SARA GETTYS SARA GETTYS/Yakima Herald-Republic Jim Zagelow flings hay to some of his beefalo during their morning feeding Wednesday, Feb. 6. Links   E-mail             Print            Watch the audio slideshow ‘Life, Death, Beef’ Advertisement

Mealtime, later, for Jim Zagelow and his wife, Juanita, is the sizzle of steaks, a whispered prayer of thanks, and the muffled rasp of knife through meat.

When the Zagelows began to raise beefalo in 1990, Jim says one of his main considerations was the desire to raise animals that would provide him with healthful meat.

Beefalo is a breed that's a cross between bison and beef, and it offers meat that is lower in fat and cholesterol than beef.

"We just decided we wanted to be as healthy as we could," he explains.

Another positive aspect of raising his own meat, Zagelow says, is that he knows what is in his food -- no growth hormones, a measured diet of hay and some grain that keeps his herd healthy and not fatty, and a life away from crowded feedlots.

Meat, for Zagelow, isn't the slick package on the supermarket shelf. It is an integral part of his life. It is the exercise that keeps him active day after day, work that must be done.

"The exercise is important. When you have a ranch, it's not trying to decide, 'Oh I don't feel like going to the gym today.' It has to be done every day."

It is the involvement, along with his wife, in the national beefalo organization that has given them the opportunity to travel across the country, from Vermont to Oklahoma to attend trade meetings. It is the interactions with local customers and aspiring 4H farmers who are just getting to know the breed.

It is a part of a process -- the calf's furry head peeking from under her mother, cold mornings pulling bales down from a towering stack, the crack of the butcher's rifle that transforms cow to carcass and the sound, like an exhalation, of the knife severing skin from muscle.

Zagelow puts it simply: "It feels good to raise our own beef."