Mole, M-O-L-L-E. Mole, the brushless shaving cream with a special protective film that guards your face presents the Mole Mystery Theatre. Tonight, Mole, the brushless shaving cream which puts face protection first, brings you another in the series of programs which puts mystery and excitement first. Each Tuesday night at this time, you hear one of the great mystery stories selected either from the famous classics or from the best of the moderns by Mr. Jeffrey Barnes. Mr. Barnes, having made a lifelong study of mystery fiction, is a connoisseur of fine-detected stories. Mr. Barnes. Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Mole Mystery Theatre. Tonight's story is unusual in many ways. First, it is an original mystery written especially for radio. Secondly, it is the work of a young man who has never before written a mystery story. The writer is Corporal Frederick Mato. Corporal Mato walked into my office one morning with a script under his arm. I promised him I would read his story. I did. And I got the shock of my life. Here was a first-time effort and yet, in my opinion, it ranks with the very best in mystery literature. So it is with a great deal of pride that we now present for the first time anywhere a story written by Corporal Frederick Mato and entitled the comic strip murder. Before our Mole Mystery Theatre play begins, listen. Listen to the sound of a weapon fired at our men by the enemy, but aimed by someone here in America who talks too much. Yes, Americans, when someone here at home talks carelessly, it helps the enemy aim his bombs and guns and other weapons at our men. So don't you be that somewhat. If you know any war secret that has not been reported on the radio or in the newspapers, keep it a mystery and help keep our men alive. And now to our play, the comic strip murder. Two people sit on a dimly lighted terrace of a New York penthouse apartment. One is the district attorney. The other a woman who looks tense and frightened. 1130. And my husband is going to murder me at midnight, Mr. Hamlin. Tonight, Mrs. Ditson. You think being married to a comic strip artist has given me an overactive imagination? Well, I thought so too when I first went to see you, but not anymore. Look, Mr. Hamlin, let me tell you the whole story. These past few weeks, Mark has been drawing buzzle keys with blood on his pen. My blood. You follow buzzle keys in the morning telegram, don't you, Mr. Hamlin? Of course, everybody does.  Well, I've lived with that comic strip for nine years. It's been buzzle key this and buzzle key that until I could scream at the sight of a drawing board or a newspaper. Mr. Hamlin. No, I'm frightened. Very frightened. You see, Mark's murders are so messy. His fans love blood and pistol shots and poison and spike doors and char bones and and that's it. Gee, I was look, buzzle key's locked in the cellar. Okay, Mr. Say, you read buzzle key today. That guy's really in a jam. I think this one's soon getting tired of that babe's double time. He's going to kill it yet. Today. Yeah, but well, yeah, I read it. Yeah, bell, one lip bait, house and coffee. Yeah, and the telegram. Yeah. Why do you read buzzle key this morning? I think this one's all fellas gonna murder that chick Juliet. He's reading books on flesh eating the acid. If he's going to use that stuff, it's good by Juliet. She ain't going to keep that class as classy long. Yeah. But the state on that is you're gonna have to die. What's the case? What a killer wouldn't pull around like that. I don't want to buy. Mr. Hanley. I am Juliet in the comic strip.  The mark and John are partners. Meal key strip. Got me. I remember the night buzzle keys was created nine years ago. Mark and John hadn't seen each other since they graduated from college the year before was our first wedding anniversary.  It's about time you go down. That's right, John. We thought you'd never get here.  Took me that long to get over here saying yes to Mark and no to me you're going. Making any progress in the commercial art field, Mark. Well, this free land business is all right in spots, John, but but we do all right, John. I see like that. Mark, why don't you get into a steady line and all about newspapers, political cartoonists do well or say why don't you do a comic strip? Good money and if it catches on, well, I guess they don't like the sense of humor. Think about humor. Comic strips aren't funny anymore. Get up a good bloodshiller and adventure for a leading character. A detective may be a guy who's always getting into tough spots and getting out of them again. Fine, but you're the better. It's an idea. Look, look, do me something to show around about a week strips the balance of the story and outline. I'll tell it for you, Mark. What do you say? Well, why not? I think a detective would suit me best. Oh, should have an Irish name. Let me see. Brian of Keith. Okay, that's good. How about calling him by, you know, sort of a busy sounding name. Yeah, I don't key. Yes, I don't keep it as well. Waiter. Yes, sir. Bring us another round. We're going to drink to buzz. Oh, Keith, never mind. You'll know him soon enough. How about our kids were born with the family? John Slater and my husband Mark became partners. John is a promotion man and business manager. Perfect success story. Not quite. There are lots of things we didn't figure on. Mark worked hard and late to meet me. He paid the deadlines. He never went anywhere. I worked hard with him, I guess. I modeled, read to him, did research work and crime. We thought that the strip would let us lead a normal life after we got it going. Well, it didn't work out. Then John Slater began taking me off. Oh, it was my idea. He brought it up that afternoon. John dropped into the studio above. About two years ago. Hello, brother. What's buzzing today? Lodge is right. I'm in a mess here. Another O'Keefe. He's on the top of the building holding on to a high pension wire and concrete head Joe is cutting the wires and I'm rooting for concrete head Joe. Hi, John. Just dropped in to tell you about the new five-year contract I've got for us. How about celebrating? Oh, I can't, John. Too much to do. But say Julie's tired of working. Do her a good step out. Why don't you two celebrate? Good hunch. How about it, Julian? Well, the idea is pretty appealing. If you really don't mind, Mark. No, no, not at all. Run along and have fun. That should never have happened, Mr. Hammond. You see, I thought John Slater was over his crush army, but I guess he wasn't.   Well, one night about four months ago, while we were at a cocktail party, Mark came out into the garden and he found me in John Slater's army. There was no peace. Well, not then. We didn't talk at all until later in the car on the way home. I knew Mark's been drinking heavily, but he seemed sober to me. Finally, I couldn't stand that silence and I said something I've been meaning to say for a long time. Mark. Mark, I want you to divorce me. Out of the question, Julie darling, I need you near me for a while. It's more convenient.   What kind of a fool you take me for? Don't you think I know that that leech slater is taking away from me? I do all the work. He gets the same role as I do. And now it's you he's taking or has taken. Mark, aren't you drunk? Not that drunk, darling. Not that. I didn't close my eyes that night. I wanted to wake Mark to hear him say something that would assure me that he hadn't said what I knew he said. Well, the next morning, Mark came down the street on his robe as he always did. He seemed quite normal. Morning. Good morning. One of a day and all that. Good night, please. How about my morning top of coffee, darling? Mark. Mark, last night. Last night. Oh, last night. Yeah. Quite a bore we had, wasn't it? I remember part of it like selling the Manhattan all over Mrs. Drew or Trooper, whatever her name was. And then there was and then there was a drive home. Drive home? What about it? Oh, now, don't tell me I was feeding you great, Scott, won't I ever learn? Yes. Nothing. Here's your coffee. Thanks. Now you run along. Let me work. Oh, before you go. There's something you can tell me that will help. If you were a beautiful model named Juliet, you were going to be my dad. What would be the most horrible fate you could come? I'm beginning, Mr. Handley. First, I thought he was really planning a murder for his cartoon detective to solve. And then, well, one night, he went to a reception a publisher gave to Jim Tell the mystery novelist. While I was dancing, Mark and Tell sat down and began to talk. When I came back, they were sitting in an alcove and they were deep in conversation. They didn't notice me as I stood close enough to hear them. Can we tell me you haven't yet figured out a way to murder your character Juliet yet, Mark? Well, I have some ideas, but none of them quite satisfy me, Jim.  And the man who's going to do it hates her so. I thought you might have a suggestion. Why murder her, then?  Well, wouldn't it be a more fitting revenge for your murder of me? Just figure her. I've considered that. And it is a test, but for my purpose, she must be killed. Maybe I can do both. Why not? You've created a shallow, treacherous beauty.  Jim, I think you've got something there. That's what I'll do. Oh, a straw, rather. I think I can do both by using a bath of flesh-eating acid. I can just see the murder. Julie! Julie, darling, are you all right? What happened? It was the next day that I first came to see Miss Hamlet. After I left her that day, I came back to the apartment to find Mark working feverishly at his table. I stood behind him as his wrong, slender fingers brushed in. Mark? Mark, why did you model your Julius apartment and her terrace after hours? Well, I could draw one from imagination when I have a perfectly good one coming here. It makes it easier, that's all. You were even putting in our fishpong. Very observant of you, my dear. Yep, I've got good news for that little item. Oh? Have you noticed the size and shape of our fishpong? Well, I... No, I measured it the other day. It's five and a half feet long, two feet wide, and 18 inches deep. Mark, you can't mean... Ah, but I do. It's a perfect cough. And by the way, Junior, in tomorrow's episode, we'll see a gallon drum of acid.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Gosh, looks as though Bozo Keep is going to have a murder to solve soon. I'm so surprised by the acid today. Ah! Okay, okay, I'm eating eight eyes. Sam, with thanks and glasses to the ceiling, you're sitting reading the newspaper. Oh, Mark, I thought you'd got a finish with Bozo Keep. The acid vessel was fine today. And for my tailor yet, just like to me was coming. Reading Bozo Keep? Ain't it something? Old Juliet's boyfriend's a murder movie. And yes, it's, well, isn't it just too horrible? Just an incident. That reminds me of a friend of mine who was always blaming things on coincidence. For instance, he'd always nick and irritate his face while shaving. Then he changed to Molle and started getting swell shades. He'd said, oh, that's just a lucky coincidence. But I noticed that he kept on using Molle and he kept on getting smooth, comfortable shades. And gentlemen, this is why. Molle Brushless Shaving Cream contains a special protective film. This special film helps guard your skin against tiny, almost invisible nicks and scrapes that make your shades uncomfortable. As a result, you get a really pleasant, comfortable shave every morning. So why not try it tomorrow? Remember to ask for Molle. The brushless shaving cream that puts face protection first. And now back to Jeffrey Barnes and act two of the comic strip murder.    As you say, Mr. Hanley, Mark isn't well mentally. But that hasn't been for you out of runaway long ago. Well, after Van Thule, the comic strip character, bought the acid, Mark did the same thing. When I asked him about it, he only laughed at me. He showed me the labels and said it was dry cleaning for the way he bought from a tailor. He was going to clean the upholstery of the car himself. Mr. Hanley is the condenser in the fish pond right now. Look, today, this morning, I had an attack of hasty before I came down to the studio later than you. Mark seems very elated. Well, this is the day, Julia. The comic strip murder's finished. I've got the act to a murder taking place in three days' time. I've had him down for some time, but I've hidden him from you. Hidden him? Yes, but since I've turned him in this noon, I think it's only fair for you to see the fate of Thule, too. So here, take him. But, Mark, this man... That's right, Julia. See, it wasn't Thule who sent the acid-filled wine bottle. He looks a little like me, doesn't he? You've been watching her. I'm hating her. See how horrified Julia is. Look at the wonderful expression I've got on her face in this panel. When her husband takes the hypodermic needle out of his pocket, it's good, isn't it? And look at the action in these panels. See, he grabs her arm here and she stops the screen, but he gags her with his hand and plunges the needle into her neck. See, it's horrible. Needle in her neck. And here, by no touch, her husband kisses her gently on the forehead before putting on his rubber gloves. See? Here. And then he lowers her gently into the fish farm and she can't move a finger to stop it. You're trembling. I've never seen you so interested. So affected. Oh, should I take these away? Maybe you'd rather not see them. No, no, I... I mean, yes, I want to see them. Good. But that panel's the best. We show Juliet's husband calmly smoking a cigarette as he looks through the big smile on his lips. What's going on in the fish farm? Of course, we can't show that. But you can imagine. Can't you, darling? To me, we're... I'll be back late, darling, around midnight sometime. You'll be here, won't you? That's a story in every detail I can remember.  Oh, tonight, tonight, Juliet, the girl in the comic strip, is going to be killed. I'm frightened, Mr. Hartley. I'm frightened something will go wrong with our plan. Mr. Hartley, you won't let him. I mean, he won't have time to... No, no, no, no, Mrs. Stetson. He won't have time to murder you. I'll be behind the screen every second. At any rate, if something does go wrong and he reaches you before I have time to interfere, use this revolver and use it quick. All right. And understand that the far end of the terror... Yes, as far away from the fish pond as you can. It's 12. You better... No, no, no, don't worry about a thing, Mrs. Stetson. I'll be behind the screen. Then I've got a real surprise for you. Where is that? Really, Juliet, dear, after all, this can't be news to you. We've gone over it before. You should be past being frightened by now. No, no, Mark, no. Stop screaming, you won't hurt. That's why I'm doing it. No, no, no, you're trying to kill me. They were blank cartridges. Mrs. Stetson, I arrest you for the attempted murder of your husband. What did you say? You can drop it now, Mrs. Stetson. It's curtain time. You don't know what you're talking about, but you saw him try to use that needle on me. What did you put into it this afternoon? Poison you put into your own hypodermic needle. All we know your husband has been giving you injections by APB. What about the acid? You and John Slater bought that acid, not your husband, Mrs. Stetson.  And the plot for the entire Juliet Secret, that's why she gave me that. She gave me that story. I thought it was such a good story, too. But she was leading to this crime, but she, you listen. The most ingenious part of the whole thing was calling me in on the case. If I believed the story, she had just got through weaving for me, and if she had shot you, it would have been a clear case of self-defense with the district attorney as her star witness. But they always slip up somewhere. What do you mean, how? You'll forget that today was your wedding anniversary. No! So I was lucky enough to find that out. Mrs. Stetson, a man who was going to murder his wife, doesn't arrange a surprise party for her at midnight. Hey, Mrs. Stetson! Come back here! Stay away from that parapet! Juliet, don't climb over. You'll fall. Come back! Stop her. She's trying to walk along the legs of the pirate cave. Awkward Lord, it's 50 stories down. She's mad.   The bell. They had a presentation of... It's called The Little Shaver. Well, her shaving every day. That's the bell. Someone tell him about Moley. What? Shaving problems. Moley helps guard your face from irritating little... Because you see, Moley's special film has more real body and substance and light fluffy cream. It gives your razor something to ride on. And then also, Moley's special film contains a blend of beard softening ingredients and non-irritating oils that are actually of medical purity. Moley is made of official United States pharmacopoeia ingredients. Same as used to fill doctors' prescriptions. Yes, in every way, face protection comes first when you use Moley. So your first Moley shave is really pleasant. And day after day, as that special film helps guard your skin, your shave gets better, better and better. When you shave with M-O-L-L-E. The brushless shaving cream that puts face protection first. And now once again, Jeffrey Barnes to tell you about the Moley Mystery Theatre play for next week. For next week, ladies and gentlemen, I have chosen a classic short story of suspense and murder by the imminent W.W. Jacobs. It is entitled The Interruption. So, mystery fans, we invite you to be with us next week for an ingenious tale when you will learn the secret behind The Interruption. Original music for the Moley Mystery Theatre is composed and conducted by Jack Miller. The comic strip murder was written by Corporal Frederick Mayfield. Until next Tuesday, this is Dan Seymour saying good night and good shaving with Moley. The brushless shaving cream that puts face protection first. Every day, thousands of men and women supplement their diet with IY, ironized yeast tablets. Is your diet deficient in iron? Do you need more vitamin B1? IY tablets give you extra iron to help build rich red blood. Extra vitamin B1 to help keep nerve steady, help you maintain pep and strength. To help keep vigor and vitality, take ironized yeast. They're small, easy to swallow.


My name is Lindy Berg and I'd like to welcome you guys. I am the NDSU Extension Agent for Towner County. And on behalf of the small farms team, I want to welcome you too. So the small farms team is still pretty new to NDSU, but we've been doing a little bit of work here in the last three or four years. So I just kind of wanted to talk about some of the things that we have been doing and then some of the things coming up. So the first thing is I wanted to just briefly mention there's a publication that we just finished not long ago and it's called Beginner's Guide to Raising Chickens. So if you feel like that would be useful for anybody, feel free to search that and find that within the NDSU Extension Publications. And then we also have, we're working on a program coming up this fall called Beginner's Guide to Grant Writing. So if anybody is interested or if you're a big into grant writing, there is a two-day grant writing workshop that we're gonna be doing. And so on day one, basically you have your proposal outline, you get all your resources in order to create that full proposal. And then on the second day, you come back with that proposal and you're kind of looking at it from the role of the reviewer. And then you get to figure out what those strategies are to find funding and providing you with the opportunity to polish that in order to submit it. So keep an eye out for that. There's a save the date going out in June, but again, those dates will be this fall. A couple of other housekeeping items. One is the recording. I always get asked, is there gonna be a recording link for this? There will be. We are recording today and it will be posted. I'm hoping either Thursday or for sure next week. So like Monday, it'll for sure be getting out. So you will get that email with the recording link. If you have any questions, please put those in the chat and we will read those aloud and address those as needed. So again, welcome to our topics today is retail meets and inventory management. We have some great people on the call on our panel. So I'm gonna, Travis, you can take it over. Thank you, Lindy. And I really appreciate your continued efforts. Of course, this is, Lindy and mine's kind of a little bit of a brainchild to provide some information for us, but also we have a great team within our small farms group to be able to provide a little bit of information and a little bit of knowledge for you throughout this evening's function. This is the third of a five part webinar series and this one's focused on retail meets and inventory management. So this is where we've been at and getting livestock ready for harvest and meat and poultry in the farmer's market for farm to school that we've touched on May 24, building your consumer relationships for success, poultry and meat and egg production will be two of our additional functions that we have and events that we have coming on. So just to give you a little bit of background of where we've been in this webinar series is that first one that we did was truthfully on evaluating where we're at on end product slaughter. And as I said, getting animals ready for harvest and in fact realizing that it is a big supply chain and what impact that we do have within our industry. And in fact, the top two pictures that I show there is a blade chops in our hams that we actually had at our North Dakota State 4-H meets judging contest and then a cut out just showing a little bit of differences on what we'll do. And of course you saw that from the initial slide and then we'll gather some experiences and some thoughts and some ideas from our talented panelists that we have put together for today's presentation. One of the things that again, the second one that we did after we evaluate what it's like to get our animals ready for harvest and knowing when that a correct, appropriate compositional endpoint is and for beef, pork, lamb and goat, we've attempted to provide those experiences for all of our producers. But we've also had interest of saying keep it broad and we've had experiences to saying keep it tighter and more species specific. So balancing that, but we've focused more so last week on beef and what we were able to do in getting beef into 71 of the 200 plus. And so nearly a third of our schools in the North Dakota are able to offer local meats. And that's a good thing for us in terms of making that connection for our producers. And so again, today's will be on retail meats and inventory management and then building your consumer relationship for success and poultry meat and egg production that Penny Nester will lead and Lindy will lead our one next week. So a couple of the different things that I wanna talk about and I'm gonna provide just a little bit of background here before we kind of dig into and open it up for our panelists is just the conversion of muscle to meat. And so in fact, we have an impact on dressing percent and that'll give us an idea in terms of expected cut yield. And then we gotta make decisions. And of course we have Spencer on to join us of what those people make in terms of processing decisions of how they want those cut of whether they're to a certain fat specification to a certain cut width or also of how much you want boned or deboned. And then some in terms of the freezer space and we have some at the back end if we get time to talk about some tools that are available. So I still feel that this is the best image and graphic that one can put together. And so this is from the late Dr. Christopher Reigns a talented colleague of mine that served at Pennsylvania State University and in fact just an average. And of course those are probably just a smidge more than that of pork at 70, beef at 60 and lambs at 50. And in fact, you should do better than that in terms of the live animal to the carcass portion. But one of the things and I know again, we have Spencer and some of our processing experts that are on and joining us that can provide some information is that they commonly think that the butcher took our meat. And so if you take in a certain proportion or take in a 1,325 pound calf is that, well you figure that you're gonna have more. And so even when we think about that is that maybe on here, the carcass weight was 787 on the beef. If you get to the boneless beef or at least closely trimmed and keep some of those like chuck steaks intact, you're gonna have 472 pounds. So that's a realization that is important when I consider myself in terms of meat sciences that people ask that question a whole bunch to say what can we do and what can we have an impact on? Those factors that can affect the dressing percentage can be from gut fill, hide, pelt and those are gonna be different. And of course the wool is different on the sheep that will have an impact. But the mud can have a tremendous amount of impact on the amount of retail yield that you do have. The amount of muscling is important and in the external and internal fat. And I'm gonna go back just to, excuse me because I didn't touch on these two lambs that were in the background actually came from a Minnesota producer. And so these are Minnesota produced lambs and those are the carcasses below them. And I don't know if that's a 100% ideal but what I can tell you is that in terms of retail yield, those set record levels of what came through our North Dakota State University Mead Slam because there was a tremendous amount of product and muscle that still made it to the carcass weight and then also then to retail yield. And when we think about this as our topic on retail meat yield in generalities there's so many different things that can have an impact. I want to show you all four of our production live animal species here and some cut out information that I was able to work with and as some know I have a joint appointment through North Dakota State University and the University of Minnesota. And this is one of the things that we did actually pre coronavirus 19 and in fact was there to be able to be used as we were having more people that wanted to know where their food comes from. And if there was anything as we think about it and again hopefully in the past of coronavirus 19 is that not only did people, Ron and Beth not only did people stock up on toilet paper but they also stocked up on freezers. And when they stocked up on freezers they felt that it was important to fill their freezer and so that they could do that. And then the demand and the continued demand at least in our region and then most likely nationwide is that people wanted to know this of what can I expect? Well in this beef one is seven ribeye steaks it's six T bones and for entertainment value Spencer some people want T bones and they want boneless strips and tenderloins and that's just not how the animal works. And so there's some decisions that have to be made sirloin steaks sirloin tip steaks, round steaks and truthfully there's probably the most differences in terms of flexibility in the beef carcass depending on what you want to have for steaks or roast or what goes into grind or even stew meat. So from a live weight of 1300 pounds if they were to purchase a quarter of that we could expect that 142 pounds would be approximately what you would put into your freezer. Now that's dependent on several different things on how much meat is going to be boned out and how that's gonna be fabricated and processed. A typical hog of approximately 260 pounds you're gonna see a potentially 13 pounds of pork chops you're gonna keep those hams separate most commonly the ribs and the bacon are some of the things that we can have and of course our bacon at least in the retail store and truthfully some of those ribs are some of the higher value cuts that we provide some of those shoulder roasts you might want to keep the Boston butt intact so that you could put that on the grill here because we've moved past the middle of May in North Dakota America and so the snow is now melted which means the grill should now be on and so just depending on what we want to do and how we look at that from a hog. So a half of a hog would make about 60 to 70 pounds of product would be our expected yield that would go into the freezer. This is our one for our whole lambs and so if we looked at a typical market lamb at 140 pounds, we can expect eight shoulder chops if we were to make it that and those would be arm and blade chops and then you can decide of whether you wanted to keep that in a crown roast or in rib chops, 14 potential loin chops at approximately an inch and a quarter of course we have the shanks and the ribs and then depending on how we want to do that on ground lamb or in the most flexibility at least in the sheep and lamb industry is what you wanted to do with a leg if you wanted to keep that in a roast put that into kebab or stew meat or even to grind that. The goat is not fabricated at the same level as either the three species aforementioned and so commonly those would just be pulled off as primals and then some people can decide to roast that or cube that. Truthfully if you were to look at the rack and or loin those aren't commonly large enough in terms of the just the meat that's gonna be on those to make the loin chops that you could in a lamb or a pork or obviously the rib eye and a beef animal and so more commonly pulled together just in primals depending on how you want those. Again, I put the link on here that's extension.umn.edu slash save money food slash buying animals meat processing and so that's where I pulled all of those from that can have if you were to have a sheep you'd get approximately 47 pounds of cut of retail lamb cuts or retail ready lamb cuts from a 140 pound lamb and so again we're closer there to truthfully a third of our product and then our lamb or excuse me our goats just depending on how much you wanted to bone that go out would help us as well in terms of what is offered there and so retail cuts and primals just in generalities is extremely important in terms of what we want to accomplish. We have a talented group of presenters that'll join us for this evening. Our first one is Mr. Isaac Brunkow. Isaac serves as a graduate student under my direction at North Dakota State University and will allow him to tell and share his story. We'll follow that up with Mr. Ron and Ms. Beth Wolf to talk about Wolf suffix and Jonah freeze is gonna talk about freeze family farms and then Spencer Wert is our processing expert that is associated now with six in one means and so Isaac, I'm gonna allow you the floor to tell your story and we look forward to people. Please put your questions in the chat and we hope this to be interactive and a good dialogue and question and answer period for those that we do have to join us. And so Isaac, please tell us about Brunkow family lamb. Oh, thank you Travis. My family has a ranch in Northeastern Kansas just outside of Manhattan. We primarily raise cattle and crops and that was where we got most of our foundation for a ranch from. Although we started operating a sheep flock through a overgrown 4-H project. Like Travis said, I'm currently up here studying under him as a grad student doing some extension research under him and I did my undergrad at K-State in animal science. Moving forward on to a little more about our operation. So our family, my family's flock is mostly focused on terminal production. We do a lot with cross-breed sheep especially those blackface crosses with the Suffolk Hampshire focus. Although my personal favorite I have a small flock of South Downs. My dad has recently acquired some dorsets. So we're working on incorporating those sheep into our herds. We don't really have a super large operation in terms of grazing on grass. So we do focus mostly on corn finished lambs which sometimes is a desirable characteristic especially if corn prices are not like or lower than they are currently. We focus on trying to get lean to sheds into every pin because that Kansas sun can get pretty hot especially around that summertime on anything with a wool coat like sheep have. Continuing on. We have a few goals in mind with our sheep operation. We focus on a high quality lamb meat and the focus with that is through butcher shop sales. We have some partnerships with a the main partnership is with a butcher shop in South Central Kansas that focuses on the direct to consumer retail counter. We have a lot of people that come in and see our product is where the main producer of lamb for yonder meat. In addition to that we do do some direct sales where we focus on trying to get people to come out and incorporate a little bit of agritourism into it shown on the face of the producer because not everybody knows a rancher or farmer anymore and it's good to get that face to face interaction with the people that are buying and eating your product. We've started to see some interest recently in getting our product into restaurants. We are currently figuring out how we're gonna incorporate that though because there's some different challenges that come with moving product to a restaurant setting as opposed to direct sales or butcher shops. In addition to that we do sell some replacement use. We try our best to maintain some good records cold the bottom third of our flock and really like I said focus on those hybrid bloodlines minus my south downs and dad's dorses. And then the two young ladies in my pictures down here are two of the girls that show sheep for me back home. Don't have anything super showy but I like to see my lambs go to the local fairs and support the local four hers. So continue on focus on the lambside of our operation. We talked, I talked a little bit about when we contract with Yoder meat market down in Yoder, Kansas. And we try to bring 30 lambs a month for three months over that finishing period late summer to fall. And then also with that we do, they do allow us to bring in extra lambs and they'll process it for us and return the meat to us so we can do direct consumer marketing. With that being said, in Kansas, you have to be licensed and inspected annually by the KDA. And we only sold whole or half carcasses previously. We have changed our license to where we could sell the individual cuts. And we do some custom processing with ethnic and home processing customers.  So that's what he comes out and does. And there is some loopholes you might have to consider when doing that or not loopholes that owe some laws and other things you might have to focus on. So currently we're working on a few different products. My father, the owner of Yoder Meat Markets and myself have kind of working on some value added products. Back home in Kansas, beer rock is the state food. It is basically a dinner roll stuffed with traditionally ground beef, but we're looking at trying to incorporate lamb into that. And I've done some experimenting on it because it's an easily frozen product. And I think you could really add value to your catalog by incorporating that and some frozen meals and sausages. In addition to that, we've started working on a cookbook with some, I have a sample here on the right of the slide where we've taken some different recipes and incorporated lamb into them just to help that consumer get a better idea of what recipes work with lamb. And recently, my father has talked to me about we are going to start using a new program that I think works really well with tonight's topic. It's called Barn to Door and they help you with your marketing and your webpage and social media. But the most important thing I think that is going to be super great with this program is they help you with your inventory management. They have digital inventory, which will be super great, helps you keep track of what you're selling, what's moving and generate some statistics based off that. Thank you, Isaac, for providing a little bit of background on your operation and telling the story. And well, the quick question, okay, is what is a beer rock or how can you describe that just a little bit better for us Northerners?  So when I moved up here to NDSU, I was surprised no one had ever had it before. There's a lot of that same culture up here. But it's basically, like I said, it's a dinner roll, just a nice buttery dinner roll. And then you take cabbage and ground meat and stuff it. And that's a big thing back home a lot. Like I remember before football games, the moms would serve the whole team beer rock. It's just a nice, easy, quick meal. I've started using lamb in mine and a lot of my friends and my girlfriend have really appreciated the use of lamb in that. It adds a new element to it and you can kind of pep up that traditional beer rock. Good, thank you. And even for those, even crazier, those that live in Nebraska, right, Isaac runs a built a lifestyle on that, right? I mean, apparently that's what they are is the runs of the building, you put in putting a meat and the flavorings into a topic that they can do. So that's not everywhere, but man, you're right in Kansas and the central part of our country, that's something that's certainly important. We're gonna pass it to Jonah Freeze actually next and then we'll allow Ron and Beth to kind of pull us together here, I think. So I pulled together just a little bit of information. And so you see, at least from the right side of some teriyaki snack sticks and the top one at least shows that it is USDA inspected and truthfully they're Jonah kind of your logo. And when you kind of dig through this and you'll see this both with Freeze Family Farms, you saw it on Isaac's with the Brunkow Family Farm is that they do have logo as well and we'll see that with our Wolf suffix as well. And I just put in a boneless leg of lamb that can be there as well. And so Jonah, the floor is yours. Tell us what makes Freeze Family Farm, who you are and kind of how you've built your ideas particularly at the retail and farmer's market approach is Jonah. Well, I guess I've been raising sheep for most of my life which is coming up on 50 years starting with Coradale sheep and that's been about almost getting up to 50. We've added Lincoln's and Border Lester's now in the last five years. And so we start out as a purebred breeding operation and of course we can only market so many rams. So in 2019, I had this idea, I had people that would do, you kind of wanted to promote lamb and the people would come back and say, you know, we'd really like to try it but you can't find it or else they hadn't tried it, couldn't find it. They had, they do like it but they still couldn't find it. And I'm like, well, gee whiz, maybe I should think about doing some checking in to see what it would be to promote the lamb and to maybe to do it like a farmer's market. So then I talked to a couple of my friends one out in the East Coast and one in South Dakota just to get a little idea and kind of where to start and whatever. So then I decided to do it, checked out with the health department, what I had to do, tried to find a USDA facility to get the lambs processed which we had one that was newly purchased and it was only like 30 miles away. So it was, I checked with them I could get lambs in. So I kind of got the ball roll and bought a cargo or a little enclosed trailer, got some freezers, got inspected and approved in the way we went. And so I got some lambs processed and made them into the cuts like your roasts and your chops. And then I went to a local farmer's market. It was very well received. And then also what I did is you can only sell so much ground as far as I'm concerned. And so my butcher, he had some snack sticks there which were beef and I'm like, gee whiz, I wonder what they'd be like for lambs. So we have to take our trim to another processor that's federally inspected to do the smoked processed meats. So they had recipes for the Euro meat, this snack sticks, country style and also brats. And so we went ahead with that. We added pork with the lamb. And the reason for that was just so that we could sell the product at a little more reasonable price. And so since then, I've been doing farmers markets. We have Pride to Dakota showcase events. And in those we do sampling of the snack sticks. And once they try them, I mean, people buy them. They're crazy over them. And so since then, we've put them into a local gas station convenience store here in my town and they'll sell probably 50 sticks a month. And so that's pretty exciting. So that helps to get rid of some of those. That Avenue also the grocery store in New Salem, they also handle all of our lamb in fact. And so that's been a pretty good process for that. And we just keep on going. We have the lambs too that we also sell on a direct sale for the customer. And we have a repeat customer list on that and they rave how great the lamb taste is. So that continues to build. I still do, well, not quite as many farmers markets last year was so hot. So I'm old and chubby. So that just didn't appeal to me. So anyway, we still sold a lot of lamb. I have an appointment set up for this year. The big problem for us is now that the local guy that I went to like 30 miles away, he decided he's no longer gonna do lamb because they can put in all these beef and they don't have to deal with lamb since it's a little more tedious, I guess, as far as cutting up and whatever. But so now what I have to do is I can get some in at a local basis here, but it's kind of like to see if they have room for me. And if they don't, that's kind of hard to plan on that. So now I have to go a little over three hours, one way to deliver my lambs to get them processed. And so that's kind of where I'm, that's the biggest frustration, I guess, right now. The other thing I do too is with my breeds of sheep, they have very nice wool pelts. So I'll send those pelts into a tannery in Wisconsin. And so that's another avenue for a little extra income off that lamb. So other than that, my promotion would be through the farmer's markets or prior to the coat of events. I also do some items I handmade with wool. So it's kind of a really nice fit to promote lamb and wool. Thank you, Jonah. And in fact, just one of the things you described there, the challenge in terms of processing plants. And I guess in terms of our function that we have here of saying, if we want to be able to direct market and to locally produce those, it truthfully requires a relationship with your processor. And that's one of the things that I know that Ron and Beth can touch on as well is that even if you have the product, the way that we've seen it here now in the last truthfully two to three years is that people say, okay, well, I may not be able to fit you in. And so hopefully you provide enough rapport that they can be able to say, you know what? We can try to fit you in on a next Tuesday or whatever that may be. So I'm being able to provide that. You saw that, ladies and gentlemen, in terms of the teriyaki snack sticks and an original snack sticks and the country style sausage. And in fact, the Euro meat as well. And so thinking outside the box just a little bit in terms of diversification. And I know this isn't the avenue or the spot to talk about, you know, some of the wool products, Jonah, don't get me wrong. But I put those pictures in there because when I'm thinking about this is that even if you were to aim to do a farmer's market and the reason that I described that of saying how can we be better at merchandising those from a retail standpoint is that maybe there's a local person that produces honey or pulls together some salsas or whatever that may be. And so just I wanted to leave that in there in terms of thoughts when you make those investments to be there direct to market to somebody that can potentially share some of that costs and or profits. And so it doesn't take much if you're going to offer, you know, retail snack sticks and lamb to be able to have something else that could be outside that box as well. And so I think that's one of the things that I enjoy about Jonah is that Jonah, you set goals. But in fact, I've never seen you reach all of those goals because Jonah, whenever you get to a goal you make a different one, all right? And so which you don't like, see or know that that's the case. And so whenever you get something accomplished and whether it was saying Jonah is going to make it to the farmer's market said, cool, great, thanks. Now I'm going to get a retail storefront. And then it was like, cool, great, thanks. I've sold all my lamb loin chops. Now what am I going to do? And so I really, really appreciate your thoughts and I look forward to any future conversation as we describe this Jonah. Thank you for giving the quick update in terms of the freeze family farms. We're going to move on and this one's a team approach because of course we got the Ron that considers himself the face of the industry and then Beth is actually the mastermind and does the talent. We know that Ron takes little of that in terms of the actual talent of the team. But more importantly, I've known them for a long time and they said, okay, we have some stuff in sheet and we think that we can be able to market it and some of the thoughts that they've been able to do and kind of pull things together that it's in home base there, kind of Oaks, Tarticoto. And again, USDA inspected processing and I just want to touch on this as we think about where we can have an impact is that we have three different kinds of custom exempt and in order to sell at custom exempt locations you need to sell the animal and those need to go in as the animal and then truthfully you can sell that to somebody but they can provide those processing instructions or wherever that may be. And that's a lot of it to just again bring it back to the breadth of what we're trying to do on our direct markets and even if you were to have beef or pork or sheep or goats that you can be able to sell in terms of a custom exempt, live animal and then they can choose how they want to process that. State inspected needs to stay inside of the state that it is inspected. But it can be and you can go through the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Health to get that licensing and I will say that the USDA inspection is something that can allow us to offer those to be sold at any different places and I will do my best lady to pass it on to run and bath. Thank you. Thanks Travis, I appreciate the opportunity here to talk a little bit about our operation. And yeah, as you see Wolf suffix which we have been at it 40 some years and the passion of it is a seed stock operation first and foremost with us. It's been something, the show rings important to us. It's kind of my competition. We like to sell and get youth involved much like Isaac. We have had our own private tree production sale. We just got done at the end of April with our 18th and a lot of that focuses on the youth and expanding other kids to be part of that. And so we ran running that 50 to 60 head of sheep. And so with my job being outside of an agricultural base, we tried the lamb pretty much in that January, February and bleed into March probably a little more than we should to get through all of our youth. So our lambs are basically weaned at this time and on full feed. And we're fairly fortunate as far as livestock market, we have an active livestock market about 60 miles away that is pretty good for the fat lamb. But when you're only running this small to use and you're so in use and keeping back bucks, we didn't always have a large amount of lambs that were market ready at the same time. And so it became an issue when we'd go to the sale barn of eight to 10 or 12 lambs, depending on who was there that day and how big or how much they wanted the lambs. And so even when there was a good market some days maybe our lambs weren't accepted real well. And so, we were always at the mercy of who was showing up the sale barn for a few head of lambs and whether they needed them. And I guess, so at that point, about five years ago, and I'll turn this over to Beth because this was kind of her mastermind but five years ago we decided we were gonna control and market, try to market all of the sheep or as many as we could and price them, be in control of what we got for them. And so this, she did the research and I'm gonna let Beth talk about the farmer's market a little bit. So like Jonah, we reached out to the Department of Health and found out what we needed to do that way. And then I kind of started researching farmer's markets to see where we thought that we could find a good farmer's market but I'm kind of selfish with my time. I did not want to have to be at market all the time. So we found a farmer's market and the first two years Ron or the first year, don't remember for sure, we were there every weekend and it was a lot. And so then we go to the Red River's farmer's market in Fargo and we decided that we were gonna start going every other week. And that has worked out really well for us. We have probably 80% of our customers are repeat customers. We've developed a really great relationship with them and that's always our goal is to develop that relationship, get to know the people when you see them coming and they start waving at you. That's a lot of fun and it's exciting and we kind of have some side chatter between Ron and I on how many packages of kebab, do you think they're gonna get today or how many ground lamb or any of that? I would say probably one of our biggest goals is to get a package of lamb on at least one or two new customers tables each week and then hope to see them back again. We feel like we probably could raise our prices a little bit but yet having lived on a budget all of our life, we want people to be able to enjoy lamb and afford it. So we price our meat what we feel comfortable knowing that we are making a profit at it but it's not priced so high that somebody's not gonna be able to say, oh, I just wanna try some chops. So we price ours. I always go on to the USDA website each year and see where they're at and try and get pretty close to that and to what other producers are pricing theirs at in our area. These are some pictures of the different cuts that we have. A couple of years ago, we had somebody request heart and so now we do heart and kidney and liver and they actually are very good sellers for us. Shanks are a good seller.  It's like, okay, we're gonna throw in a couple more this week and then we sell out that week too. Our goal, one of our goals is to get them into the convenience store and then about two miles away we have just a little tavern, the London Tavern and we're gonna start putting some in her refrigerator and as our friends and locals are there and hunting season when the hunters are in there hopefully they'll grab a pack of the wolves little suffix lamb sticks. So I don't know what else, Ron. Well, we do sell holes and halves and we have some already reserved up. We do have somewhat of an ethnic market locally with the farm labor and most of the locals would be South African folks and that, when we talk to them that is their favorite meat and so that's been an outlet of ours but as we go into our retail cuts we kind of let our farmer's market customers dictate as we seasonally go through and of course when Travis was talking about grilling season, the steaks and the chops and that kind of stuff are popular early on and we see him as we get into the September and October that maybe the roasts start selling better because they're a comfort food and one other thing that Beth started doing a year or so ago and in conjunction with our processors she started leaving our rib, our sides of ribs whole. And so when they come and wanted to see our ribs they've got a two or three pound because it seems like all these young people are foodies they've got smokers and they wanna experiment with a big piece of meat and so those are fairly popular and you bring a rack of rib out of a Suffolk lamb that's probably a couple feet long their eyes get big and then all of a sudden it's like, hey, I could try this and so that has become something I think we're gonna go with going forward and so we've done the farmer's market for five years and I'm proud enough to say the last three years the sale barn has not seen a lamb of ours and so we are currently in the last three years and hopefully we continue pricing every sheep in one way or the other that leaves this place and so it is directly from the wolves to the consumer and we don't deal with a marketing in between at this point in time. And we do have lamb in three different restaurants in Fargo restaurants, whatever and ironically at this time the ground is the important or the easy sell of them because it's very diversified and they do different things with it so. Thank you, Ron and Beth and that's why kind of I thought it was imperative that we included you in this and I put a little bit of a pizza at the bottom end and that should have some wolf Suffolk kind of lamb on that expand just a little bit on that would you please? Well, and we were fortunate enough because of the location of the Red River Farmers Market and it is a market we apply to every year and we have to set our schedule with them and luckily we've been accepted back but being up in Broadway has been very advantageous to us because of how much resurrection of Fargo I think has been put into that and we actually and I'll put a plug in for Casey at the Blackbird Woodfire Grill met us at the first farmer's market or first year and he said, you know, he introduced himself and said, you know, what his plan is and he'd like to try our product and we've had a relationship with Casey for the last five years and fortunately with if you happen to see it or not we had a interview with Egg Week TV here two weeks ago or three weeks ago at our farm and it didn't start out that wasn't the purpose behind it but it turned into from pastor to pizza and included Casey and with that relationship actually we started providing lamb ground lamb to a new restaurant in West Fargo and so him being satisfied with our project project, he's a very positive advocate for Wolf Suffolk Lamb and so relationships as Beth said earlier are a big thing for us in there and that is one of the, you know, direct pluses for us and Jonah talking about, you know and I'll throw that and didn't mention it we are fortunate enough that we have a federally inspected meat plant eight miles from our house so the convenience of that is huge I can drop those lambs off onto my appointment when I go to work and a few days later I can pick it up on my way home and that saves us time and money. Good, thank you and in fact, you know it's exciting you saw the snack sticks that Jonah has and then the snack sticks that the Wolf Suffolk family has there I'm pulling those together and so I appreciate that I would like to also entertain to our people and our attendees that are joining us to again, please put any questions that you may have for this trio of producers into the chat box but I'm gonna like to lead that discussion for the most part and say, you know what have you identified as, you know the thing that is your best seller? What makes you you, Ron? I would say it's a lollipops and we knew nothing about that Travis till we went to a wedding reception locally and then they had the young couple who are in the sheep business had them brought up I think from superior and they were grilled and you know, what's better than meat with a stick you know, kind of deal and with a handle and you know, we are selling some bone but the novelty of it and of course it's a high quality cut of meat and then I would say maybe our second best would be the kebab meat because people you know, come to us and say I've never had what's something good to start with well, here you have chunks of lamb and grilling season or stew, you know whatever you there's a multitude of the things you can go with there and still get the texture and everything of the lamb and so those are both big sellers for us. Jonah, what makes freeze family lamb there? What makes you, what makes you you? What's the best seller? Why does it work the way it does? I would say the snack sticks probably are and they're too as far as like the leg steaks you know, I sell them as leg steak and tell them that would make great kebab meat so if they wanna do their own kebabs they can cut it up and do that. So that's a good one too, you know if they wanna try lamb that's a good cut. Isaac, what have you guys found with your guys' game? Again, you're an import, all right? From Kansas, but what's been working for you? We don't have as much of the value added products as the other panelists do. We move a lot of the bone in leg especially around the holidays. I've released some recipes that seem to be really and we have a lot of barbecue in our area that people really, really love those and in addition to that we do sell a lot of the traditional loin chops. People really like eating those and grilling and that seems to be our biggest products that we move. Super, thank you Isaac for being able to provide that. And in fact, I think that's one of the most important things as we describe it and not to just be sheep centric but we can sell those loin chops or even the bone in legs like Isaac described but what I've really, really appreciated is Jonah and Ron and Beth's approaches in terms of expanding the markets and so realizing that because truthfully if we were gonna be able to do that and again to provide some breadth to that is from the beef industry we can sell rib eyes and we can sell strip loins. It's what we want to do with the brisket or the ground meats and the roasts that we may have or even the Boston butts and the hams that we approach with our pork industry and truthfully trying to provide all of those. So we do have a question and I think this is a pertinent one to continue to ask before we move into Spencer's thoughts of the game here and I'm pulling everything together and you probably saw this in the chat and so hopefully your heads up and in terms of laws and regulations what have you had to do in order to sell the meat out of an inspected processor? And in fact, I'm gonna lead it with Ron and Beth but I know you had to at least get some licensing in order to do that and so go ahead, Ron and Beth and we'll provide that just as a great segue to move forward. Okay, well, I did call the Department of Health and requested the license and so then the inspector came down and said, well, what are your plans? And so we kind of we talked about the plans and he was a very nice gentleman. He was here the first time for probably an hour and a half. He did try to talk us into applying for a grant for a multimillion dollar butchering facility on our farm. I said, as a childcare provider I did not think that I wanted to have that on the farm as well.  So we declined that offer to do that. But so then we talked with our local butcher and at that time it was the butcher block and he was federally inspected. And state, no, he was state inspected which meant then we could only sell in North Dakota which is fine, we didn't have big plans and so then we got the license, we bought the freezers, then when we go to Fargo we have to have, well, we have to have our coolers inspected. So we basically we sign a piece of paper and we pay them money and we get a license from Cass County Public Health that we're okay to sell our meat there. It's just a hoop that we have to do. And they do come out yearly and inspect our freezer area and space. And we have to apply for it every year and pay a fee. But once you're in and doing the right thing it's pretty easy. And then like in Fargo, we've never had an inspection there but we always take thermometers along with us in each of the coolers so that if we did we would be covered that way. It would be nice. I've tried to talk to Shepard here into getting a little trailer because we are getting up there in age so it would be nice to have just a trailer with the freezers in there that we just looked up but I haven't quite got him on board yet. Good and there's a point of information in our chat that says that the Department of Health safety rules depend on the location of the state. And if we were to make this North Dakota specific absolutely that is the Department of Health and Bismarck has its own, Fargo has its own and there's several different approaches of where those information is the requirements of who you have to work with. Jonah, the floor is yours. What did you have to do in order to be able to merchandise your products? Well, first of all, the egg department and then they sent me over to the health department and then the health department said based on where we're located at we have to go through Custer Health which takes care of five counties in our area. And then that's who I had to do my work through and I make the application and indicate who your processor would be. And then that's it wasn't that big of a deal just to get my trailer and freezers checked and then she granted the license. Good. Thank you. Isaac, you know, you're at least in North Dakota now but at least from a Kansas standpoint what do you know in terms of what you needed to do? And in fact, we like to make these webinars as broad as we can so that it fits with other people and we realized that there's also evaluate where you're at with your own department of agriculture and your own Department of Health because we can be able to make these as targeted for North Dakota but we also are striving to make them as broad so that people can understand where they need to go. Isaac, what did you get to do? Ours is actually all through the Kansas Department of Ag. We didn't really have to do anything with the health department. There's a couple of different options for licensing in Kansas. Moving whole carcasses and breaking them down into the halves and the quarters depending on what species you're doing is not as heavily regulated. However, when you start doing that direct marketing especially on your operation and moving those individual cuts is where more inspection comes into play like wolves are saying in Kansas they do come out and spec to your freezers and stuff yearly and that's basically where it boils down to. It's a little different than North Dakota but a lot of it is the same and going from state to state you just gotta check in with most states especially these Midwestern states that have a lot of producers do have good information. I know North Dakota has a really good handbook for direct marketing for producers to use. So just checking with your state is a great way to ensure your following regulations.  So we try to do 25 to 30 head in three months because they like to slaughter them all at the same time trying to get some good groups going. So we move about 90 head up to maybe 110 head depending on the interest and just, I mean, everybody knows that sometimes your land crop doesn't turn out quite right. So you have some reduced numbers so just those factors that's a pretty average range for us. Good, thank you Isaac. And so to keep that up to date Isaac says that they can do about 100. Jonah and Ron are closer to 30 or 40 head approximately a year which truthfully I consider still a sizable number. And in fact, I have a talented group there of a trio of producers and I really, really appreciate your approach. But I think to bring this around and to keep it full circle even as we talk about it from a retail cuts and inventory management is that I wanted to include my colleague, Mr. Spencer Wirt. And so Mr. Spencer Wirt previously was a graduate at North Dakota State University. In fact, it is master's degree at North Dakota State in meat sciences and has was and is and was an icon in the game, right? Spencer and so, but he's moved on and works at six and one meats right now. And in fact, I put that on there because he works now every Thursday with KFGO 790 AM. And so I've never made it to this level, Spencer. But now he has a title and so they call him in and they say, hey, the meat dude, teach us. And so Spencer, I threw a slide together for you that has him at some of our barbecue boot camps where we tell the story. Truthfully, NDSU was one of the teams of the groups that was kind of at the front, I think, and in terms of just being able to be producer to consumer and telling that story, the difference is is that they use barbecue as the answer to be able to pull stuff together. And in fact, some of those top ones, I pulled him together of a project that I was working at where we talked about some lamb fabrication. And then also he has plenty of knowledge in terms of process meats as well. So Spencer, you've got to listen to the trio of producers that we have. And in fact, our challenge is retail meats and inventory management. The thing that I know about six in one meats is that lots of species come through as well. And so I'm willing to let you kind of dig in in just a little bit in terms of the breadth of the beef, the pork, the lamb, the goat. And in fact, I know that you guys harvest some bison as well. And so what's your thoughts here, just in terms of retail meats and kind of working with our producers that want to get connected? Spencer, the floor is yours, buddy. Okay, well, thanks Travis. Yeah, so what the wolfs and freeze and maybe Isaac a little bit touched on, I think every livestock producer is trying to market their animals directly to the customer, runs into the same question and problem throughout that process, whether you figure it out right away early or you work through it. And that's essentially how to market every single aspect because if you're slaughtering animals in this type of situation, you're trying to utilize every single pound out of that carcass and being able to market that becomes difficult, finding the correct customer to buy bones or whatever the case may be. You know, that story that Ron you said about the slab of ribs of lamb, I used to market lamb ribs at NDSU just like that. And it is, you find those unique little cuts that just fly off the shelf and it adds value to your animal at the end of the day because lamb ribs don't yield great if you're trimming them out or doing whatever the case other than saw them as ribs. So finding little different tricks and trades while you're trying to market your animals is really the key when you're doing it on a small scale basis. Now, six in one means we primarily slaughter beef and the pork, lamb, it is difficult in North Dakota. The time constraints, the poundage, everything. I mean, it makes sense on a business standpoint to be moving beef across that rail instead of lamb. And I'm sure that's what a lot of lamb producers are running into right now. I know I get calls all the time of people wanting to slaughter lambs. And that is essentially what it comes down to. Like I said, we do mostly beef, we do hogs and lambs, haven't done any goats yet. Once a month essentially have that slot designated for. We try to do as many as we can but of course that means we need to cut back on our beef slaughter because we can't accomplish everything at once. We have poundage that we're able to get through on a weekly basis, whether that be beef carcasses, pork carcasses, lamb carcasses, you can calculate the stuff based on number of head pounds. Pounds works a lot better, but you kind of have to go with number of head in my shoes because you don't know how big these animals are. Yeah, so the further processed meats that was kind of my interest at NDSU. Travis, thanks for saying that I got my master's. I actually didn't defend my thesis, but I appreciate the MS of my name. My research, yeah, working on it, gonna be working for a while on it. My research was based on shelf life of fresh meat. And then my, kind of my passion, my side, well, I taught a class at NDSU. What I kind of really dived into was the further processed meats, the science behind it, how it works, how to create an appealing product without losing yield and value, because that's at the end of the day what really matters. Now everybody on a small scale basis is kind of in a unique situation when it comes to, let's talk about yields, right? Because when we're throwing in 100 pounds of snack sticks into the smokehouse and you're coming out with, let's say, 80 pounds by the time it's packaged, it's 75. You know, whatever that yield may be, it's always gonna be different. You guys are in a unique situation that you can set your own prices, right? So that yield, you know, I work, the companies that come in and help us with our equipment work in the large-scale processing facilities as well, we're in the large-scale processing facilities yield is everything because they're in a little bit more of a competitive market. Now, the way this small direct-to-consumer market is taking off, I think competition will be growing amongst everybody, but right now you have the unique ability to set your prices. Travis spent, you know, the first 10 minutes going over yields, yes, yield is important, very, very important in both of our lines, whether it's me cutting it or you taking a live animal and trying to direct market to consumers, but you're in kind of a unique situation where that price is a little easier to figure out, not necessarily figure out, but easier to still make money for everybody, for you and Beth, you did, you know, it's great to hear something along those lines of you're making profit, but you're not gouging your customers, right? I think all customers should hear that because that's something that gets brought up all the time is why is meat so expensive? Well, if you sit down and actually figure out what the cost is of all the stuff, it's crazy. So it's, yeah, we're all in kind of a unique, fun situation. Thank you, Spencer. A question comes in terms of your guys' thoughts and again, as you think about beef, cattle, pork, sheep goats, what comes across, I mean, do you have a designated pricing structure of saying, hey, I'm gonna bring this in here, this is what it costs? And in fact, I guess I would expand on that just a little bit more in terms of the processing. Do you, for, to package those, is it a certain amount per hanging weight or how does it work with your guys' company? Yeah, so everything's based on a carcass weight, dollar per pound or whatever the case may be, based on hanging weight is what everybody calls it, it's the carcass weight, right? Anything additional past that, vacuum packaging, you'll see as an additional fee and that is what we do as well. Vacuum packaging is an additional processing fee based on the pounds that gets packaged. You see it, being a part of the Dakota Meat Processors Association, I've gotten to know a lot of the butcher shops across the state of North Dakota and you see a lot of shops do it, lots of different ways and at the end of the day, we're all doing the similar job, all of us are doing it, slightly different, all of us have different expenses, all of us are calculating things out slightly different. So not every single plant is gonna be the exact same, but just know that the expenses that go into it, big one is obviously time and labor. And that's both the time it took to harvest the animal and the time it took to cut the animal, the time it took to package the animal, that those are your big three, right? Then you have your, how long did it sit in the cooler? Those are all expenses associated into your processing fees and what you are paying for when you bring the animal to us. Big thing in the small meat processing facilities right now is disposal of the guts. We use a company based out of Long Prairie, Minnesota that comes and picks everything up, but it's very expensive for us to pay them to come and get it. There's lots and lots of new ideas and thoughts and different ways to try to grab some value out of those byproducts of harvesting animals and nothing's really quite there, set in stone proven to be beneficial for any party involved quite yet, but there's a lot of research going into that. So there's a lot of expenses that goes into processing on a small scale, but at the end of the day time labor and how many pounds you can fit on one single trolley hanging on the rail is kind of the name of the game. Super, thank you so much Spencer. I mean, I appreciate all that you guys do and I know a lot of producers are able to work with you on all of those different species. And again, it's a lot of making those connections and when I think about it from the local meats producer, the producer that's just striving to make it past that level and make that connection. We have three great examples, but it's not an easy venture and it certainly needs a cooperation and the collaboration of those local processors. And so in fact, again, we've talked about lots of different things on here. I actually have a talented individual. Robert, are you there and joining us? I'm here, bud. Okay, Robert. So I've included Robert to just, Robert works as our vice president of sales for double J lamb. And again, this one's more lamb centric than truthfully I preferred on this one. But again, I described it that the beef cattle portion sells more quarters and halves and the pork sells at least in our area, just a little bit more of the full carcasses as well. And so I included Robert. I let him kind of listen and talk about it. But I think one of the things that we need to keep into consideration as we're describing those, and you've heard obviously a trio of success stories of being able to provide that local product to our consumers. But the reason that I included Robert is because I think he speaks for a larger segment of our industry and in fact, again, so some of the products that come through of sheet based, Robert has been at the forefront and is based in the New England area. And as we think about meats that are going out of it and we're digging just a smidge away from the local portion, but I appreciated his thoughts in terms of just some macroeconomics type ideas. And so Robert, what did you see? What are we doing right? What are we doing wrong? What do you see from a bigger picture standpoint? Go ahead. So on a larger scale, I mean, we're one of the bigger processors of wool sheep in the United States and we ship probably 90% of what we produce goes to the North East to New York, New Jersey. A lot of it is actually in carcass form. So we do a lot of the carcass to New York, New Jersey. We do some production in our facility. We do fab. We've been currently doing that since September. So on a larger scale, we produce just lamb. We do a little bit of custom, not a lot, but all our cuts and everything go to the Northeast. Like I said, carcass forms go anywhere from the Pennsylvania region all the way up to New Jersey, New York. We harvest anywhere from two to 3,000 lambs per week. We fabricate anywhere from three to 500 per week as well and custom with doing a couple of hundreds to 300 per week. Good, enough so that you know where we're at in terms of an industry, right, Robert? And at least connecting with the customer and the consumer. And so you've gotten to see it again.  So, you know, not really direct to consumer on the restaurant front. So they're doing that. I mean, hopefully one day we'll be rolling with direct to retail as a big menu for us. You know, I think our biggest problem at the moment is transportation is probably our biggest challenge as an industry right now is we're getting wheels under product, but the cost of moving product in a full trailer across the country is pretty extensively expensive at this current moment. That's probably our biggest challenge as a company and probably our biggest expense to date right now. If I was to say product wise, I think we do pretty good at moving just about 90% of the animal with only about 10% of it going into the freezer at the moment. Right now that 10% seems to be loins at the moment. Well, and today's function is on, you know, retail meats and inventory control. And Robert, just a little bit of your thoughts.  You've been in this long enough, you've seen where legs have been the challenge or shoulders have been the challenge. It just depends to truthfully, right or wrong, seasonally kind of where we need to kind of be. Is that appropriate? Yeah, I mean, so shoulders right now actually haven't been that bad. I mean, we just got out of, I mean, a lot of cuts are very seasonal in the lamb industry. You know, when you talk about shoulders, right now is when they probably will start to back up because we just got out of our holiday season. We just got out of Ramadan, which was huge, huge time of year for us. Hopefully, wines will prosper again, coming into the spring and summer months where, you know, it's a big grilling item and a lot of restaurants want to put it on as a grill item.  Racks tend to back up, but right now they're selling pretty well. I mean, I can't keep enough racks in stock right now. You know, we're about to start our grinding operation in our further processing room. And, you know, there's a lot of interest in that.  It's been a huge retail item through the pandemic has been ground lamb. Absolutely, and as you and I both know and in fact, you know, just reinforcement from the American lamb board is that, you know, the people that had wanted to consume lamb did so with potentially different products or different flavorings and were able to do that with ground lamb. One of the things that I'm most excited about, again, with my trio of colleagues here is as you saw the snack sticks and the different sausages and kind of pulling that together. And in fact, we had Isaac that gave a little bit of a background on his work, but also I'm working with another colleague and graduate student of mine, Mr. Matthew Cheney where we're looking at different lamb sausage and marketability as well. And so looking at different flavor profiles that people can like. You know, we can, those can be the merguez North Africans type approaches or the Italian even sausages with lambs and they kind of pulling those even like the snack sticks like they said. And so there's some opportunity.  And so I know as we think about it, even if we were to use lamb as that token approach is that we can sell racks or sell legs certainly during Easter. But if you decide to be a direct marketer having an understanding in terms of just retail approaches of which ones sell well, which ones are gonna sell well in your market and which ones, if that's the pork shoulder that isn't going to or seeing having more of those available as we move into a grilling season. Truthfully, Robert seasonality might be one of the largest challenges that we have in the meat industry. And so can you just give a quick your thoughts in terms of just seasonality plus minus in the meat industry? Well, I can tell you on the lamb front seasonality, you know, obviously we just got out of the Easter months and that's a huge, huge time of year for lamb legs. Whether it's boneless or bone in, we call them STO legs, split trotter off legs. They go like hotcakes through Easter. Now, this year was a little bit different because prices were really high.  This time of year going into, depends on what region you live in, when you get out of the colder months, people put their grills on their back deck.  In retail, people want, you know, something they could throw in their grill. So when it comes to lamb, like loin chops out of a retail package, the consumer will want that product that, you know, sells very well in the summertime. This is definitely a different animal the last few years in our industry, as we all know. You can't predict anything anymore. Traditionally, that's how it moves, but I don't know how it's gonna be this year. Hopefully it, Moines will pick up. Racks typically start to fall off in the summer. They're very seasonal, they're very Christmas-oriented, Thanksgiving, you know, and into Mother's Day in Easter, they sell well as, you know, pretty good. Shoulders, certain times of year, people have bonered them out for grind because they're not selling as well, like the last few months they sold through Ramadan. But, you know, as we get into the summer months, the shoulders kind of fall off and a lot of people are using that for grind or stew meat. The larger producers. Right, absolutely and in fact, and thanks. And, you know, even as we dig at this and Taka, you know, again, to make it multi-species related is that our next week's function will and is going to be more on customer relationships. But I want to just touch on a couple of different things is that the Lamb Resource Center has a profit calculator and at the Lamb Resource Center that people can look at. And I know that Robert, you're aware of this in terms of just identifying, well, should we take them to a larger weight? And in fact, we have that as well to on the Lamb Board's website there to evaluate where you can be in lamb yield calculations. And then one of the things that can be advantageous there as we think about it from Isaac and Jonah and Ron and Beth's approaches to be able to figure out what is the cuts that we're gonna be able to merchandise? And these are available in terms of different species as well on their own particular approaches of looking at what can we price those at? And so that allows us the opportunity again to kind of be able to tell that story and to just try to see what we can be in terms of pricing so that you can make your funds and make your numbers available so that we can be able to sell particularly in terms of retail products that we pull together here. And again, I appreciate some thoughts and some processes of what we want to do. But Jonah, do you have any last words for those people that want to be able to direct market their products? Well, I think they just kind of have to feel out their area if there's some interest in it. Maybe just go out there and maybe just do some visiting before you start going in through the whole license processing and whatever because it's expensive. I mean, it's not to get rich fast overnight.  It's not something you can get in there and then jump back out quick as far as I'm concerned. Ron and Beth? Well, for us, Travis, I think, you know, seeing how a farmer's marketer is the biggest one is we try to listen to what our customers want to be at the heart, the liver or whatever. Dog bones are a big thing now. And so we're selling just about everything we possibly can out of that lamb, but they're buying, determine what our cuts are in the following, you know, in the next processing or whatnot. And so when our farmer's market season's done, our goal is not to be sitting on a lot inventory because inventory is expensive in the winter months.  And that helps us connect to a lot of people and just throwing things out there because people like to keep track what you have going on via our sheep, you know, our live animal end of it. We have a lot of people that follow it and that makes a connection on a lot of our future sales. So be visible. Absolutely, Isaac, are you ready for your story? Yeah, building off what Ron was saying. Yeah, having that social media and that customer interaction especially with doing the direct to farm marketing like we do and bringing the people out to our operation. It's important to put a good look on your operation and agriculture in general. This is the consumer's chance to meet face to face with that producer and build a relationship and then get to a little bit know a little bit more about why we do what we do. Cause not everybody has that tie anymore. So this is your chance to positively impact maybe not just that one individual but they'll spread it on and educate others about why ranchers and farmers are some of the hardest working people in the nation. Good, good. And thank you, Robert for your thoughts and pulling everything together for Spencer. I think that you're at a critical and important part within our industry. And I think as we think about it from a producer standpoint and you know, home base for me of at least where I grew up is South Dakota. And so I moved north just to smidge as well. But I think that knowing and understanding kind of who you're gonna work with is something that's important. And so the meat dude tag you're it. Can you provide us what we need to do and in fact provide a quality segue because next week's function is building your consumer relationship for success on May 24th. Spencer, you're on mute yet but what's your closing thoughts? So you all kind of hit the nail on the head already but the communication at the end of the day is key both for your customers and for the people, whoever you're dealing with on my side of things too, knowing exactly what you want coming to your butcher saying, this is what we want. This is what our customers want. This is what I have in my head. This is what my customers have in their head. And this is what I want you to do with it, right? That's probably something that I do on a daily basis with even just our custom customers, if that makes sense. But yeah, communication is key, pictures. There's so many different terms and there's so many different ways to cut meat at the end of the day. And knowing where your customers are shopping other than from you, knowing what they're familiar with actually will help you because you kind of have the same insight of what they're trying to explain to essentially, so. Thank you, Spencer, and again, appreciate all of our talented panelists and appreciate Lindy for co-hosting this with us at North Dakota State University Extension and our function that we are aiming to provide in terms of our local Farm to Market webinar series. And so this is number three of a five segment series of webinars looking at local meat production. So thanks again to our panelists and guests and our attendees for everything that you do and helping to connect the dots from consumers and first off, obviously from producers to consumers and learning where food comes from and being able to market it and add value to our products. So thank you very much. And for everybody that's joined us, we kindly appreciate your assistance and our panelists. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Have a great night on behalf of NDSU Extension and our charge to help continue to share knowledge and change lives. Thanks so much. Have a good night.


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