Ag
&
Range
csceagle.com | The Eagle | Sept. 9, 2021
To meet the grade, they grade the meat Table Top Meats in Hemmingford, serves up lessons in quality and yield carcass grading. Owner Clayton Krause is helping teach students alongside Agriculture & Rangeland Management Professor Ron Bolze. “I think that one of the problems with our industry is the not knowing,” Krause said. “I think its really good advocation for the industry to have these kids here. They go back and tell their friends what they learned here, and it just spreads.” Bolze has been taking this class out to Table Top Meats every other fall since 2015. The class goes every Tuesday afternoon for the first four weeks of the semester. The students travel to Table Top Meats to help
ABOVE: Beef carcasses hang from a freezer ceiling at Table Top Meats, Hemingford. RIGHT: Clayton Krause, owner of Table Top Meats, Hemingford, explains how to evaluate a sheep carcass, Tuesday.
Photos and story by Kamryn Kozisek
them see things in action and be able to apply the things that they are learning about in class to actual carcasses. “My favorite part of this class is the hands-on learning,” Jancy Marks, junior from Culbertson said. “It is a lot easier to see things done in real life than just to learn about it.” The course description for the class states “Evaluation of the relationship of form to function of domestic animals for superior production. Various types, classes, grades, and breeds of livestock will be studied.” Following that desciption the students are learning about live animals and animal carcasses. During this class the students learn how to grade meat and how to calculate yield grade. The students were able to see how professionals’ grade and practice measuring themselves. “I like learning how to quality grade and yield grade,” Savannah Solon, junior from Kadoka, South Dakota said. “Its something I’ve always wanted to do. This will help us with our future operations, so we know how to look at our animals and know how they might grade.”
Clayton Krause of Table Top Meats, Hemingford, uses a transparent chart Tuesday to measure rib-eye areas of beef carcasses.
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