Ground Beef

Dexter Cattle

If you've heard much about the meat industry recently, you may be put off by what you've learned. Cattle have it particularly rough in commercial settings, as they live in extremely crowded conditions and eat corn that they can barely digest.

Up in Red Bluff, CA (near Redding and Shasta), the same people who run Green String Farm maintain a small beef operation that is refreshingly different. About 100 head of cattle live on 8,000 acres (200 acres in the winter), split between two ranches. They're never fed corn and never live indoors. Instead, they live on wide open fields and eat the grass growing beneath their hooves. When an animal reaches slaughter weight, its diet is supplemented with alfalfa hay.

Cattle are sent to Johansen's Meat Processing in Orland two at a time. From there, the packaged beef goes straight to the freezer in our farm store. Our ground beef is most popular, but we also offer a small selection of cuts. If you eat red meat, we hope you'll give our beef a try. We raise our cattle with the same care and pride we put into growing vegetables, and we're just sure you can taste the difference.

Our Beef

Our cattle are raised on our ranch outside of Red Bluff, where they live on the low hills and are entirely grass-fed. They are brought to the flats of the ranch about a month before slaughter, where they are finished on our own alfalfa. Our cows are not fed hormones or antibiotics of any kind.

Products

Our ground beef is popular at the farm store. We sell most beef cuts to our restaurant customers, but we reserve a good selection for sale at the farm stand. There's usually something good on the grill, as well as good braising cuts and small roasts. Since we only slaughter about once a month, we can't guarantee that we'll have anything in particular, but we try to keep a good mix of cuts available for sale.