Neptune Farm Beef
723 Harmersville-Canton Road, Salem, NJ 08079
Telephone:
856-935-3612
Some
of the most important inhabitants of Neptune Farm are our forty to fifty polled
Hereford and Hereford-Angus cattle. We
raise Herefords because they are placid, vigorous, and finish well on a diet of
grass and legumes. Every spring, a new
crop of calves is born to our sixteen to twenty brood cows. They grow up here with their brothers and
sisters, and begin to leave the farm a year and a half later, as plump
adolescents.
Neptune
Farm is certified organic by the New
Jersey Department of Agriculture.
This means that our farming practices conform to the standards set forth
in the USDA's National Organic
Program. Because of additional fees
imposed last year by the certifier, we have stopped applying for organic
certification of our livestock. Our
animal husbandry still follows the stricter rules imposed when we began raising
organic livestock in 1992. In many ways,
our farm exceeds current organic standards, including year-round access to pasture,
restriction of grain feeding to ruminants, and housing dimensions prescribed by
animal welfare experts. We continue to
feed our animals on organic forages and feeds and do not use hormones or
antibiotics on slaughter stock.
(Appropriate medical treatment is furnished on the rare occasions it's
needed, usually for older animals.)
Although
the organic standards do not require it, we impose on ourselves guidelines for
stocking density of animals on pasture.
Our animals graze in daily rotation on a series of 30 one-to-five acre
paddocks, with full-time access to run-in shelter. We are careful about stocking rates, both to prevent overloading
the ground with nutrients, and to maximize our animals’ comfort and feed. The farm qualified for Tier 3 of the USDA's Conservation Security
Program.
Our
brood cows are tested annually for Johne’s disease by the New Jersey Department of
Agriculture's Division of Animal Health, and we are certified at the
highest level of Johne's-free status.
Because they eat a natural diet of grass and hay, and are never ever fed
any sort of animal byproducts, our cattle are not at risk for BSE.
The primary
component of the diet of all of our cows and sheep is grass, in the form of
pasture or hay. We have found, however,
that we need to feed modest amounts of whole organic grain (3-5 lbs/day) to
maintain our cattle during the winters.
We've tried other dietary regimens over many years, but have found that
without this supplement, our beef cattle lose weight in freezing weather, and
the quality of their meat suffers.
Organic wheat or corn is less than 3% of our annual beef rations, which
is nothing by conventional feedlot standards, but more than grassfed purists
like to see. Needless to say, we never confine our livestock to feedlots, and,
unlike conventional cattle, they are never fed grain in amounts that require
antacids or result in liver abscesses or breeding grounds for E. coli 157. We supplement with free-choice kelp and a
naturally mineralized salt. Customers
appreciate the healthiness of our meats, as well as their grassfed flavor and
tenderness.
Our
meat is processed by Bringhurst Meats,
a local USDA-inspected, certified organic facility that has just received
humane certification under the Animal
Welfare Approved label. All our
beef is aged for three and a half weeks to insure tenderness before
cutting.
The price for beef is $4.00 per hanging pound, translating to about $5.50 per pound of finished weight for the whole order. A sixth share of beef takes up about the same amount of space as the freezer compartment over a refrigerator, about two shelves of an upright freezer. A typical share weighs about 70 pounds and is comprised of about a third steaks (T-bone, ribeye, sirloin, tenderloin, flank, London broil, sandwich); a third ground beef; and the rest in roasts (top and bottom round, shoulder, chuck, rump, eye, bolar) and
braising cuts (short ribs,
cubes, soup bones).