Where we source our Suet: Moraine Park Farm - Michigan Craft

"... I started getting brewer's grain from some of the local breweries for my cattle. To me, it was just like a win-win situation because, you know, we had this barley that had already been profitably used by them for making the beer. And really, you could either compost it, or landfill it, or feed it to something; and a cow being a ruminant animal is really ideally suited to utilize those brewers' grains. It just worked great and the cows loved it. It was nutritious. It’s just a great symbiotic thing for everybody.

I have a farm on the West side of the state by Lake Michigan and then we have a large Ranch in the western U.P. by Lake Superior, so both areas get an incredible amount of lake effect. Our ranch is on heavy glacial soil and heavy clay, so you stay green through the summer. Of course, I let the cows graze. That’s healthiest for the animal and it’s easiest for me because I don’t have to do anything. If they’re out on the pasture I don’t have to feed them, I don’t have to scoop up manure, I don't have to do anything, I don't have to start a machine, I just walk out there and look at them and give them some salt. Obviously, I want to do that as much as possible, but there are times when that’s not the best solution. From October through April, you’ve just got wet, heavy ground and if you put hundreds of thousands of pounds of cattle out there with sharp hooves on your wet heavy ground, they’re going to destroy it during the winter months. So Michigan presents challenges but also benefits because of the seasons, and because of the kind of microenvironments and climate. 

There are specialty vegetable farms around where I can get parsnips and squash that for whatever reason, didn’t make the grade to put it in the produce section, so I can feed them ugly vegetables. And cherry juice was a big thing that we did. They squeeze the juice out of the cherries as a by-product and then the growers make maraschino cherries. That natural cherry juice is nutritious and it keeps the brewer's grains fresh longer.  I mean, they’re just so many little symbiotic relationships in the way we feed. 

I just like to bring it all back to basics. Number one: what's best for the land, what’s going to be sustainable for the land, long-term. Number two: what’s going to be best for the animals because we want healthy, content animals. You know, focus on the components of animal welfare and humane treatment. A new meaning of animal husbandry is to simply address the environment you provide them and give them the ability to just be an animal.  To choose where they lay down, to choose when they eat when they drink, to give them shelter if there’s bad weather or food when there’s no access to grass.  That makes it easier on me too.  It’s way easier and more profitable to have healthy content animals and it gives you the best meat so now you’ve created a premium product. It all just flows together, it’s just common sense stuff like what makes them happy, makes the meat good, and makes a customer happy.  

It’s not that difficult. I think we just make it difficult sometimes but if you just take a step back and, you know if they’re skinny, give them more food if they’re cold give them some shelter I mean it’s just like anything else let it be simple."