TBF 007 :: Sheep vs. Cattle, a Rainy Week, and Mud Lessons

Before moving to the farm I had a lot of ideas about what I wanted my farm to look like. As you can tell from the previous episode I read a lot of books, and after reading all of those books I thought I knew just want I wanted for the farm and how everything would work. I had done a bit of market research for the area, I had studied various breeds, and I had even began to purchase cattle before I even had to call my own! Now that I am almost five years of running the farm though I have found out that my initial plans are really what suits the farm or the farmer the best. All of that means that now I am headed a different direction than I had planned and that I’ve learned the need to continually evaluate things.

Dexter cattle where what really made me interested in farming. We had researched grassfed beef after finding out about my high cholesterol and I thought instead of just buying the beef I might as well raise my own (at my dad’s place to begin with and then eventually an acreage of my own). What began as an idea to raise a cow and her calf eventually blossomed in my mind into a full-blown farm. After reading books like Salad Bar Beef by Joel Salatin and Grass-Fed Cattle by Julius Ruechel I was convinced that cattle could and should be the centerpiece of my future farming operation.

Now my tune has changed ... I’m beginning to realize the real limitation of only owning about 20 acres of pasture even if my cows are smaller in stature and I’m also finding out about the intense competition for rental grazing ground. There is one other thing I am learning though that is encouraging ... my Katahdin lamb is a very popular thing at the farmers’ market and there are a lot of people interested in purchasing whole lambs.

With all of that and more on my mind I sat down for todays show and shared some of my “thinking out loud” thoughts on changing the pasture focus for my farm. It has also been raining a lot on the farm lately meaning the big projects have come to a stand still and the mud has appeared just like it does every spring! Which leads me to my hard lesson learned for the week ... learning to defeat mud!

I also wanted to thank you so much for everyone who has taken the time to listen and leave a review on iTunes. I am learning and growing as a “podcast producer” with each episode and I hope that there are little nuggets that you can learn from in each show because one thing I love to do is share my passion for farming!

• Crooked Gap Farm

• Crooked Gap Farm on Facebook

• Crooked Gap Farm on Twitter

As always, I would love to hear your questions, show ideas, or comments about the show. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail! As always you can follow along with The Beginning Farmer and Crooked Gap Farm by checking out these links ...

TBF Show 007 :: Play in a New Window | Right Click to Download

(if you are interested in the music in this episode check out my brother's record label, Historic Records)

Virtual Farm Tour :: Dexter Beef Cattle

The great thing about this year is that we have had an extremely severe drought which has led to grass that decided it didn't want to grow back as well ... hay that is scarce and expensive ... and lots fun in the heat! No really ... I think it is fairly obvious that it has been a difficult year in many places and as bad as it has been here there are probably areas that have had things worse. So, we are just plugging away with our Dexter beef.

When the farm began ... and really before the farm began ... I was working towards having the grassfed beef be the centerpiece enterprise of our farm. I read a lot of books on raising cattle, managing grass, management intensive grazing, and so much more. In fact the very first livestock we purchased were the Dexter cows and calves. I really wanted beef to be my focus, but once we really got going and moved to the farm it quickly became clear that the beef was going to be a small side enterprise of the larger farm business.

The reason is very simple ... land! We only have a total of 40 acres and from there probably only 25 or so acres are available for grazing (minus the woods/buildings). Those 25 acres will allow us to do a few beef each year (along with our Katahdin lambs), but with our limited grazing land right now it will never be a centerpiece. And, as things stand right now I don't see renting more land as a viable option ... so our purebred Dexter beef is a smaller part of our farm.

Now that I have that all out of the way ... how are things going? Grazing started out well this year, but it quickly became apparent that the grass would not be growing back. That along with my injury has meant less rotational grazing and more scrambling for grass! Nevertheless the cows and calves seem to be doing well and since we have had only bull calves for the last couple of years we should have more beef offerings the next couple of years.

I believe if you look over some previous posts you would see that I was beginning to question the Dexters because they don't produce as much meat as other cattle their size (Lowlines for example). I have been having some serious thoughts about at least crossing in some more beefy lines. Just this past Saturday though I think I ruled that out at the farmers market when I had multiple customers come up asking for beef and were disappointed that I was out because they said it was the best they had ever had! For now ... we're sticking with the Dexters.

There is my quick rambling on our Dexter beef ... if you have any specific questions I would love to share more!

Grass Finished in the Deep Snow

With all that has been going lately I have hardly had a chance to browse through my August issue of "The Stockman Grassfarmer". But, after working on the house this evening I picked it up and found an interesting article titled, "Finishing Grassfed Cattle Year Around in Deep Snow Country". This is the type of article that interests a grassfarmer from Iowa, although I hope and pray that this winter isn't a "deep snow" winter in Sounthern Iowa!

The article is written by William G. Winter (DVM) who is a consultant for Thousand Hills Cattle Company, a grass finished cattle buyer, and contains ten great points for the grass finisher in snow country. I won't take time to expound on all ten of them, but I will mention a few that I really appreciated.

#2 - Prevent Heat Loss Stress With Wind Breaks: It seems that they advise against barns (I'm down with that), but do stress the importance of wind breaks if you want to maintain good winter gains. He says they mostly used stored forages (net wrapped or tubed), but of course any good wind break would work.

#5 - Prevent Parasites: I loved this quote, "Well-mineralized cattle, whether through the forages, supplementation, or both, do not get parasites. To my mind, there is never a case where poisons need to be used to control parasites." Mr. Winter (fitting name, huh) goes on to write about Basic-H and diatomaceous earth.

#9 - Use Correct Breed Selection: This article suggests English breeds (how about Irish?), smaller with lots of muscling, the ability to develop a think coat, and cattle that are from smart stock. By smart stock (my words) they are talking about cows that root around in the snow, find shelter in storms, and stick with their young through rough weather.

Every single point was great, but I don't want to copy the article word for word! I am encouraged with our Dexters after reading through this and experincing one winter with them.

Grassfed Beef Tastes Okay

My busy week is just about over. For the past four days I have been traveling all around central Iowa with 22 students on a mission trip. We worked at two camps, served at a homeless shelter, swam in two different pools, went shopping at Iowa's largest mall, stayed in a hotel one night, slept in a cabin two nights, and do I need to remind you again that we did this with TWENTY-TWO MIDDLE SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS! Needless to say I'm a bit tired and haven't been out on the farm or even thinking about the farm much lately.

With all of that craziness in mind I don't have much to say today. I did run across a short article from the Penn State Extension titled, "Penn State Study Shows Consumers Find Grass-fed Beef Acceptable". I don't really know much about the study other than what is in the article (check out the link above), but it seems pretty promising.

Here are a few quotes from the article that are especially interesting and even somewhat surprising:

• "The study showed that most consumers find the taste and tenderness of grass-fed beef acceptable in blind taste tests. Penn State researcher recommends that producers look for ways to interest more potential customers in grass-fed beef."
• "The results of the study showed that most consumer evaluations of the cooked meat were not influenced by frame sizes of the cattle, weight at harvest, range of grazing period from 120-180 days, and final fat composition of the carcass," Comerford explained. "However, all of the cattle must have plenty of high-quality forage to consume daily plus be harvested at 18 months of age or less."
• "In fact, we found cattle that had the fattest final carcasses actually had lower scores from the consumer panels because of the influence of fat on beef flavor," Comerford said.

Let me know what you think...

Overwhelming

Today was a pretty overwhelming day in more ways than one. It was overwhelming because I was trying to squeeze a lot of work into the day and we had something pop up that I needed to handle. But, the cool reason that it was overwhelming is because I was able to attend a Practical Farmers of Iowa Field Day featuring Gearld Fry! I only had two regrets from the field day. First of all I regret that I wasn't able to stay the entire time (I know I missed out on a lot!). And secondly, I regret that I wasn't intelligent enough to take it all in...

Although I was only there for two hours I could tell that Mr. Fry knew what he was talking about and I that I didn't know nearly enough. He spent some time talking in the barn and then we went out to the corral where he was evaluating come cows and eventually bulls. I was only able to be there while he evaluated two cows, but it was pretty interesting. Once I have some free time I know that I'm going read and re-read all of the articles on his website ... I was that impressed!

While I can't do it all justice and can't remember half of what he said (it was very overwhelming), let me just throw out a few bullet points from the day:

• If you aren't line breeding you aren't doing the best that you can do. This is a pretty a pretty bold statement and it did prompt a few questions, but Mr. Fry was pretty strong in his beliefs ... I can't even begin expound on this idea, but it was very interesting.
• Butterfat has a huge influence in meat tenderness. And a bald udder is an indicator of high butterfat content. Oh, and there were a couple of questions about genetic testing for tenderness. Mr. Fry said that it was good research, but also said he had no reason to give people money to do testing that he could do by looking.
• There is a dime sized spot of hair on the back of a cow near the front shoulders that can indicate whether or not a cow is pregnant.
• From about August through December (I think I got that right) is when a cows body most wants to get pregnant (you get the idea).
• You gotta get your bulls from your own herd, and I think this is where he mentioned the importance of a paternal herd ... I think.
• Bulls need to look masculine and cows need to look feminine.
• Finally, this is the one I liked the best. We need to be studying what our forefathers of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries wrote about cattle, because they had it down!

There is just a little bit of what I heard/learned today, but I would suggest that you check out Mr. Fry anytime you have the chance ... oh, and don't leave early :(

Grass-Fed Cattle :: Chapter 4 Book Report

It has been a really long time since I have posted a chapter report from Julius Ruechel's book, "Grass-Fed Cattle". But, that doesn't mean I haven't been reading, rather it just means that I have been jumping around quite a bit from book to book or article to article. I'm not sure if it is just because I'm looking for certain information at times, if I just to care for this book as much, or if so much of what I have read so far in Mr. Ruechel's book is a repeat of much of the information I have read in other sources. I'm going to say that it is the later of the reasons, but that isn't to say that there aren't chapters that I'm looking forward to ... because there are!

Anyways, this chapter is titled "Grass and Grazing" and it takes time to cover things like the rumen, ideal grazing intervals, soil health, and even different grass variates and pasture renovation. Each topic covered is very important in the realm of grass-fed cattle, but most are ones that I have covered a time or two on this blog and that I have read about in other books. But, the last little section on pasture rejuvenation was especially interesting to me ... mainly because that is a process that I am working through right now (and planning for).

Mr. Ruechel writes,

"Changing your grazing management inevitably improves old pastures, even without reseeding or overseeding (laying grass seed onto an existing turf) because it creates an environment that makes desirable plant species more competitive and restricts competition from less-desirable grazing plants."

The other day while I was at my dad's farm I found that to be completely true (and it is pretty cool also). For most of the time my family has owned our farm much of the pasture ground has been enrolled in the CRP program, but in 2006 and 2007 all of the land came out. While it was in CRP we weren't allowed to mow the entire plot, but you could mow the fence line or a path (or something like that), so since my dad test drives lawn mowers he always keep the fence line mowed (or could you call it grazed).

Now we have the Dexters out on some of the CRP ground that just came out last year and I just want to say the grass is horrible! When it is about 10 inches or more taller it looks like a thick stand of grass, but once you clip it down to about 6-8 inches you can tell it is very sparse and doesn't grow very well. We were told that it was fescue, but I don't think it is. But, in the 5 foot area that was kept clipped for the past 5-6 years there is white clover, red clover, and three or four different types of grasses, and it is very thick and quick to recover.

This pasture improved because it was managed and we didn't even need to buy seed or till anything under to do it! Now that we have the cows there we can have them do it for us (until some of them come up to my place to do the same thing). Of course at some point we may want to overseed some different grasses or legumes, but it is impressive what can happen when you let the pasture and the cows do their thing!

An Encouraging Article...

I found an encouraging article on the front page of the April issue of "The Stockman Grassfarmer." The title is, "Local Foods Movement Provided A Way Into Universities for North Carolina Grassfed Beef Company." That is one thing that I love about this publication ... there is no wondering what the article is about because they lay it all out in the title! Anyways, the article was so encouraging because it was about a couple in North Carolina that started on crop ground and expanded in just a few years to the point that they were able to buy from other grass finishers in the area because the demand was so high.

Now, it is important that I point out that this farm is located in the triangle between Duke, the University of North Carolina, and North Carolina State o they have a good number of people close by. But, it was the students at those schools that really helped get Patrick and Amy Robinette's beef on the market ... or in the schools. Now their farm, Harris Acres Farms, provides grassfed beef to various markets and even those Universities.

The Robinette's began with only 12 cows (starting small ... I like that) and within just six months they had been asked to provide 100 grassfed beeves per month! That is a lot and obviously it was out of reach for them, but they did realize that it meant there was a lot of potential. So, over the next few years they began leasing land from Mrs. Robinette's parents and coming up with a forage chain that worked from them and their climate. By renting land that had been used for tobacco and row crops the were definitely flying in the face of conventional wisdom, but it did work out for them.

Through their research, experimentation, grazing, marketing, and more they were able to slowly ramp up production to the point that they could start serving the colleges. I really was encouraged by the fact that they didn't do this with a lot of capital in their pockets or a lot of borrowed money, but built it up as they could over three or four years (which is still pretty quick). Now they aren't completely where they would like to be, but they are getting there. Mr. Robinette is also passing on the knowledge by teaching a class in agriculture at a local high school.

Cool stuff and very encouraging. You can check out Harris Acres Farms by clicking on the link.

Grass-Fed Cattle :: Chapter 3 Book Report

I had an away soccer game yesterday so I had a chance to finish the third chapter of Julius Ruechel's book "Grass-Fed Cattle". The chapter is titled, "The Cattle Year on Grass," and it was actually a pretty good read that gave me quite a bit to think about. The entire chapter is based around the different stages of development from calving, to nursing, to gaining, and finally to breeding back and even finishing. It is actually a pretty long chapter with a lot of information on many topics so I will just take some time to mention some of the things that really stuck in my mind as I read through the chapter.

There was a special inset "Lesson in Compensatory Gain" and more information on the subject spread throughout the chapter. This is something that usually keeps my attention because the idea of compensatory gain is not something that is talked about a lot in the grain belt of Iowa. Here folks like to see their steers and growing cattle gaining consistently throughout the year because quicker gains mean quicker money. The basic idea is that the cows metabolism slows down in the winter to conserve energy. Then in the spring when the grass comes on it takes a while for their metabolism to speed back up ... so during that time they can make up for the winter. I think this is a big puzzle piece of the grass finishing idea and I'm interested in learning as much as I can.

One other thing that comes up a lot in this chapter is Body Condition Scoring (BCS). Mr. Ruechel relies heavily on BCS for breeding and managing the herd. Again, something I want to learn a lot more about and implement into my herd monitoring. It was nice that there was a BCS chart describing the different scores, 1 to 10.

As I said there was a lot of information in this chapter, but one last thing that I read about in this chapter and that I have been coming across a lot lately is the practice of summer calving and then spring weaning at around 10 months. This is an interesting concept and a little different than some of the other things I have heard and read about. Basically the idea is that you calve in the summer, keep the calf on the cow through the fall and winter, and then wean in the spring on the green grass and give the cow a couple of months of good eating and gaining before she calves. The thinking is that the calf will gain better over the fall and winter while still on their mother and if it comes to the mother losing body condition she will kick the calf off (if she doesn't than maybe she should be culled?). Interesting idea and slightly different approach that the whole getting in tune with nature thing, but maybe something to think about. I know I would be interested in getting some better initial gains on some of my Dexters.

So, that is what I got on this third chapter. I would love to here some of your comments on my ramblings!

High Winter Gains

It seems like a weird time to be thinking about winter gains for cattle, but that was the subject of an article titled, "A Good Winter of High Gains Next Year Starts Now," in this months issue of the "The Stockman Grassfarmer". The article is written by William Winter who is a herd health consultant for the producers of the Thousand Hills Cattle Company. The thing that really caught my attention was that this guy was from Minnesota and he was talking about folks in Wisconsin getting high gains in the winter. Anything about getting high gains in the winter snow is worth checking out in my book! They are even capable of having year-round Average Daily Gains (ADGs) of 2 pounds.

The advice of one of their best producers is to "fix the soil". Before Karl Dallefeld even puts cattle out on to new ground he has the soil tested and adds some lime and other minerals (the article doesn't mention what the other minerals are). The idea is that with soil that is in great shape you will be able to produce stored forages that are great, and with brix indexes of at least 10-12%. In addition to quality stored forages Mr. Dallefeld also, "supplements with kelp, Char-Cal (from MBA), a Gerald Fry-style mineral mix, a bit of dried molasses, and the direct-fed microbials from Bio-Vet.

Another key mentioned in the article is keeping the herd grazing as long as you can. Some forages mentioned were sorghum sudan, hybrid sudan, and grazing corn before it tassels (I want access to tropical corn!). I realize that bison are different than cattle, but the article mentions a bison herd in Wisconsin that only supplemented feed for 45 days last winter. And, don't forget how much snow we had!

The last thing mentioned in the article is that the top producers of Thousand Hills wean their calves at 10 months and still have good looking cows. This idea is pretty foreign to me and I wish they would have written more about it, but the basic idea is that their soils and forages are so good that the cows stay in condition even with the long amount of time lactating. Interesting stuff...

Distillers' Grains: Twice as Nice ... Or Not?

I hear a lot about distillers grain. Most weekdays I listen to the Big Show on WHO Radio (farm reports and farm talk) and their markets are often sponsored by Hawkeye Gold, a seller of dried distillers grain. On the radio the announcers are pretty high on the stuff (they are paid to be impressed though) and I know that it is starting to take off around the state, especially with the high corn and feed prices. Despite all of the good things I have heard about distillers grain I am beginning to hear some people that think it is a bad idea.

There was a tiny blurb in this months issue of "The Stockman Grassfarmer" titled, "Distillers' Grains Twice As Likely to Create Deadly E.Coli Strain". Basically the article outlines the findings of researchers at Kansas State University. They found that, "beef carcasses that cattle fed distillers' grains (ethanol byproduct) have twice as much E. Coli 0157 compared to cattle fed regular feedlot rations.

The article went on to say that this certain form of E. Coli is especially dangerous for humans because our stomach acid doesn't kill it. I've never been one to be an alarmist and I do recognize that this article is coming from a publication that does have a reason to promote grass-finished, but it does cause one to think.

What is the reason behind the increased push to feed distillers grain? Is it because we need to use up all that is left behind in ethanol production? Is it because it is a good cheap source of feed for the feedlot owners? Or is it because the ethanol industry needs another thing to make ethanol seem like a good idea? (In keeping with the idea of full disclosure I should admit that I always fill up with ethanol ... it's cheaper)

I do know one thing for sure. Any bad press about distillers' grains being used in the feedlots is good press for the grass-finishers out there. And I plan to do a little more research into this.

Grass-Fed Cattle :: Chapter 2 Book Report

Chapter two of Julius Ruechel's book, "Grass-Fed Cattle" was a pretty interesting read because it was a topic that I think about often as we plan the direction for our growing Dexter herd. The chapter was titled, "Genetics and Breeding: Selecting the Right Animal for Your Herd," and was an interesting discussion of that topic. I think it would be understatement to say that Mr. Ruechel likes the idea of culling! But, I tend to agree with him that all too often we are selecting our cows, heifers, and bulls for all of the wrong reasons!

The biggest pitfall that Mr. Ruechel talks about in this chapter is the problem of falling into single trait selection. You know selecting cows only for their milk production, bone structure, color, or any other single trait. Obviously in a dairy operation special attention needs to be paid to the milking ability of a cow, but if that is the only trait you select for you may end up with a super milker that is a horrible cow! And, we are supposed to be raising cows not machines. According to Mr. Ruechel we should be selecting for low-maintenance and high-fertility (and all that goes with those things). He also has a short section about making sure that your climate and the natural climate of the breed is taken into consideration when selecting.

Basically, he talks about bulls looking like bulls should look (masculine) and cows/heifers looking like cows/heifers should look (feminine). With that basic picture in mind Mr. Ruechel says we need to look at our herd with a predatory eye, just as a predator would in a natural situation. Because our cattle are domesticated animals we need to fill the role of the predator not only through fencing, but also through selection.

There is a lot of other interesting stuff in this chapter, but there is one last thing that especially piqued my interest. I think I am safe in saying that Mr. Ruechel isn't high on registered-purebred breeding. That is not to say that he doesn't see the importance of it, because he also strongly believes in terminal cross-breeding (crossing two purebred animals, but not using the offspring for re-breeding). His biggest problem with the registered breeding world is that he feels they too often select for a single trait, especially traits that are most popular for the moment.

The reason I found this so interesting is because I tend to agree with it to a point in the Dexter world, and I know some others that agree also. When I began my search for a dun Dexter bull I had a horrible time finding a bull that actually looked like a bull. My theory is because people aren't really culling animals based on fertility or "bullish" characteristics, but rather they are either focused on color, breeding lines, or the feeling that every Dexter born must be used because they are a small breed. This bull problem led me all the way to Southern Missouri for a bull that was dun, relatively masculine, and had a good temperament. As we develop our growing Dexter herd I want to make sure that I have that predatory eye to an extent. Our breeding program will be based on breeding for the true dual-purpose characteristics of the Dexter.

All in all, this was a pretty good chapter and I would say it redeemed the book for me after being somewhat disappointed with the first chapter.

Grass-Fed Cattle :: Chapter 1 Book Report

Finally, in the midst of all the craziness, I was able to pick up Julius Ruechel's book, "Grass-Fed Beef" and make it through chapter one. The first chapter, titled "The Great Herds and Their Grasslands", acts as an introduction to the idea of herd grazing and the impact on the microbes, soil, and grasses (along with the animals itself). Mr. Ruechel opens with an account of the "evolution" of ruminant grazers and their places in the millions and millions of years that the earth has "existed". Personally, I could have done without that section and all the points that were made about the "evolution" of these animals really made me feel even more secure in the truth of creation. But, I also probably would be "Expelled" if I were to state my opinions (check out the link).

What did come out loud and clear as the the great herds did a wonderful job of taking care of the grasslands and themselves and we can learn a lot from that fact. They were able to work in conjunction with the soil microbes to break down grass residue and replenish the organic matter in the soil. That organic matter has many ... MANY benefits and they are all to often overlooked because of new "advancements" in farming.

After the opening sections (which I didn't care for) Mr. Ruechel does go into an interesting discussion of what exactly we can learn from the herds and how we can duplicate the benefits of the herd impact. Basically, we need to recreate the herds on our own farms by using fencing (acting like predators) to keep the animals close together and also to force them to move in a "migratory" pattern just as the wild herds used to be able to do. The thing that really comes out in this idea is the importance of management ... managing the impact that our "herds" have on an area and moving them at the right times.

One last thing that I found interesting (mainly because of some of the Western arid region ranchers that comment from time to time) was the importance of herds and herd impaction for those arid regions of the country. Mr. Ruechel contends that without that those areas will lose the good and sometimes lush pastures they are capable of having. Food for thought anyways.

All in all an interesting chapter, but I expect I will enjoy the following chapters much more.

You Have Spoken ... Grass-Fed Cattle

Okay, so I only received 8 votes ... as far as I can tell ... but, since four of them went to Julius Ruechel's book "Grass-Fed Cattle" that is the one I am going to tackle first. The sub-title is, "How to Produce and Market Natural Beef" so I totally expect to learn how to do that in the 300 odd pages of this book! Or at least come away with a little bit better understanding. I have read a few grass-fed cattle books now, so it will be interesting to see how this one fits into the mix. I have a feeling it will be closer to a "Quality Pasture" type of book compared to a Gene Logsdon or Joel Salatin style.

One thing that I am continually learning, and being reminded of daily, is that I don't have as much time as I used to for recreational reading. Between work at the church, soccer, family, and trying to figure out all the stuff with the new land I don't have as much time for reading. So, when I do take the time read a book I want to make sure it will be a profitable read for me in the expansion of our farm. Here are some things I hope to get out of the book.

• I am interested in learning more about stockpiling winter forage and being ready for drought on a grazing operation.
• Marketing is something I am always hoping to learn more about. A lot of what is said in the different books is similar, but there are always some differences that stick out. I'm always looking to learn more on marketing.
• Finally, as I thumbed through this book I noticed a worksheet style goal setting and business plan section towards the end of the book. That is something I am really interested in checking out and I probably will have to hold myself back from skipping ahead (not that there is anything wrong with it).

As I flipped through the book I saw that there were many sections and chapters that are similar to the topics covered in other books I have read, so we will see if it is just repetition of the same old stuff or if there is something new. In any case I know that I always learn something. Of course I will report at the end of each chapter some of my thoughts. The discussion that comes out of those reports is better than reading the book!

Look for the book reports coming soon ... I'll have to remember my book light on those long soccer bus rides!