LazyJD Meats

USDA Certified meat processing plant providing local producers and customers a place to process and purchase farm to table meats.

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Building and operating a USDA certified meat processing facility to provide farm to table meats to our customers.  Providing consistent quality meat grown in our own feedlot will ensure we can provide consistency that will keep customers and producers returning. 

Hello, my name is Bryan, we reside on the western slope of Colorado in Olathe, located in Montrose County. Dawn, my fiancĂ©, and I have over 40 years combined experience in the farming, ranching, and feedlot industries. It's with this extensive knowledge, our love for the industry, and our passion to provide folks with a product that they will enjoy while nourishing their health, that will ensure this operation's success!  Our families were ranchers, raising  cattle for both commercial processing and personal consumption. Being raised on the ranches gave us the love for, and the desire to follow in their footsteps.  They have recently retired leaving us wanting to get back into the business. 

We have since started raising cattle for the past 4 years to process for ourselves, some friends, and family.  Currently, there are only 2 USDA certified plants in the Delta/Montrose county areas, there are other smaller processing plants in the area that are not certified, yet we still are faced with a 12-18 month waiting period to butcher animals. This puts many people in a bind with their animals when it comes time for them to be butchered.  We have heard of, and personally know many more people that had this same problem last year and will more than likely encounter the same problem again this year without additional processing plants to serve our area.  We, ourselves, faced this very same problem last year when we had 3 finished beef ready to process without a  processing plant that had availability to take them for 12-18 months.  We called every processing plant, USDA certified or not, within a 65 mile radius and finally found one that only had the capability to cut and wrap but not to slaughter, as they do not have a kill floor.  We were then forced to find a mobile slaughter company, which are limited as well for this area, to come out to our barn, slaughter our beef, and haul them 50 miles to Grand Junction for butcher, this was an additional cost for us in processing also adding more money and time to drive 50 miles to pick up the processed animals, as well as 2 of our customers that had purchased beef from us.  Upon picking up our finished products from the packing plant, we were told that they haven't cut and wrapped beef that looked that good ever and expressed the desire to sell our beef through their store if they can get USDA certified.  Shortly after picking up our meat we got a call from the mobile slaughter company  wanting to inform us that he hadn't seen cattle finished that well in his 15 years of business and suggested that we not change our cattle feeding program.  This is what has inspired us to raise that same quality meat to offer other customers for their personal enjoyment.  
We strongly believe that by constructing this facility we will be able to help meet the supply and demand for custom processing animals in our area.  By operating our own feedlot, we can guarantee the supply of extremely high quality beef to our family of customers over and over again.  All at the same time, providing other local producers near and far, a wonderful state-of-the-art USDA approved safe facility to have their  animals harvested for them and/or their families of customers.  With these facilities, the feedlot and processing plant, we can also provide our local family beef producers and  feed producers a market to promote their products. The ultimate goal is to produce and harvest the highest quality farm to table beef, lamb, and pork  west of the Rocky Mountains.  

We will strive to build a team of model employees which possess extensive knowledge of our products and services that will give our  customers and producers an enjoyable experience.  Working with the USDA directly will ensure that our facility meets all the latest guidelines and requirements to run and operate with efficiency,  providing these products and services to patrons in the most timely fashion possible.  We want to incorporate the availability for customers to store their products in our freezer facility.  We, during this COVID pandemic, have faced a shortage in the ability to purchase home freezers, which has resulted in many people the inability to store meats in larger quantities.  By supplying this additional service it will allow customers to purchase whole, half, and quarters of meat carcasses, adding more income for the business. 

As an owner/operator Dawn is BQA, Beef Quality Assurance, certified allowing us to handle animals at the plant and on the kill floor during processing in the most stress free manner. Incorporating her knowledge gained through the BQA classes, attending lectures by Temple Grandin, the foremost leader in humane handling of animals, and further research in raising cattle in a safe controlled environment, will result in the most stress free process for these animals.  Providing a stress free environment has been proven to produce meats that are better.  When an animal is stressed it has a higher level of cortisol, which directly affects the looks, the taste, and the tenderness of the meat.  

I myself, as an owner/operator, have been farming and feeding cattle for a total of 23 years.  I possess extensive knowledge and understanding in the quality and quantity of forage it requires to feed a feedlot full of calves.  The benefits of owning and operating the farm ground used to produce the feed required for the cattle and the feedlot, results in having complete control in the quality of the commodities that are fed and the amounts of those commodities fed to the cattle, directly affecting the end results in the finished beef. 
 

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