Meat+Poultry - August 2019 - 52

PLANT TOUR

Parameters of Certified Angus
Beef (CAB) program

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Carcasses cannot weigh over 1,050 lbs. on the rail
Ribeyes must be between 10 in. and 16 in.
Carcasses cannot have more than 1 in. of backfat
No dark colorations
No blood splashing
Modest or higher marbling
Medium or fine marbling texture
Cattle must be harvested younger than 30 months
Superior muscling
No neck hump exceeding 2 in.

whoever is moving them might clap their hands and say, "hey." By having
the feedlot on campus, cattle simply move from pen to pen and barn to
barn on their own, through chutes they are used to.
Just before the knock box there's a modified squeeze chute like every
chute they've ever been in.
"They're used to walking into them, they've been walking into them
since they were calves," Huddleston says. "They're used to walking into a
method like that. They think they're just getting weighed again, or they're
just getting another shot. And yeah, they're getting a shot, but it's the final
one. You should do it as ethically and as reverently as possible."
Feeding the cows on campus also means an unbroken pattern of calm.
When cows travel just before harvest, they often develop stress during
transport. The cows ready for harvest remain calm right up until the time
of stunning.
"They didn't get brought in on a semi freaking out and running into
each other," Huddleston says. "They don't get a chance, if they ride
together, to beat up on each other."
The stress an animal endures shows up in the quality of the meat.
Hormone releases due to trauma manifest in blood flashing, dark
cutters and other carcass quality traits that processors don't want,
Huddleston says.
"It transfers into the meat. It is that tangible," he adds.
Whirling fans by Big Ass Fans and covered barns keep the animals
cool. Unlike large scale confined animal feeding operations (CAFO), Valley
Oaks' barns provide animals ample space to move around should they
desire. There's no sound from the animals, even as strangers walk through
the feeding areas. Cows feed on corn and silage from the 450-acre campus,
again keeping the carbon footprint to a minimum and the operation as
local as possible.
In its effort to treat the environment well and do right by the land,
Valley Oaks purchased a manure dryer. A project involving the Kansas
City Power and Light (KCP&L) utility company and the Hampton Feedlot
in Triplett, Missouri, originally intended to use the massive piece of
machinery to capture methane, but the plan never fully developed. Valley
Oaks purchased the piece of equipment and hopes to eventually have 100
percent of its manure running through it.
The machine starts on propane and eventually starts feeding itself with
dried manure to keep a continuous process. After moving through a series
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