Photography provided by @southdakotasara

BC Cattle Company is a farm & ranch outfit near the Black Hills of South Dakota specializing in producing high quality beef from our herd of both commercial and registered Red Angus cattle. BC Beef can be found locally, delivered to your processor, or shipped directly to your doorstep.

SEND ME STEAKS

QUALITY OF LIFE = QUALITY OF BEEF

beef is best - our beef is better.

SOUTH DAKOTA CERTIFIED USA BEEF - seems like this should be a given, right? Unfortunately, many popular meat boxes (we’re looking at you, meat box service we can’t name for legal reasons) source their beef elsewhere… like, Australia elsewhere. Others use multiple ranches in multiple states, and each state has its own guidelines for certification. South Dakota is part of the Cooperative Interstate Shipment program where all meat must meet (say that three times fast) all federal requirements by an onsite inspector. Our beef cattle can be traced from their birth to the moment your steak is on the table and have been handled only by BC Cattle Co and our (or your) USDA certified butcher at a federally and/or state inspected meat processing establishment.
BQA Certification - The Beef Quality Assurance Program ensures that farmers & ranchers adhere to FDA, USDA, and EPA standards, meet quality requirements throughout their production system, using animal well-being, worker safety, and environmentally sound production practices. Our owners hold BQA Cow/Calf Certification, focusing on performance, health, carcass characteristics, eating satisfaction and total quality management to produce safe, healthy, wholesome beef.
ANTIBIOTIC FREE - it’s not new news: all meat at any grocery store is considered to be antibiotic free. The rule is that an animal has to be off antibiotics for 45 days, and no antibiotics are present after their withdrawal period meaning there are no drugs in any meat sold in grocery stores. That being said: Our beef has NEVER been treated with antibiotics. Not once. We keep meticulous health records and if an animal does require treatment they are no longer part of our customer beef program, instead moving on to be a producing cow, family beef cow, or on occasion a pet steer / lawnmower for our brother-in-law (it’s true, we have pictures to prove it).
HORMONE FREE - many producers large and small administer both natural & synthetic hormones (estrogen and testosterone) to make animals grow faster, convert their food into muscle more efficiently and make their meat leaner. We trust our animals to grow as God intended, with our selected breeding program & natural feeding program helping them find their finest condition and perfect marbling for your candlelit steak dinner for two.
ZOETIS CERTIFICATIONS - we hold a number of certifications from Zoetis, a global animal health company with six decades of expertise, including: livestock industry, feed fundamentals, cattle welfare, beef industry, identifying abnormal cattle, controlled substances, and both cattle safety and employee safety and management. We believe in continuing our education as cattle producers and constantly improving our handling practices to give our cattle the safest, healthiest, and most productive lives.
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PEN RIDER/HORSE SAFETY CERTIFICATION - When our grain-finished cattle are trailed down into the feed yard, we prefer to continue our role as their producer and see them from start to finish. We ride through our own range cattle every day doing health checks, and we ride through our grain-fed cattle at the feed yard every day as well. We’re certified to properly, safely, and quietly work the cattle on horseback & take precautions to ensure our horses are adequately prepared for the feed yard job as well as the range riding job. We keep track of our cattle from birth to butcher, acting as both rancher in the pasture and herd manager in the feed yard, and have both real-world experience and university certifications to bolster our calm & quiet management practices on horseback.
CONSERVATION-MINDED - the biggest - and most untrue - negative claim regarding cattle production is the economic impact cows have on the environment. While proven false time and time again, we do understand that conservation is important and we work with our neighbors to consider the local impact on water sources as well as the general soil & plant health of our own properties. We value our cattle and we value our pasture, and we use Management Intensive Grazing practices to ensure we are within our stocking rate for each acre, do not unreasonably disturb natural waterways, and protect plant rest and recovery times for healthy, happy grasslands.
LOCAL FEED & NUTRITION - Producers commonly have to ship in feed from wherever they can get it and at whatever quality is readily available. We want to know where our food comes from and how it was grown, and we want that for our cattle as well. We are fortunate to work with local farmers to provide feed grown locally for our cattle in all stages of life, ensuring from start to finish they are given the best - and most local diet possible. Any additional dry hay, silage, earlage, & haylage needed in the winter for extra nutrition is grown and harvested within 5 miles of our pastures.
G.A.P. CERTIFIED - Global Animal Partnership requires an independent audit every 15 months to ensure animal welfare. Across the board, GAP certification means no antibiotics, no growth hormones, and no animal by-products in their feed. As one of the most extensive animal welfare food labeling programs, GAP gives consumers the confidence to quickly identify farmers who utilize sustainable and humane practices, from how the animals are raised to what they eat. Our cattle are pasture raised with a high percentage of vegetative cover and natural water sources, have both shade and shelter in adverse weather conditions, are checked daily for health and happiness, & are not weaned until they’re at least 6 months old. The family feed yard where our grain-finished beef spend their pre-processing weeks also holds a voluntary G.A.P. certification.
LOW STRESS - cattle are shipped from all over the States to feedlots who then funnel cattle to large-scale operations like Tyson, JBS, etc., leading to “shipping stress” sicknesses, weaning too early, contagious respiratory issues, and general mismanagement. Our locally processed cattle spend less than 30 minutes of their entire lives in a trailer. We manage our herd on foot and with horses, and work directly with the feed yard on shipping day that has continually passed inspections for cruelty-free animal handling, SAV, NHTC, etc.