RE: Stone and Thistle Farm

[Guest guest]

Suze-

>Has anyone ever ordered meat from Stone and Thistle Farm

>(http://www.stoneandthistlefarm.com) in the Catskill area of NY?

Yup! They're VERY nice people! I did have a bad experience with them, but

I don't think it was entirely their fault, and I may well order from them

again. When I ordered (late last fall, IIRC) their regular processor was

unavailable, and the one they used did things rather differently. The

ground beef I got was more than half fat, perhaps 65%! It also had a very

strong and, to my taste, unpleasant flavor. As it turned out, this was the

flavor of grass-fed beef and I simply wasn't accustomed to it. Up until

then I'd been buying Obe beef, Australian beef that was supposed to be

pastured, but since then I've found that all grass-fed beef has that

flavor, so perhaps Obe was grain-finished or something like that. The high

fat content was still an issue, though. I eat much more fat than most, but

the fat seems to carry the flavor, and it was just too strong. I also got

a couple orders of lean stew cubes, which were good, but too lean for my needs.

At the very least I'll probably order some lamb from them to see what it's

like. I'd like to support local NY farms, and like I said, they're VERY

nice people.

-

[Guest guest]

Hi Suze

Stock piling grass for winter grazing is a common practice among graziers.

Harvesting the grass is an option but then there are harvesting costs involved

so it is cheaper to lose a little and let the livestock harvest it. When the

plant freezes it retains most of its nutrients that were in the plant at time

of freezing so not much is lost until the plant starts to decompose. This is a

practice Mother Nature has been using for years.

Harvesting the meat should be done after the spring flush on the grass for

optimal nutrition in the meat.

Hope this helps

Suze Fisher wrote:

> Has anyone ever ordered meat from Stone and Thistle Farm

> (http://www.stoneandthistlefarm.com) in the Catskill area of NY? They have

> 100% grass fed lamb, goat, beef and other various critters (some of which

> are not 100% pastured). They told me that their animals graze for 10 months

> of the year. The farmer said they grow some fields until the grass goes

> 'dormant' at about 12 " . They then let the ewes eat it (under the snow) in

> winter. Would dormant 12 " grass be more nutritious than hay, hay silage or

> grass silage?

>

> The animals are drug-free and I liked how forthcoming the farmer was when I

> asked him a bunch of questions. So, it looks like it might pan out to be a

> good source of grass-fed meat. But I was also wondering if anyone's had

> experience ordering from this farm before, and what you think of the meat

> and the farm in general?

>

> Suze Fisher

> Web Design & Development

> http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg/

> mailto:s.fisher22@...

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

>>>Hi Suze

Stock piling grass for winter grazing is a common practice among graziers.

Harvesting the grass is an option but then there are harvesting costs

involved

so it is cheaper to lose a little and let the livestock harvest it. When the

plant freezes it retains most of its nutrients that were in the plant at

time

of freezing so not much is lost until the plant starts to decompose. This is

a

practice Mother Nature has been using for years.

***Hi ,

Thanks for your input on the dormant grass. I thought I had read that

UNjointed grass (the new spring grass that cattle favor?) is more, or

perhaps *much* more nutritionally-dense than grasses that are not

harvested/eaten before the jointing stage..is that true? I asked the farmer

about this but he hadn't heard of the term " unjointed " grass, so really

couldn't answer that. I'm thinking even the long " dormant " grass is better

than grain, though, and if it's nature's plan - I'm not complaining!

>>> Harvesting the meat should be done after the spring flush on the grass

for

optimal nutrition in the meat.

***The only grass-fed lamb I've bought was slaughtered in fall. I'm under

the impression that fall slaughter is a common practice in northern states?

Due to the lambs being born in spring? I'm not sure where i'd find a

spring-slaughtered lamb unless it were a hot house lamb (the very young ones

eaten on Easter). But I'm not really interested in those very young ones.

Suze Fisher

Web Design & Development

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg/

mailto:s.fisher22@...