My Aunt Naomi and Uncle Rusty have just begun their grass-fed beef farm in the Texas Panhandle, and the land is beautiful.
My Uncle taught me how to stretch a barbed-wire fence that has gotten loose and how to mend one that has been broken.
He bought 13 cows to begin implementing his plan to raise “salad-bar beef”, a term coined by Joel Salatin to indicate that the cattle is fed a healthy mix of different types of grasses and weeds in order to make tasty, nutritious beef.
Uncle Rusty’s first task is to fence in his 400 acres into smaller “paddocks” which he will then move his cows into to graze. After they have grazed the grass down in one paddock, they are moved into the next one. The cows are always eating the grass during its most prolific phase of growth, so it is the most nutritious for them.
He continues moving the cows into paddocks and seeding a variety of grasses into the paddocks until the good grass has replaced the many weeds that currently grow all over the pasture. This style of cattle-raising simulates what happens naturally with herds of animals on the prairie, and it is called management intensive grazing (MIG).
His cows are just starting to get used to their new home. As a matter of fact, the first few days they were in their pasture, the cows were so skittish that they wouldn’t even come to the barn area for water (they drink about 15 gallons per day).
So Uncle Rusty and I laid out a trail of hay to lure them to the water trough:
And they went for it! Later that day we went back out and saw that they had eaten the hay all along the little trail and that they drank water.
Getting back to the way that my uncle is going to raise the cows, I asked him how many cows my grandfather used to have on this land. He told me that he had 2,000! The way he did it was much different, however.
He, like almost all other farmers and ranchers in the past century, moved to the feedlot system of cattle-raising where they raised grain on their land and kept the cows in a relatively small feedlot where they fed them the grain.
You could pack a lot more cows into a smaller area this way and thus make more money. However, disease was also more problematic because too many cows were in close proximity to one another; hence, antibiotics had to be widely employed.
Also, it was easier to fatten up the cows more quickly on the feedlot than out grazing grass, so farmers could get their cows to a sellable state faster. In contrast, my uncle will probably only be able to support about 50 head of cattle on his land using management intensive grazing.
The tide is turning slowly back toward this way of raising animals that used to be the norm. But no one up in their part of the United States is doing it yet except for them, and many of their neighbors are skeptical until they see the results. The culture of grain-fed feedlot cattle pumped full of antibiotics is now embedded in the agricultural mindset of these farmers.
Katie and my mom had a great time, as did I. We learned so much by talking with my Aunt Naomi and Uncle Rusty and by reading their many cool books.
My cousin, Branda, also came up from Lubbock while we were visiting; she is a neo-natal nurse practitioner and just an awesome gal!
Here is my mom, Aunt Naomi, and Uncle Rusty:
Monday, 25. June 2007
I’m glad you got to experience a little bit of a cattle operation. Jenny and I both grew up on farms raising cattle and would love to be able to raise our family in that environment. I’ll admit that I may have read more into it than you intended, due to other things I’ve read and heard from grass-fed, free-range, and organic producers such as Joel Salatin’s website which you referenced, but it seems as though you have a negative perception of conventional grain-fed beef. So I thought I’d comment from the perspective of someone whose family has been raising cattle for generations.
Anyone who raises cattle for a living is concerned with good animal husbandry and care. If they aren’t, they won’t be in business long. And if you’re interested in quick, easy money, there are a lot easier ways to get there than raising cattle. I think it is easy for feedlots, especially, to get a bad rap as non-traditional producers try to market their beef by tearing down conventional producers. Most cattle spend the majority of their life grazing on pastures, including using rotational grazing practices like my Dad uses in his cow/calf operation. Feeder calves are then finished at the feedlot where they eat primarily grains. Conditions at a feedlot may not be ideal and with the larger number of animals there is greater opportunity for illness in which case antibiotics may be required, but overcrowding, rampant disease and unnecessary medication would only hurt the feedlot’s production and their bottom line. Beef producers are very concerned about the quality, health and safety of their product. There is also a lot of science and research that goes into it, such as that done by my alma mater, beef.unl.edu, as well as yours, beef.tamu.edu.
It is difficult enough to survive raising conventional grain-fed beef; I think it would be very difficult to depend solely on grass-fed beef as a source for one’s income. I haven’t researched the topic in-depth, but I would also wonder if grass-fed beef could sustain the demand for beef in the domestic and international market. That being said, grass-fed beef may be a good choice for someone looking to raise a few head of cattle since you can buy calves and not have to worry about some of the additional issues that come with a cow/calf or grain-finishing operation. With a cow/calf operation you obviously have to worry about calving as well as having a bull and keeping your bull separate from the herd. Grain-finishing means a lot of chores to feed the cattle, which I can personally attest to as I’ve carried my share of 5 gallon buckets of grain and feed.
The proper care and handling of livestock was instilled in me from a young age. I think that raising cattle (grain- or grass-finished) and growing crops to feed others is a noble occupation. Best of luck to your Uncle Rusty with his cattle. The fences look pretty good, but if the cattle do happen to get out we know a cattle dog that would love to help round them up.
Thursday, 28. June 2007
Thanks for the great comment, JR! You’re right that it’s easy for those who choose to practice organic farming and sustainable land management to have suspicion of those who don’t, and vice versa. As Devin and I become increasingly involved with organic farming, it’s really important for us to remember that other farmers who use different methods are doing what they think is best.
On a different philosophical note, I was intrigued by your question regarding the capacity of grass-feeding farmers to supply America’s eating habits. I’m a big Wendell Berry fan, and, therefore, I would reply that a move to grass-fed beef only, in which cattle were fewer and became more expensive, might inspire more families to get a cow of their own. I feel that the most ideal economy is one in which families own the means of production and the product, in order to keep so much power from the hands of big corporations who don’t have our best interest in mind.
I know that Devin and I feel empowered having our own garden and bees, as well as vineyard to make our own wine. It’s so fun to be increasingly responsible for feeding ourselves.
Friday, 29. June 2007
Howdy JR,
Thanks for your post. I am quite ignorant of the nuts and bolts of cattle-raising and only “know” that which I have read about and been told about, so it is good to hear another viewpoint on it.
I agree that almost all farmers, ranchers, and other people who make their livelihood from the natural world do not want to destroy it or have unhealthy animals and crops. But, how do they go about controlling the diseases and parasites that attack their crops and animals?
The dominant ideology in our U.S. culture for controlling disease and pests has become “medicate with chemicals”.
One example of this widespread ideology is in beekeeping. About twenty years or so ago the varroa mite (a parasite of bees) found its way to our shores. Bee hives were devastated, and beekeepers scrambled to find anything that could control them. Since that time, there have been about 3 different classes of synthetic chemical that have been used to fight them.
There is also two different kinds of bacteria/disease that can afflict hives: American Foulbrood (AFB) and European Foulbrood. If a hive is afflicted with AFB, the only remedy is to completely incinerate the hive. However, some antibiotics if applied constantly can keep it under control, so many beekeepers do just that: feed antibiotics constantly to their bees.
Both of these controls are breeding resistant strains of the parasite and bacteria and causing the wax comb to be tainted with the chemicals. Many conjecture that this could be one primary cause of the colony collapse disorder.
Are these beekeepers malicious? Do they want to destroy their bees? Of course not! Every beekeeper I have met loves bees and is fascinated by them. But they don’t know any other way to control these pests, and if they don’t control them somehow, they will wipe out their hives (that is proven fact).
So they must do something, but what? Fortunately, there have been some pioneering folk in the community who have been trying natural remedies to control these pests. One is letting the bees build the wax comb themselves at the natural size. Commercial beekeeping sought to get more honey per frame and per pound of wax by enlarging the size of the comb cells. This resulted in larger bees and slower times for the bee larva to be capped in their cells, which allows more time for mites to lay their eggs in the cells.
Now there are beekeepers, Katie and me included, trying out these natural remedies, and it is gaining steam as people begin to see that it can work. Unfortunately, there are the inevitable divisions between the “organic” beekeepers and the “chemical” beekeepers just as there are whenever any group does something a different way than the norm.
My point is that there may be better ways of doing things than the way we have been doing them. I think that the best approach is to always assume the best of people, even when they are doing something that you think is not the best–there is a good chance they just don’t know any other way.