no, no.
I don't think anyone does.
No, we keep a 22 long rifle, but it's for to avoid over penetration on lambs.
Especially if they're in a flock together because you can easily over penetrate a lambscull and take out a lambscull.
(53:27):
Yeah, I have collateral damage.
Some collateral damage.
Never fun.
Uh-uh.
Seeing it, haven't done it, but I've seen it.
Yep.
Wouldn't want to do it, but I saw it.
Do my best to avoid that.
Yeah.
Learned by others mistakes, right?
That's right.
That's right.
Yeah, I miss Mark.
Me too.
We had to get him on one of these podcasts.
(53:51):
Somehow, some way, if he comes to visit, you know, I'll have to do that.
It's going to be a long one.
He'd be unhinged, man.
It'd be a lot at it.
It'll be fine.
I'll make him work.
All right.
I had fun.
Yeah, me too.
We got a lot more coming down the pipe too, I think.
Oh, I'm sure there'll be others.
We probably just almost did an hour, and I feel like we could talk for four or five more.
(54:12):
So, yeah, we're, yeah, 55 minutes right now.
Is that a pretty good podcast time?
That's my longest.
Hey, man, setting records.
Right off the bat.
Right off the bat.
Setting the bar high.
That's all you can do.
Nice.
I appreciate you coming on today.
I appreciate your work.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, thanks for going on.
We appreciate you helping me work all the time, and uh, we definitely could do the big
(54:36):
things that we do.
Yeah, it's one of those things where you can't just take anybody who's in the house.
If you have to sit there and tell somebody what you're doing, that's the way.
You're not going to get enough of that.
You're going to go slower actually.
(54:57):
And on top of that, you grow in night work.
The percentage of people that can do night work is so low.
Well, and they become a liability at that point.
Yeah.
Light brown, sharp knives, heavy eye to the eye.
Yeah, and someone brand new just charges for it.
So, by all means.
Well, thanks for having me.
Look forward to coming back before we do this podcast.
Yeah.
(55:18):
I'm your daddy back for a hot liquid kitchen.
I just shared a long time ago.
I was thinking about it.
I think it's a good idea.
Yeah, open to the world.
Yeah, I think it's a good idea.
I'm going to talk about some crazy stuff here.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
(55:42):
I'll start thinking about that and everything.
Yeah, we got some more.
On that note, all I have to say is sharpen your skills and elevate your game.
Enjoy it.
Awesome.