Will a farmer give up the whole cow?

[Cecilia's-herd]

Leave it to the butcher, or put it at the entrance. I should've kept my last one. He had a nice set of horns, just easier to tell them the cuts and pic up the meat.

question- what does the butcher do with it?

 

[Cecilia's-herd]

If you don't have a use for the head you don't have to take it, they will dispose of it for you.

question- what does the butcher do with it?

 

[Kusanar]

question- what does the butcher do with it?

I'm pretty sure they have deals worked out with companies that will pick them up. The meat on the head likely is the "meat byproducts" that you see in pet food, the bone goes to bone meal for gardens and calcium in pet food. I seriously doubt it gets wasted.

 

[Cecilia's-herd]

I'm pretty sure they have deals worked out with companies that will pick them up. The meat on the head likely is the "meat byproducts" that you see in pet food, the bone goes to bone meal for gardens and calcium in pet food. I seriously doubt it gets wasted.

informative, thank you!

 

[Baymule]

The actual guts, intestines, stomach, lungs, will be pretty gross. Might want to skip that, but you can ask for the tripe, it’s one of the stomachs and is an ingredient in soups. But get the liver, heart, kidneys and tongue.

I bought 68 pounds of beef liver from a slaughter house and canned it for our dogs. They didn’t like it. I can’t blame them, I don’t like it either. We had to mix it with chicken to get them to eat it.

 

[Cecilia's-herd]

The actual guts, intestines, stomach, lungs, will be pretty gross. Might want to skip that, but you can ask for the tripe, it’s one of the stomachs and is an ingredient in soups. But get the liver, heart, kidneys and tongue.

I bought 68 pounds of beef liver from a slaughter house and canned it for our dogs. They didn’t like it. I can’t blame them, I don’t like it either. We had to mix it with chicken to get them to eat it.

Hmmm thanks for the tip. Maybe I just want some bones and the pelt... I really want a cow skin rug and these are pretty cows. Red Angus!

 

[farmerjan]

Understand that when an animal is killed and hung, and they split it open, the guts will fall out on the floor or into a container that they then put into the barrels that the rendering companies come and get. You will not and cannot get the stomach/rumen, intestines, lungs and things. State regulations will not allow some of that to be given or sold back so to speak. Also if the animal is over 30 months you CAN NOT get back any of the backbone, any tissue with spinal cord or the head or brain due to the "mad cow disease" situation... the prions and such that cause it and can cause the creutzfeldt-jakob disease in people... not sure I spelled it right. Anyway.... there are rules and regulations for that and they are federally mandated to not possibly spread the disease or have it contracted by people as mad cow and the creutz.... are supposed to be similiar and related.

If you are wanting to basically "use" all the animal, you are going to have to kill it yourself. Even in the most particular butchershops, in today's day and age, with the backup to get a kill date, you are not going to find one that will be willing to do a million things beyond the normal average things. Sure they might be able to accommodate different cuts and some things.... but I doubt that at most places if you would even be able to get the tripe.... they are not set up nor have the time to separate out all the different parts for a customer. Most of the things that say the indians used, from the sinew in the legs to the bones to make buttons and cooking utensils, are not practical to work out. Most people would have no idea what to do with many of the parts, nor would they have the knowledge or desire to do it. Do you know how to cook the hooves to make the pectin for glue?
There are rendering companies that pick up at these shops regularly, and all that is taken to a plant where it is heated/cooked down. to make it useable for things as pet food and such as @Kusanar said. But very little of it will be separated out for anything once it leaves the killing place. And most of them pick up once or twice a week so it is pretty "ripe" when it gets picked up in the warmer weather. The hides are kept out separate, and I do believe that they put things like the bigger bones and such into separate containers.... again so they can be rendered down into bone meal and such as she said. I asked for the head of my jersey steer so that I could get the horns and the skull... my cats ate on it... It was also cold weather so didn't smell. I had a friend that wanted the horns to make "powder horns" .

I had a belgian blue steer that I wanted the skin from. Another fellow dairyman got his angus skin back to tan it with the hair on. So if you ask right at the beginning they will usually accommodate you on things like that. Explain what and why you want it.
I get back extra fat, and since the jersey's seldom have much fat, he will save me some from an animal that was very fatty that they trimmed alot, so I can make suet or beef tallow (same as lard but from cattle rather than from hogs) for cooking. Lard is a generic term in that it can be made from hogs or cattle although the "PROPER" names are lard and tallow.

 

[Baymule]

These days it is hard to even get back the liver and heart. They go so fast and are so booked up that there is not much time for separating out the offal.

Do you know anything about curing a hide? It must be scraped to get the fat off, then salted and dried. We did deer hides when my son was in Cub Scouts, the boys all wound up with a deer skin rug, not real soft tanned, kinda stiff. Tackling a cow hide is ambitious.

 

[misfitmorgan]

There is a good reason those cow hide rugs are not cheap. I agree with Bay the time, skill, and effort it will take for you to make your own rug if you can get the hide back is quite a thing. Be aware you may also end up ruining the hide in the tanning process, or losing the hair, not scraping it thin enough or to thin, etc. Research it well if you have not done it before.

Also.....show us the results and the process!!!

 

[Cecilia's-herd]

Do you know anything about curing a hide? It must be scraped to get the fat off, then salted and dried. We did deer hides when my son was in Cub Scouts, the boys all wound up with a deer skin rug, not real soft tanned, kinda stiff. Tackling a cow hide is ambitious.

There is a good reason those cow hide rugs are not cheap. I agree with Bay the time, skill, and effort it will take for you to make your own rug if you can get the hide back is quite a thing. Be aware you may also end up ruining the hide in the tanning process, or losing the hair, not scraping it thin enough or to thin, etc. Research it well if you have not done it before

I certainly have not skinned a cow before nor did I know how much work it was... I thought it was easy! Lol, I would like to try though... I will keep you updated. Maybe I should start with a deer hide. Oh boy!