[P-Marlowe]

Ok, where can I get the kind of beef grown in your county? Is there some way to determine that I am getting small farm well fed beef that isn’t raised 1000 steers to an acre in some commercial steer factory?

[xzins]

Sure. There's no farmer I know that won't take a steer to a butcher/slaughterer with your name attached. If they're small enough to do that, then they're generally pasturing and corn feeding. And in most cases, a drive to a local butcher is less than a drive to a stockyard, so they gain by it. You pay market price on the hoof to them, and then the butcher's price to him. We generally see 55-60% of the hoof weight in the freezer.

Just as an aside, in most of Germany in my 7+ years there, I didn't see the cattle. They mostly are in feed lots (barns). A feed lot doesn't necessarily mean a mistreated cow any more than an apartment dweller means a mistreated human being.

One group of cows I did see there, and it's a neat memory, was on one of our visits to the series of Mad Ludwig castles, when we visted Neuschwanstein to see the castle which Disney modeled his after. We were awakened by a cowherd driving his cows through the middle of town while heading toward some high pasture. Cowbells, hooves on cobblestone, the Alps in the background. Thought I was in Sound of Music.