Smoked Dexter Beef Snack Stix
This is a specialty item that our butcher makes! Used from all the tiny bits of left-over meat from the animal and blended and then smoked in casings. These are delicious! Heritage breed Dexter cattle are a slow-growing breed and take at least 2 years to finish well on pasture with good marbling. They have a rich, beef flavor that reminds you of the way beef used to taste.
We grass-finish our Dexter cattle and don't feed grain or grain finish them. Many Dexter breeders state that grain and corn finished animals tend to have the natural beef flavor significantly reduced. While you may get more fat and marbling that way, you lose the rich flavor that beef is meant to have. Our pasture is never fertilized with conventional agricultural methods since we purchased the property in 2022. We use regenerative practices by using rotational grazing (except in summer when it's too hot for the animals to not have access to our big pond), moving our pasture-raised chickens daily, and using organic fertilizers such as duck manure (from a smaller pond on our property), fish emulsion, sea salt, and molasses. During the winter, we purchase hay from local sources that fertilize organically as well using the same methods we do.