originally posted 16 Sept 09 at http://jeffersonfoodweb.ning.com
Yesterday College of the Siskiyou’s new Sustainable Communities class took a field trip to Prather Ranch, an organic and natural cattle ranch in eastern Siskiyou County. We went to the USDA-inspected slaughter house on the ranch outside of Macdoel to tour the facility (this was after the regular Tuesday slaughter). Ranch managers Jim and Mary Rickert gave us a tour, talking about the steps they take to make sure that the animals are treated well and not stressed out when they are harvested. Their abattoir is modeled after the work of Temple Grandin, a designer of livestock handling facilities and a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. Reducing the stress an animal is under before slaughter is so much more humane, something Prather prides its self on, and greatly improves the quality of the meat.
The transparency of the operation at Prather Ranch is really comforting: anyone can take a tour on the regular Tuesday harvest. School groups, church groups, authors, reporters, and community organizations have all take tours at the facility. There is a real sense of commitment to the animals at Prather and the development of a program that puts the animals first.
The operation that has developed over the last 30 years at Prather Ranch is wide ranging: locals know about Prather Ranch beef, and restaurants boast that they use it. But a big part of the operation is providing skins, bones, blood and other parts of the cow to biomedical device and pharmaceutical companies that use these products in a variety of ways. As the demand for Prather Ranch products and beef has grown, so has the ranch, which now has 44,000 acres of ranch land in 5 Northern California counties that house 4000 cows.
If you’re a beef eater and a supporter of clean, healthy, local food, you should go see the folks at Prather Ranch. You’ll find their phone number on their website and find that they will be more than happy to have you join the Tuesday slaughter house tour.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Which local (Weed, Mt. Shasta, etc.) carry Prather beef??
You can find Prather Beef in Mt. Shasta at the Mt. Shasta Supermarket on Alma Street. I think that’s the only grocery store that carries it in Siskiyou County. The Stage Door and Burger Express in Mt. Shasta use it for their cheeseburgers. If you go to the Prather Ranch website you can search their list of retail outlets. They also provide the opportunity for locals (Siskiyou County residents, I think) to buy in bulk directly from the ranch.