Guidelines

So far, we've had four guidelines/requirements put forth by our members:

1) A happy cow herd
2) Pesticide free
3) No hormones
4) Know your farmer

These are not set in stone, nor are they all inclusive. However, we will proceed using these four unless we hear any good reasons to do otherwise.

Happy Cows

Post your ideas about what makes a happy cow; for our part, we have three main areas plus some miscellany that contribute to a healthy (happy) cow.

Living Area

It’s hard to tell the size of the pens from the posted pictures, but suffice it to say all of our animals have room to roam and even run short distances. (If you'd like exact dimensions, let us know). During the winter months, all of our animals are confined to their pens. This changes in the summer when the herd has access to pasture, usually three acres at a time.

Mud is always an issue, especially during winter and spring thaws. To combat this ongoing problem, we have raised areas within the pens that dry out quickly, concrete around stock tanks, feed bunks, and hay rows for cattle to stand on, and in the spring, we try to turn the cattle out to pasture as quickly as conditions will allow.

Food and Water

We try to raise the best quality alfalfa that we can since this is where our herd will get the majority of their protein, roughage, and nutrients. With good quality hay, the need for supplements is minimal if even necessary. We test our hay for nutrients at Midwest Laboratories to ensure nutritional quality. All animals have access to this hay free choice, every day, all year long.

We feed corn according to conditions and the purpose of each animal. Calves get the most corn per pound since they need energy to grow. Cows tend to get less, since they are only maintaining, though their requirements soar during the last months of pregnancy. All animals require more energy during the winter, so our fed corn volume increases substantially during the winter months.

Fresh well water is available in stock tanks for each pen all year long. During the winter, we use propane heaters to keep the tanks thawed.

General Treatment

All of the food, water, and space are available here on the farm, so we do not have to move our animals during the year. Moving animals is inherently stressful, though once they get used to any kind of routine, their stress levels decrease. The main times of stress during the year are birth and tagging, weaning, vaccination, and loading. We do not use cattle prods, and to the extent that we can, we move animals slowly and deliberately. If we plan far enough ahead, sometimes we can even trick the animals into moving themselves.

We do use electric fence. While this may seem cruel, one of the surest ways to stress an animal is to chase it around. One of the keys to avoiding this kind of chasing is to prevent animals from escaping in the first place. After one or two shocks, the animals know where their boundaries are and generally stay put. As many of you know, these shocks are not terribly painful; the surprise is mainly what keeps animals (including humans) in line. An electric fence also prevents cows from rubbing, reaching through, and generally beating up our fences, reducing fence maintenance and labor costs.

Herd temperament is also a major issue, not only for the health of our cows, but also for our own health and safety. You can read about the benefits of herd temperament here.

The article focuses more on profitability, but it highlights the need to treat your animals well.

Temple Grandin (thanks, Val) has pages of ideas on the proper treatment of animals. We already employ some of her ideas, but we have started referencing her work for better ideas and more improvements.

Miscellaneous

The most stressful part of a steer’s life will probably be the transport to the butcher and subsequent slaughter. We should be able to transport a single animal with relatively little stress, and I am currently looking into methods of slaughter. Please keep your ideas for slaughter coming.

Pesticide Free

Here again is an area where we’d like to hear some input from our members. The main pesticides we currently use are for fly control. Aside from the biting, annoying nature of flies, they can also spread pink eye.

During peak fly season, we spray malathion to help control flies and increase the comfort of our cattle. We use a hand held, 2.5 gallon sprayer to spray the premises as well as the cattle themselves. When we separate our steer, we can omit this process for him and his environment. Again, I would like to see some formal statements on why we should or should not use these practices.

Pollan describes how Polyface Farms uses chickens to control their fly population. Ironically, over the last two years, a gaggle of geese flies in during July and August around sundown to pick corn out of cow pies. They spend the night and then fly out early the next day. We have not noticed any direct influence on our fly population, probably because the geese fly in intermittently at best, but I can’t help but think it helps a little bit.

We could raise chickens to execute this job more consistently, but it will require more manual labor. Keep in mind there are only two employees directly carrying out the manual labor for our beef herd. We would be most interested to hear about alternative means of fly control.

While not a pesticide, we do include 1.4gr/lb of Chlortetracycline in our mineral supplement during the summer. On the most basic level, Chlortetracycline is an antibiotic that helps keep our animals healthy, especially during dusty conditions that can cause respiratory problems.

We do not usually use mineral supplements during the winter months since our hay provides all of the necessary nutrients. We will have non-medicated mineral on hand for our beef steer, however, if the need for supplements arises.

No Hormones

Traditionally, we implant our calves with Ralgro. You can find information on this hormone here. We will exclude implanting for our beef steer, but in the meantime, please post your reasons why we should or should not employ this practice.

For our part, the little quote at the beginning of Ralgro’s website sums up our reasons for using it: “Few…practices are more cost effective or have a higher return on investment than…growth promoting implants.”

Visit the Utah Beef Council's page here to read their presentation, "Myths and Facts About Beef."

Here is an excerpt of Myth #7:

"Growth-promoting hormones have been used in recent years to improve the animal's ability to more efficiently utilize the nutrients that it consumes in order to produce more muscle and less fat. The hormones are administered by placing an implant (about the size of a pencil eraser) under the skin in the middle of the animals ear. This location is used because the ears are not offered for human consumption.

Animals that are implanted with these hormones grow as much as 15 to 20 percent faster than untreated animal. In addition, the cattle produce more lean meat and less fat than cattle raised without hormones. But is the beef safe for human consumption? The scientific evidence worldwide overwhelmingly indicates there is no hazard to human health resulting from the consumption of beef from animals implanted with growth-promoting hormones."

This snippet just begins to scratch the surface of growth hormones. We do implant most of our animals, but Chuck will NOT be implanted. As he ages, we can measure his weight gain against his fellow implanted herd mates, though comparing and contrasting the quality of his beef will be up to the eaters to determine.

Know Your Farmer

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