What do you feed your cows?
Our cows spend their entire lives on pasture. During the growing season they consume a variety of forage (feed harvested from the pasture by the animals themselves). They eat a variety of grasses, legumes (alfalfa, clover, vetch), and forbs (ragweed, sunflowers, prickly lettuce, plantain, chiccory, etc). During the winter they are fed grass hay and sometimes alfalfa hay or graze on a winter pasture mix. They always have access to a free choice mineral and salt supplement, and occasionally receive plain alfalfa cubes as treats and for training. We never give any supplemental protein, manufactured feed or grain.
What does “Grass Finished” mean?
You will find beef labeled as grass fed in the supermarket. This is often a marketing gimmick, as the truth is most beef is grass fed. Almost all cows have access to pasture at some point in their lives. The difference is at the end, when they are ready to be “finished”, or fattened to become beef. For grain finishing they are given grain or feed rations. Grass finished beef however, goes through the finishing stage on grass (and never receives supplemental feed at any point). This simply takes longer than finishing on grain. Finishing on grass relies on having high quality forage, and on animals having the correct conformation and genetics for grass finishing. Our animals are grown slowly, finishing around 24 months.
Do you use growth hormone implants?
Definitely not! Our beef is grown all natural.
What are the benefits of grass finished beef?
Grass finished beef is generally leaner than grain finished, because fattening occurs slowly over time, as opposed to a during a quick finishing period. So it is slightly lower in fat and calories than traditional beef.
Grass finished beef contains higher levels of healthy Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids, and higher levels of antioxidants such as Vitamin A and E.
Often, grass finished beef is raised in an environmentally friendly way. So not only is it good for you, its good for the environment!
Most importantly, we just think it tastes really good!
How is your beef raised sustainably?
We make all of our decisions with animal AND environmental health and well being in mind.
We use rotational grazing to allow our pastures to rest and regrow. This helps capture carbon and boosts soil fertility because with each grazing cycle roots die and decompose, adding biomass to the soil and depositing the carbon from those dead roots into the soil. Many grasses grow more roots and longer roots after being grazed, pulling up nutrients from deeper in the ground.
We do not use any chemicals on our pastures. No herbicides, no pesticides. We want wildflowers in our pastures to feed the pollinators. We want the soil organisms to thrive so they can create a heathy soil.
We use chemicals on our animals only as needed for their health and comfort, such as for parasite and pest control. We try to employ natural fly control methods as well, such as fly predators and bird safe fly traps.