Candido Italy Italian quality meat – Production process

We choose the limousin race because of its remarkable adaptability to different environments, its quality by weight, its capability to calve with no particular assistance, in order to respect nature’s birth balance, its resistance to diseases, thus avoiding continuous pharmacological treatments affecting inevitably the quality of meat. As said before, the holding bought a small herd directly in France, where this race is native, and obtained its immediate adaptation to the Sicilian clime environment. A bull with pedigree followed the small herd thus aiming to ensure the covering and the genetic continuity of the distinguishing production of our holding. However we also have recourse to artificial insemination using the seed of other bulls of superior genealogy belonging to the same race, thus guaranteeing the best genetic quality. As a result of this process, we shortly established a closed loop farming, which is to say to have in the same farm the breeding cow, the calf for meat production and the heifer; for its good qualities allow to introduce it into the production both as breeding cow or in case of overproduction for sale to other cattlemen aiming to improve their stables (there is no more external purchase). Moreover, this process guarantees a major sanitary safety of our livestock population, for no external livestock would be bought and no sanitary controls would be conduct from third parties. For these reasons we choose to follow the inner turnover technique, at a rate of 5% per year. (Closed cycle).

The newborn remain with the mother until the age of 6/7 months into wide and airy stables, having access even to open spaces for pasturing; they also have a reserved area where they can eat their meal with no concurrence/pressure of adult animals or of breeding cows. After 7 months they would be ablactated from mothers and enter the feeding stables compliant to EU laws in small groups and begin a growing phase until the age of 10/11 months with a gradual feed proportional to their growth and feeding needs. After they reach the age of 11 months they begin a new feeding phase until the weight of 600 Kg, which is to say their full development by weight and by muscles, for a good yield. The last phase of relaying is the final fattening period, almost 30/40 days aiming to reach the relaxing and wellness of the cattle reserving four square meters for each animal minimum, training them of being loaded and getting on transport vehicles, to keep contact with human beings so to reduce at the minimum their stress at the moment when they’ll leave the farm. Last but not least, the carbohydrates of their feeding would be increased to the detriment of vegetal proteins thus improving the ageing of the meat.
Even water keeps a special place in this process; actually it should be of very high quality and microbiologically pure.