I was perusing the website of a local farm that does grassfed beef. Well regarded by a woman at the gym who has an auto immune disease and doesn't eat meat from animals that ate grain. The farmers state on their FAQs section that the native Indian Switch grass enabled them to stop feeding grain and making hay. So we have totally grass fed beef that never eats any dried grass? Is that possible? Heck, I'd sure like to save the money I spend on hay if it is!

Ummm... isn't switch grass a grass? And to feed it in winter in the northern areas with snow cover, doesn't it have to be dried and put up as hay? Not sure how willing livestock would be to eat switch grass. Switch grass may be native, however cattle are not. The only native bovine, the buffalo, ate a variety of prairie grasses. I would like to hear more about this. Information please...?

Sounds like BS to me

I think it is a matter of climatic/geographic conditions and how well stocked the pasture is and how deep the snow will get.. There are farmers/ranchers who do it (Gene Logsdon tells about an old rancher in Kansas, for example).

What's the URL for the farm? I'm curious to read what they say.

In northern Kansas, for the last two years, a neighbor has been able to feed his herd of 40-50 head of cattle until March or April without using hay. He plants a cover crop mix that includes oats, radish and sorghum hybrid. It provides a standing feed, which the cattle can pick and choose. He doesn't have any machinery cost for putting up hay or feeding it. He does spend some time with electric fencing and intense grazing. I think his system is highly adaptable within the climate-range, well adapted for small producers.

This is becoming a more popular method for raising grass-fed animals, as the grass-fed and all natural movement grows. My understanding is that the 2 key principles are 1, you must live in a dry climate where the grass literally freeze-dries thereby locking in nutrients, and 2, you have to cull strictly over time and/ or start with heritage-type breeds from similar climates. The exception would be areas that can stockpile pasture and not have it covered in lots of rain or snow. Either way, you have to have a significant land base to support it, even with rotational grazing. I know of a cattle rancher in Wyoming (I think it was) who raised Highland beef like that because they originated in a similar snowy climate, foraging for food in winter. Even then, though, he said it took 2-3 generations for the cattle to transition easily without significant weight loss. The young calves had to learn from their mothers to be efficient at it.

www.caponcrossing.com The info in question is under the main rancher's profile. A customer told me about the farm because "they feed their cattle totally on grass." I looked at it and my first thought was that they must feed haylage or similar if they don't make hay. If not, I suppose it's theoretically possible? I don't have the best grass, so it doesn't grow long. it was packed with a foot of hard as concrete snow for 12 weeks this past winter. The farm in question is north west of me in an area that would likely be even worse in the dead of winter.

Related question - does digesting grass provide the same warming properties to the animal as digesting hay?

Hay IS grass... dried. A nearby dairy farmer feeds poor quality hay for fiber and supplements with a balanced protein. I can't imagine how he can get his cows to milk adequately on that but he claims it works for him. My issue was the *switch grass.* Don't know whether cattle will even eat it nor how much nutritive value it provides. A hard snow pack can't possibly work for cattle because, unlike horses, they don't paw to get at the grass under the snow. Or is this something cattle can learn to do? Anyway, I don't think it would work in Wisconsin with the depth of snow we get.

I went up to Saskatchewan last year to investigate how 100% grass fed beef were finishing there. Not a hospitable, nor irrigated climate....
Some graziers were growing corn (yes unadulterated open pollinated corn is actually of the GRASS family) and grazing it in 4 feet of snow; As the snow melted in the spring, more cobs and leaves were available, the cows reportedly needed little supplement, for the genetics and calving dates they were using.
In high desert Wyoming we have sold our hay equipment, invested in fences and seed, and are now year round grazing, fall calving. Stockpiled winter forage in an infertile soil area is our main arrow in the quiver.
We now pasture crop warm season legumes into cool season grasses to get 240 days of green grazing. Forage is windrowed after killing frost so nutritional leaves are not lost, and maintains quality through spring breakup....
Lots of ways in different areas to produce a product the urban consumers want....
Being a grazier, "one who has the ability and willingness to properly flesh animals to finish off forage" is a lost art.
Best nowadays look to third world countries on how to do it.... ie. Never slaughter an animal unless they are gaining on an increasing plane of nutrition, or you are contributing to the "grass fed don't texture and taste good" rural fiction.

Sounds good in theory.
Won't work when your feed is buried in two or three feet of snow for 4 or 5 months.
Tim Ohlde in Kansas does a lot with low input cattle operations and grass fat genetics. Mostly in angus and red angus.
I have used some of his genetics and it works....if they survive in this altitude.

Al you need is winter range and room for them to look for it. we have wintered 600 head of cows on grass, feed some cotton cake every other day and kept the water tanks open every day. if you get 2ft of snow they will thin down some not bad. you want to remember those 600 head covered about 7-10 sections from November to May they calved in a 5 section pasture. We did later mow and windrow all the grass we could in those pastures and they eat the windrowed hay as they got to it. we fed more stacked hay to the 18 saddle horses than we did to 600 head of cows. they took about 14 sections for the summer. windrowed hay some is always out of the snow in the hills as the wind blows it of some and covers some. it took bout 35-50 bull to cover the cows. we rode pastures most all days, unless we had a blizzard then when the wind quite blowing real bad we were out checking on the cows. Here it takes 20-25 sections to run 600 cow-calf each year without extra hay would be better to feed some cake. Need to cull poor doing cows to make it. longhorns will make it the best the only time I feed mine is when I run out of range, that is why I have some 3 year old hay left some 2 year old hay and most of last years hay except what I fed to the horses and mules. hope this helps in your thoughts.

I have run cows here until Febuary on grass just because there was no snow. Same with sheep - ran tthem out until April. Generally no snow means no grass the next summer.
Don't know about switch grass. But if it was so good Montasanto would have patent on it.
People have a tendicy to stretch the truth when th ey advertise so buyer beware.

KCFox, when you talk about sections, are you talking about measurements of land? If so, then there are 640 acres to a section. How much land do you have available for this?!!! I have 160 acres of Wisconsin hills and valleys. Most of it is in pasture. Lush during the summer; 3 feet deep with snow most winters. This may work out West but certainly not here! I do stockpile some grass in a pasture or two for the horses over the winter. But that doesn't last them much past December. Their over-wintering pasture is 6 acres (part of my pasture rotation through summer).

Interesting. The farm's site doesn't give much information on the actual what and wherefore of their method. But the pictures show cattle on what appears to be prairie-type clumping grass.

For the posters who talked about how they do this, how big is a section of grazing? Wind rowing means that you cut the grass and left in lying in rows, yes? Based on MPtclinics' description, it sounds like in certain climates grass can be freeze dried almost like grapes are left on the vine for ice wine. When you say that open corn is considered a grass - what does open corn look like? Is it the stalk prior to the ear forming?

Their prices are pretty low compared to others in the area. I can see being helped out by not buying/making hay or grain. But seems like it would be offset by longer finishing time. Hmmmm.

640 acres in a section? Holy smokes! That much raw land would cost $4 million here in the Shenandoah. (I realize land is much cheaper in the west because it isn't as fertile.)

Is cotton considered a grass?

And for letting cows get skinny and culling aggressively? Don't do it in plain sight around here. The same consumers you're targeting who expect perfect "grass only" cattle would the first to call out animal control on a farmer for cattle if they were getting skinny and no hay is in sight. My own mother has argued with me umpteen times about what must be one of the only dry lots around. "There's no grass! It's terrible!" it's not how I would raise cattle, but the cattle have hay, minerals and water that I can see from the road whiz zing by at 45 mph. I see bunk feeders that I assume get filled, too.

Catherine,

As with any grass, quality depends on the stage of growth. If it goes into dormancy in a vegetative stage, it will be higher quality than if it goes to seed first and then dormant. Both will probably be less quality than if it was cut for hay at that stage and is still green when cut.

I wonder if they are using 2 native species. Indian grass and switch grass. There is also big bluestem and little bluestem. My memory wants to say that the big bluestem has the most nutrition per pound in a dormant stage, but double check before your decide to try establishing warm season native prairie. Also keep in mind that Iowa growing seasons and Virginia seasons are quite different.

Native tall grass prairie also has much different management than cool season grasses. Cool season grasses tolerate short grazing better than most warm season grasses. Iowa was once mostly tall grass prairie, and there are a few remnants left, but the old habit of continuous grazing favored cool season grasses, and the warm season grasses are hard to find in many pastures that have never been broken. Establishing warm season grass is also more difficult.

Switch grass produces the most tonnage of the main four. It is also typically the easiest to establish (in Iowa) as weeds can be controlled with atrazine (that may not be available anymore) or some of the other herbicides used in corn.

Neal

Open corn means a variety of corn that has not been trademarked; it is open pollinated, so seed can legally be kept from one generation to the next. Corn is a type of grass, but had been bred over the centuries to produce grain, just has oats, wheat, barley, and rye.

Is there an "official" definition of grass-fed or "grass-fattened"? I wouldn't think that feeding hay would void grass-fed criteria, feeding hay is different than feeding a pen of fat cattle.

Thanks for the explanation, Neal. I think the site mentions Indian grass as well. I thought it was of a low nutritive value like Switch grass, but sounds like I' m incorrect? Does grass left dried uncut have the same thermogenic properties as hay? For that matter, what about fresh forage? I'm still scratching my head at how one would get the grass tall enough to do this. We never got much snow in VA until the past two years. I'm going to assume it's the new normal for us. I had no grass poking though the snow for close to 12 weeks. I had some longhorn this winter. And while they did go for the standing underbrush in the woods, I don't think they could have survived that cold without additional forage.

There is a legal definition for "grass-finished" for beef sold retail in grocery stores, etc. I know this because the cynic in me wondered if large producers were exploiting a loophole similar to the one that exists with "free-range" chicken. And passing off normal feed lot beef as $$$$$$ grass-fed. All cattle eats grass at some point in its life, after all.

Jon, I don't have a strong opinion on the subject. I've honestly yet to have grass-finished beef locally that I would bother buying again. But I may be prejudiced because I prefer a marbling to my beef. I love bison for lean red meat. I ask because I sell near Washington DC and have a lot of potential consumers that claim that they're allergic to meat from animals that ever ate grain. There are a handful of auto-immune diseases where this would be true. But they're rare. Probably on the order of 1:200,000. Not every 4th person stopping by my tent. And all of them pick out corn and soy as the worst culprits. So, it's interesting to know that they've probably been eating beef that was eating corn without knowing it.

As for the hay thing - eh, that's the newest thing for people to fret over in this area. I had a market manager quiz me on whether I was using it. I suppose there's concern about it being sprayed or being non-GMO grass or alfalfa. I don't spray my fields or use artificial fertilizers and neither do any of my neighbors as near as I can tell. I

I suspect much of this is urban consumers reading and misinterpreting labels. Take grain-free chicken, for example. I had one woman actually wag her finger in my face about it. Her (probably 3 laying hens) chickens exist on bugs and grass just fine and she insisted I was wrong making non-GMO chicken ration a part of their diverse diet. I know it's possible for chickens to survive without grain. But the options for wintering them would get tricky. (Freeze dried meal worms and store bought lettuce? ) I couldn't afford to winter my 1000 chickens that way. And the product would take so long to finish and be so expensive very few would buy it. And yet, she claimed she buys it at Whole Foods. I find it hard to believe that something could be produced on a large enough scale to sell at Whole Foods using husbandry practices that seem to lend themselves to more of a backyard enthusiast.

I figure that I'm a first-year retail farmer and I do the best I can. I'm comfortable with what I do and why I do it . And people enjoy the product. So I don't get bent out of shape about it. I see this stuff and wonder if it's a marketing sleight of the hand or if there is a cheaper way and I should be studying up on it to implement in the future. I honestly would not have know that cattle could be wintered without hay or a baleage type product. But apparently they can in he right conditions. But it would seem that to do so a feedstuff that most consumers who aren't farmers would consider non-grass is used? Be it corn, cotton cake, or cover crop like rye, turnip, etc

Yes there is 640 acres to a section I did not say skinny I said thin down some. Remember you can't starve a profit in a cow, to fat is just as bad. When there rolling fat send them to town. If there fat there not with calf. As for the windrowed hay mow the hay take a dump rake (most people here use a 42 ft rake) make as big a windrow with it as possible the cows will dig through 2 ft of snow, I have seen cows up to there shoulders in a snow bank on a windrow. Cotton cake is a cubed feed made from the seed and some meal left after the cotton is harvested 32-40% protein last I bought cost 450. per ton. the wind blows the snow around here most of the time you can find grass out of a snowbank. If not you can buy hay to feed or put up your own hay. these cows run in big pastures all year long there not hand fed milk cows these are range cows. as land available you try to rent or lease all you need. it would cost more than 4 million to buy enough land to run those cows like that. A few still feed very little hay they range all winter on grass and still have a fat calf in the spring. today most small places here will bring over 4 million. We don't tag calves because the cows will hurt you bad if you try, cows are only handled 2 times a year at branding & weaning. Hope this clears up your questions if not ask and I will try to answer your questions, thank you and have a great year.

KC, i wasn't implying that you were starving your cattle. I'm sorry if I came off that way. I'm just saying that it could be a concern for someone trying to do this in my particular area. The country is full of McMansions and people who moved out for the views. Cows digging in a snow bank with no hay bales visible might be an issue. I know someone who ended up having to pay for a vet to check their cows (thinner in preparation for calving) because someone called the county on them. Cows didn't look any different than most else. Just had the misfortune of the field being by the road.

In your opinion, what would be the minimum width for the windrows to work? I don't think I've ever seen a 42 foot hay rake here. It sounds doable with a careful calculation of the number of cattle. I guess shoot for the number of cattle that could winter on the number of round bales made off that same piece of land? A lot to think about. Maybe 5 year down the road.

Catherine I did not take it that you thought I was starving cows& I was not picking on you hope you did not think that I was. I just wanted to make that clear which I had not made it in the first post OK. The width of the rake is not important a 10 ft horse rake will do the job (that is what grandad did it with) just get all the hay you can in it before you dump it,or a side delivery rake and roll the hay until the rake will not roll any more. I figure a cow will eat 35 lbs of hay a day when I mow and bale a pasture figure the bale weight and that is how many cows or some more that pasture will handle depending how much of that pasture is hill and cant be mowed. Most of our pastures are 65-80% hills just small valleys some only make 2 bales (ours weigh about 1200 lbs) some re bigger and make 100 bales. I would love to set at the kitchen table and talk this over with any of you. then then take you out in the hills and then you can see what I'm talking about, that would clear up alot of questions you will have. call me if your ever in central Nebraska glade to have visitors esp friends from RH that is an open invitation to all of you come one or all. THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR POST

Loose hay outfits here use 30' rakes. Sometimes bigger.
It has been tried here (winter cattle on windrows ) and just pasture but didn't work. Sagebrush traps snow and gets crusty and Dee.
Also winter in some places lasts a long time.