A Yukon family has donated an entire cow to the Salvation Army.

The Army's Johannah Sessford said in an interview Wednesday she recently received an unexpected donation from the owners of the Circle D ranch west of Whitehorse.

'Sometimes we get a moose or part of a moose but a beef cow is good too,' she said. 'This gift is very generous.'

She said the Salvation Army will use the donation to feed the hungry at their daily soup kitchen lunches.

'Our cook has been asking every day if the meat is there yet; she's very excited.'

Barbara Drury, who owns the Circle D with her husband, Bill, said the animal her family donated was a loving cow who kept her children in milk.

'The cow's name was Poppy; it was a really good cow. She provided milk for our kids when they were growing up,' Drury said.

'We had Poppy for a really long time; she had a good long life for a cow.'

Drury said she couldn't say how long she had the cow.

She said she received it many years ago from a truck driver who was driving up a herd of heifers to Alaska from the lower 48 U.S. states.

'He overnighted here with his load when one of his heifers who wasn't supposed to give birth until they got to Alaska went into labour,' said Drury.

'He said, I can either knock it on the head or....'

'She was a really great cow; I raised her from the time she was one day old,' she said.

Drury's family decided to give the cow to charity so Poppy's legacy could live on.

'It was her time to go but we wanted to let her keep giving. She's given to her last to feed people,' she said.

Drury said Whitehorse resident Kevin Bowers generously donated his time and expertise to butcher the cow.

Bowers said Thursday he was asked to help out with Poppy's final arrangments around Christmas time and agreed to take care of the cow at his home-based business.

He said the animal has been prepared and the meat is now ready to be transported to the soup kitchen.

'It was a large cow, an older cow with a lot of fat on it,' he said. 'It had about 300 pounds of meat.'

Helen Pruden,a Salvation Army soup kitchen cook, said she was really surprised to receive such a large gift.

'Holy cow!' she quipped.

Pruden said her kitchen usually sees about 100 people a day looking for meals and the cow came at just the right time.

'We're running out of meat right now; I've only got about four turkeys left.

'We actually have two empty freezers. Usually the freezers are full but we haven't got much in the way of meat donations lately,' she said.

The cow will be used as hamburger, some roasts and the odd soup.