Photograph by Kevin Clifford
Injecting Hope - Killin' Time
by Clarissa León
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story contains graphic material that may be unsuitable for some readers. However, it was necessary to include this content to maintain the story's truth and accuracy.
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VideoEvery Monday is kill day where Mike Holcomb, Wolf Pack Meats supervisor, and UNR students Brian Santistevan and Kathryn Wilson, slaughter cows and sheep. Graduate students and professors can be seen picking out tissue samples for their own projects at the university.
A sheep carcass, which was hung by its hindquarter, was finished being drained of its blood when Wilson pushed it over to her work area. She selected her skinning knife first and started at the front legs, skinning the white fuzz from its body.
Wilson, 19, began working at the farm when her grandfather, Bob, who is also the owner, suggested it.
Then he asked if she wanted to kill. That was a year-and-a-half ago. Now, she skins the sheep after they have been slaughtered and takes out the organs that aren't edible.
"I just kind of went with it," she said.
As soon as she finished cleaning the sheep carcass, she started her other duties.
"I don't get grossed out really easily," Wilson said.
Dr. Liu walked by to her corner of the room.
"Do you mind giving me a tendon?" he said.
Without hesitation, she cut off a piece of the tendon and pushed back some tissue to get a bigger piece.
"Wooonderful," Liu said, as he tip-toed back to his quick-freeze box.
Wilson used a boning knife and steak knife to take out the cow's spine, the bone dust and any hairs left behind from skinning the hide off. As she worked, she realized that her job is unlike other jobs, but has enjoyed the time she has spent working at Main Station Farm.
"Yeah, I guess it is pretty unusual," she said.
By 8 a.m. Holcomb and Santistevan had already put on their black rubber boots. They selected two cows for slaughtering, which will get packaged and moved on to various butchers in Reno including Butcher Boy and Ponderosa Meats.
The first cow, a grass-fed black cow, slowly moved up the ramp, entering into the building from the farm outside. As the cow struggled a bit, Holcomb shot the .22 caliber bullet square into the cow's head. It twitched and fell down a slide as big as its body.
Once he yanked the cow to the floor, Holcomb attached hooks into the its back legs. Holcomb pressed a button. The cow dangled with about a 10-foot stretch from the floor.
Santistevan pulled out his knife, pierced the cow's neck and drove his hand up, cutting the cow's carteroid artery. Immediately, nearly eight gallons of steaming blood flushed out from the cow's neck and poured over Holcomb's hands into a blue bucket beside him. Santistevan and Holcomb moved without talking.
"Yeah, working here is repetitious, it's monotonous," Santistevan said. "But, I like doing it. I like eating meat. I take an interest in this field."
As the cow hung, they cut off the cow's ears, its mucus dribbled to the floor. Its head hung only a foot or so above the slippery ground as Holcomb and Santistevan began cutting the head off.
They sliced underneath the skin on the cow's head, pulled back the hide and ran their knives from its ears to its mouth.
Once off, a red and white head was revealed, eyes still intact. Then, Holcomb hung the head in another section of the room.
"We wash it out and then put it over here for inspection to take out the tongue," Holcomb said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture inspected the meat and then Santistevan hooked up electric plugs to the cow.
Once they shocked the cows, they laid them on two steel bars. With their rib cages pulled open, the organs folded over and fell into the cart below.
The Jarvis Buster III saw didn't work at first as Santistevan tapped on the pipes. At last it turned on and Santistevan pulled the 90-pound saw down the middle of the carcass.
The entire process to slaughter a cow takes almost an hour and little is left to waste. Once the cow is cleaned, it is sent to the freezer for two weeks where it is packaged and shipped off to various vendors in Reno.
Eventually, Santistevan hopes to open up a custom meat shop in Elko. He is a third-year graduate student who is studying animal science and has been slaughtering since he was 10-years-old at the Santa Ray Ranch in Elko County.
"Something similar to a Butcher Boy," he said. "My motto is, ‘If I won't eat it, I won't sell it.'"
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