USDA grass fed guidelines

[backhoeboogie]

Backhoe...,

I don't understand your thought here about the hormones in natural beef.

Is your thought that natural beef has natural hormones...vs...implants?

Yes. Advertising, "Hormone free" is misleading. There are consumers (believe it or not) who think there are no hormones in those products.

 

[msscamp]

At the risk of adding more fuel to the fire - which is not my intent - I'm curious as to why you would assume that there are that many pastures that have naturally occuring wild rye (or any other type of wild grain, for that matter) growing in them?

Mine do, on the river side. The lower flood plain is premium coastal. The perimiter around it has oats and rye every year. These two have never been planted there. With all the flooding this year, there is no telling what will be there come spring. It was completely underwater for over two months this year. But, on years when it is not flooded, there are many grasses on the outside edge that produce grains.

There are other things too, including wild onion etc. Freinds come to get those onions between the river and fence in the early spring.

The upper flood plain has been planted with oats, wheat, vetch, sudan, rye and a variety of mixed seed preparations from Turner Seed for both winter and summer with things included such as turnips etc. That field produces all types residual forages now. The cows are rotated on fields across the road during summer months as the lower coastal field produces horse quality hay. When you turn them into that side of the road in the fall (they are there now) the first thing they go after are the grains.

Both fields are very fertile with excellent loam. I have not planted the prepared seed mixes on them the last two years because of the feral hog problems. Nevertheless it attracts hogs just on residual growth. Part of the lower flood plain was overseeded with Hubam clover. Other than that, nothing was planted.

BTW, no fire to fuel on this end :lol: My only point is that grains are produced by grasses.

Across the road where the cows are most of the summer, rescue grass and wild rye grow naturally and obviously. No oats that I know of like on the other side.

Thank you, BHB. I can see where you would have wild rye/oats, since your land is in a flood plain and under water for part of the year. Once it seeds, the wind would carry it for a fair distance, not to mention wild game distributing seed in their manure. Thanks for explaining, I appreciate it!

 

[cowtrek]

Who's pulling whose wool over whose eyes??

We ALL know perfectly well what we're talking about when we say 'grainfed' unless you're still learning to wave bye-bye...

The reason that the clarification is needed is that there are folks who don't want the standard hormone implanted antibiotic spiked corn fattened steer penned in a feedlot in foot deep mud and manure then run through a slaughter mill where the fecal contamination is so bad from processing too fast that they have to spray the halves with antiseptic to prevent foodborne illness outbreaks. Those folks are willing to pay more of THEIR money to buy meat from (usually) local folks who raise their cattle on grass based pastures or legumes and perhaps fatten them out on ryegrass, wheat, or even green corn fields before slaughter.

Now, the big companies don't like that; they don't want Joe Public having ANY choice but to buy THEIR product (or one of their 'competitors' that is leveraged to eliminate REAL competition, but that's another story) and especially when folks talk about not liking antibiotics and hormones and cattle standing in foot deep crap eating corn that their digestive systems were never designed by God to digest, so they produce ammonia and other things and have health problems as a result. It makes their product look bad and might get someone else to thinking about such things, and we just can't have that. Besides, with a little judicious 'creative thinking' we can buffalo Joe Public's housewife into thinking she's getting the real McCoy if we turn the cows on grass for a couple days between moving between feedlots or a couple hours a day while we muck out pens if we label it "grassfed", even if they're still doing things the same way they always have otherwise. Heck, I bet we could even get her to pay the premium for it, even though it's the same old same old cuz she don't know no better. Ha ha we just got one over on old farmer Brown too because even though he's doing it 'right' we're presenting our stuff as the real McCoy and Mrs. Public doesn't know enough about the cattle business to tell the difference.

Fact is, God designed cattle to eat grasses, legumes, and a few forbs. Look at their teeth, their digestive system, etc. Yes they can gain weight faster shooting them full of hormones and antibiotics and stuff and penning them up in front of a corn bin all day but then you get a WHOLE lot of negatives too, ammonia, health problems, mountains of manure, hormone contamination, antibiotic residues, resistant pathogens, foodborne illness from fecal contamination, etc.etc. etc. But in terms of sheer pounds of product you CAN get more, but at what cost?? (not JUST monetarily)

God designed those cattle to eat grass, something which we (and MOST other creatures) can't get much use out of. Not that grassfed is perfect but nothing in nature is. Production per unit is usually lower, but at considerably lower cost and of course usually in a more sustainable manner, working naturally with the natural world and it's intricate cycles of life, etc.

The era of Cheap Oil is ending, and with it will go Cheap Nitrogen, which will be the end of Big Corn, and the system is going to have to change to suit the new reality. It's going to take a LONG time, and people with vested interests in the status quo are going to fight it tooth and nail and leverage themselves to stay on top no matter what. Companies will fight to maintain market share, dominate the market, and eliminate competition/alternatives. It's going to be a very painful, ugly, messy deal that's going to last a long time. But it's coming, it's just a matter of time. Just like winter coming, it's inevitable. The wind is starting to change directions, and we'd all better get ready for a storm.... OL JR

 

[OK Jeanne]

The era of Cheap Oil is ending, and with it will go Cheap Nitrogen, which will be the end of Big Corn, and the system is going to have to change to suit the new reality. It's going to take a LONG time, and people with vested interests in the status quo are going to fight it tooth and nail and leverage themselves to stay on top no matter what. Companies will fight to maintain market share, dominate the market, and eliminate competition/alternatives. It's going to be a very painful, ugly, messy deal that's going to last a long time. But it's coming, it's just a matter of time. Just like winter coming, it's inevitable. The wind is starting to change directions, and we'd all better get ready for a storm.... OL JR

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Cowtrek -you hit the nail on the head. Change is coming
whether or not the current powers-that-be like it or not.
I believe it was Einstein that said the greatest human
failure is the failure to understand the expotential function.
What does that have to do with anything? IMO the
expotential global population growth enabled by the
"green" revolution(enabled by fossil fuels) has over-stocked
our earth to the point that we are facing resource depletion
of an unimaginable scale. do we all know what happens
when a pasture is over-stocked? Both the land and animals
suffer until enough die off to get back into balance.

The current system of producing commodity beef is
entirely based on availability of fossil fuels---for the
grain, etc etc. I saw a cartoon the other day that showed
a man in a suit grabbing an ear of corn from the hand of
a starving child--and he was saying" here, gimme that; I
need it for my gas tank".

The fossil fuel situation is going to change literally everything
in our way of life. If you are going to stay in the cattle
business, you will need to find genetics that can grow well
and finish out on forage. There's to be a special on the
oil situation on the History Channel next Tuesday evening
as I understand.....probably well worth watching.