Our herd is made up of five belted galloway brood cows and one jersey cross (our family dairy cow). Our herd bull this year is also a belted galloway named Edgar. He, as well as our steers (beef animals) and most of our brood cows, were born here on the farm. Our brood cows don't need to travel any further than across our dirt road to new pasture.
Their Lives
The Tierney family provides a high quality of life to these beef animals. They are fed grass from their pasture in the summer and locally grown hay in the winter. Our beef animals live outside! They have a cozy barn in the winter and cool shelter in the summer, from which they can come and go at will. They are not fed antibiotics or given artifical growth hormones. All of our our cows are tame enough to handle in close quarters. Our dairy cow (Delilah) will come when her name is called, even if it is just six-year old Edie calling! As with our pork, all of our beef animals get names!
Your Beef
Belted Galloways are a beef breed known for having lean well marbled meat (the spacing of the fat throughout your meat) when on a grassfed diet. Their meat contains high levels of Omega III fatty acid. Grassfed animals, in general, have high levels of Omega III fatty acid, beta carotene, and vitamin E, as well as having low levels of Omega IV (one that many of us have too much of!).
Our animals are slaughtered right here in Maine so they never leave the state (actually they never travel more than an hour from home). The beef that you buy from us is always from steers less than two-years old. Hanne can always tell you which steer the meat that you buy comes from and when that animal was butchered!
We hope that you enjoy our beef as much as we do!