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Mowing vs. Grazing

9/12/2021

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The signs are everywhere - Nature wants to grow grass.

We just wont let it...

Now, if you were in the cattle industry - wouldn't you want more grass? I mean lets think here... Grass makes Cows, Cows + Bulls make Calves and Calves make Dollars! Makes sense to me, how 'bout you?

But, in the United States, and many other countries worldwide, the exact opposite is underway. Cattle are let loose on the land to pick and choose only the grass(es) they like most, then overgraze them to extinction. The only remaining plants are those of lower nutrition, less filling and poor taste. Over a long period of time, cattle exposed continuously to an ecosystem will create a landscape less favorable to themselves and their offspring.

How do we combat this?

Well, first, we stop continuous grazing. Then we must rebuild the ecosystem, with the help of the Cow - they can build as efficaciously as they destroy, if managed properly.

​That's a big "if"...

But, to begin, we must shift that damaged ecosystem in the right direction - just ever-so-slightly.

We figured something out recently. We found that ten feet left or right of nearly any road in America has great grasslands - why?
Picture
​Because they are pruned once per year for fire or weed control (some jurisdictions spray them - lazy dopes). This is done mostly by mowing with large tractors. Trimming and mowing are what the grasslands responded to for millennia before we got here. This was compliments of nearly 70 Million Buffalo, roaming, ranging and tilling our soils.
Picture
​Now, if you know anything about grazing cattle (and really if you just have common sense) you can see that the plant systems outside the "mow-line" are much less healthy, less nutritious and more erosion prone than those inside the line. 

As show in the pictures below... 
Picture
Picture
Take a look at those pictures again... they are astonishing. Here we see the grazing area (outside the fence) in deplorable condition, with tap-rooted, fire prone and non-nutritious brush in abundance. The area between the fence and road provides much more nutrition - why? Because it has been trimmed (on a time-oriented basis) by a tractor, but that is essentially what controlled grazing is, at its root - time oriented trimming.

So, my question is this...

Can we pit a tractor against 50 Cows? Who would be better for the environment? Who would add manure back to the ecosystem? Who would not need a defined benefits retirement plan? 
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Lick'n Salt

10/13/2020

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Our Cows need salt.

They like it, and salt provides them an efficient way to uptake certain minerals no longer present in the biosphere.

Years ago, an abundance of minerals resided in the soils and plant life - today, they are all but gone. As the great western herd of 70 million bison moved over the vast landscapes of California, they would ebb and flow with the natural flora present.

Driven by taste, pressured by predators, the massive, heaving mass of Bulls, Cows and Calves would meander from site to site, uninhibited by your swimming pool or interstate 5.

Seasonal and geographical variations would permit rooting depths of the perennial grasses to forage deep within the crevices of ancient buried rocks and mine out minerals from eons ago. This, combined with the natural growth cycle would present various plants of diverse size, shape and color to the heard. Each individual inside the group would select its grazing requirements based upon need and metabolism. A wonderful and magnificent dance of give and take would result. Those not capable, or adapted to ferreting out the right plant, at the right time, with the right nutritional uptake would fall to predation and not reproduce. The cycle of life is far more efficacious, and might I add, brutal than our puny brains and opposing thumbs could ever be - nature is, if anything - a strict schoolmaster.

In today's world of modern Ranching, none of this is true.

The animals cannot roam freely, at least not to the extent they once did. They cannot cross from the pastures outside of your community, over the streets, past the grade school, behind your backyard BBQ, and near the coastal shrub plains to gobble up a snack of Arizona Bunch-grass for that boost of iron or copper they so desperately need. 

Conventional Ranchers - the majority of producers, today, do not salt correctly. The Cow must choose their nutritional uptake. When a Rancher puts out a salt block, it is usually what the Rancher thinks the Cow needs - the Cow cannot speak, so the husbandman must interpolate its needs - right?

Wrong - the Cow can speak, just not with words. 

In fact, nature speaks all the time, we just choose not to listen. 

Here is a short clip of how we manage and handle Salt on our Ranch (BTW - we are not conventional Ranchers if you haven't figured that out yet)​

By Douglas Lindamood

Chief piglet chaser, cattle wrangler and chicken whisperer - SonRise Ranch

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Why are the Western States burning?

8/7/2018

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A heavy pall hangs in the air, visibility is down to a block or two while driving, and we haven't seen the sun for days. A few weeks ago in Southern Oregon, on a visit home, where Ranching first began for me, a record was set for the poorest air quality in the entire nation.

The Air Quality Index (AQI), used to measure smog and pollution, ticked up to 300+ in my little hometown. Hey, at least we made national news! 

This is the AQI range where mothers and the elderly are told to leave town. Folks are given masks at the local clinic for free and just about everyone you meet looks as if they've just finished a memorial service with puffy, red eyes.

As a young man, I well remember my first wildfire. It was in 1987 (I know, I just dated myself). My father, a Helicopter Logging Pilot for 30 years, was called off his logging assignment, to dump water on a wildfire near our hometown. The teams, both ground and air, extinguished the fire in a few days and returned to logging.

Back then, firefighting with a Helicopter was a narrow occupation. He was one of the first pilots trained for it - up to that point he had only used a "Bambi-Bucket" (the water tote under a helicopter) a few times in his whole career. It would be another two or perhaps three years before he would be ordered to fight his next fire.

By the time he retired, in the late 90's, fire fighting accounted for three quarters of the annual revenue for his company.  He often commented "we used to log these forests, now we get paid by the goverment when they burn"
​
"A forrest is a living ecosystem and must be pruned. Herbivores are natures vinedressers, remove them and the forest will cease to grow vibrantly, decay and expel carbon - keep it trimmed and it will sequester carbon"

​I've found a fascinating TEDTALK by Paul Hessburg on this subject. In about 15 minutes you too, can understand what is really happening.  
Here is where it gets interesting. The Native Americans actually lit fires...why?

​Well, I can tell you they weren't playing with matches. They intuitively knew that the Buffalo, their primary source of protein and central to their way of life, grazed in silvopasture - widely spaced trees interspersed with perennial grasslands. Thus, burning the forest served two purposes; first, this allowed the brush that had collected and dead trees since the last disturbance to be eliminated. 

Secondly, these wise stewards of the land (much wiser than their successors, I might add) understood the simple natural maxum - "death creates life".

Or, as America's favorite Farmer, Joel Salatin puts it "everything is either eating or being eaten"

Perennial grasses store their energy in their roots, below the surface. Annuals - crops that require plowing and planting, store energy in their seeds. A perennial has 2/3rds or more of its structure below ground and 1/3 above. Thus a wildfire would not destroy the perennial plant life, it would envigorate it. 

The opposite would be true of annual crops.

​Stay with me here - if I come and light your cornfield, an annual crop, on fire, you will lose all your stored energy in the ensuing inferno, much like Sampson did in the biblical book of Judges, when he lit a few foxes on fire and sent them running through the Philistines wheat fields. Have you ever uprooted a corn stalk? They are about foot deep.

​Not so with perennial grass. 

Now, with that in mind, take a look a this picture...
Picture
Here I am standing next to some perennial grasses that were restored with proper cattle management using a holistic, regenerative, management intensive approach - in other words, we move the cattle daily, just like they would in nature due to predation pressure. These grasses stand as tall, or taller than I do - about 6 feet. If the subsurface structure is 2x the above surface structure, then the roots stretch nearly 12 feet below the topsoil. 

What pretell do plant roots do?

Bingo, they transport minerals and nutrients to the surface - something cattle can sense, seek out and love to eat.

In other words, the Native Americans were doing good - pruning, vine dressing, stewarding the land - with the ultimate end state of attracting large Herbivorous Grazers back into the silvopasture and feeding them with the richest, deeply-mined, subterranean minerals they could get, all transported for free by well meaning perennial grasses.

Those grasses were pressed into service by being burned, grazed or trampled. They followed their one true instinct - rebuild for further propagation. It's akin to lifting weights at the gym for you and me. And without the weights - the whole symbiotic system falls apart. Without the grazers, the plants don't propagate. They die and build up flammable fuels. Increasing carbon in the atmosphere.

Ok, now for the punchline. 

The Native Americans were unable to control their herds. They didn't have the benefit of portable water troughs, mobile electric fence and salt licks that can be moved from field to field. Most importantly, their herds were not trained - heck, they weren't even domesticated. They were at the mercy of the herd mentality - seeking safety from predation, better grass, deeper springs. It was up to the herd.

Not so, us.
Not modern man. 

We can control livestock with biomimicry. Yes, biomimicry (haven't heard that before have ya?) It means to copy nature. How? By using systems that impersonate the predator, like a portable electric fence, that delivers a harmless tickle to the back end of a Cow when it brushes up against the fence wire. Or, to entice the herd to move by offering  better feed, salt or water.

Move where, you say?

To an overgrown forest that needs trimmed before it erupts in a fiery inferno - that's where!

If cattle graze a forest they remove the undergrowth, the stuff that burns real hot and boils the sap in trees - killing them instantly. They trample the branches that have fallen, reducing the fast burn fuels and speeding up the carbon-cycle. On top of that, the cattle grow - yes - grow. 

Grow what?

Milk, meat, hide - all good stuff.

And at what cost?
Free.

In fact, opposite of free. Think about it. I told you my Dad's company earned three-quarters of all their revenue from fire-fighting in the late 90's. That was 12 Million dollars! And that was "back then". 

We are spending millions per hour fighting fires right now. This could all be done for free with good, properly trained cattle managers, and the correct eco-regenerative-carbon-sequestration-fire-prevention mentality from our forest management.

Why not?
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You've been duped!

6/21/2017

8 Comments

 
It doesn’t happen often, but the other day I had someone cancel their Monthly Discount Box Subscription with us. When they did so, they left me a note that said this…

“The concept of your company is really great and we enjoyed having the meats delivered to our door. But, with more and more Whole Foods, Roots, Clarks, and Sprouts being built organic meats are becoming more accessible and are competing with the price of your product”

I've got bad news - that beef is not truly 100% Grass fed & finished. Because all beef eats grass at some point in it's life, the USDA now allows any beef to be labeled "Grass fed" even if it has been grown in a feedlot.
Picture
​

Then, just today, we saw this article in Farm Ireland.​

The USDA is allowing import beef from Ireland to be labeled “Grass fed" if they are fed grass 80% of the time.
 
In stark contrast, SonRise Ranch Beef are 100% Grass fed, all the time. This is called "Grass fed & finished" - scary stuff for consumers who rely on their imagination of what Ireland is like.

In fact, the article admits that most consumers associate Ireland with green grass - thus they can be fooled easily.
And so, the bigger picture begins to emerge. Terms like “Grass fed” and “Organic” are being confused with what we do, here at SonRise Ranch. ​

Here is a quick video that explains what to look for in true Grass fed Beef...
To add insult to injury, the USDA, who introduced Mad Cow Disease, and spoiled import meat to the U.S. now permits import and domestic Big Ag to label their product “Grass fed” when their beef eat grass only 80% of the time.

​So what does all this mean?

​Let’s take a look at some definitions… from top to bottom (and I really mean bottom). 

​
“Pastured, 100% Grass Fed & Finished"
This is what we raise at SonRise Ranch and it only applies to beef (not Pigs or Chickens). Born and raised on Grass and only Grass. Weaned from mother after birth, diet changed from milk to grass slowly. Grows much slower than grain fed beef (feedlot or conventional beef). Mature at 28 to 29 months for harvest.

“Grass fed”
USDA definition – must be fed grass at sometime in its life.  This means the stuff from the supermarket, which by definition must be mass produced, and may be fed grass as little as one day of its life yet can be labeled “grass fed” 

“Grass fed, grain finished”
This is what is called “feed lot beef”, “conventional beef” or “commodity beef”
It is the most common, regular, supermarket beef.

​“Pastured Beef” or “Free-Range Beef”
May be any of the above – ask the producer. How do the beef live? Do you feed grain?
​Why don’t you just say “Grass fed & finished” like the other guys? – Hint… there is a reason they don’t.

“Local Beef”
​
Beef is not Local – sorry. It can’t be… think of it like this; imagine if you grew cabbage locally, but there was a government agency that enforced a law that you can only wash your cabbage (and you must wash it before sale) in a special sink located 600 miles away from your farm. That is what the USDA does – we grow our beef locally, but it must be inspected for safety 600 miles away from our customers. BTW, why the inspection? We have been at this for 13 years and never had a single beef found to be unsafe - in that same time period, there have been hundreds of "outbreaks" from industrial meat plants across the U.S.

“All Natural Beef”
​
This means nothing…. Literally. The USDA allows just about anything to be called “all natural” because Big Ag Producers were able to argue that just about anything is natural.

“Organic Beef”
​May be fed organic corn…. Still not grass fed, still not healthy. Don’t be fooled  - Wal Mart sells “Organic Beef”.  It just means that whatever they are giving the beef at the feedlot is labeled “Organic”

“Antibiotic & Hormone Free”
​
Means what it says. Not give Antibiotics or Growth Hormones. Most producers add this to their label if they have nothing else to say. Hormone and Antibiotic use is minor compared to feed use - feed is daily, medicine is occasional, so the former has much greater impact on the animal than the latter.

Number two above is what really gets me – “must be fed grass at sometime”

All Beef eats grass, sometime in its life! In other news, water is wet…Come on, this is a ploy for the big time producers to recapture what they’ve lost to small time Grass fed & finished guys and the government is in collusion with them.

The sad part is that people can be fooled by what they read on a label and it is affecting real Ranchers in real ways. “Grass fed” should really mean just that, but such is not the case.
​
Key takeaway - you've got to know your producer!
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Four-legged Lawn Mowers

1/8/2015

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Our house here at the Ranch has a front and back yard. We love having a really nice grass stand and a well trimmed lawn – it looks nice, and feels great. Each year we take care to make sure the grass is nice and neat for the fun of the summer season.  Usually, about Spring time, we get real serious about it, trimming, edging – all the things normal “city folk” do to their yards to make them look neat and pretty. During the winter months, we let it get ragged and overgrown. 

Overgrown, that is, until I break out my lawn mowers. Yes, I said mowers with an “s”. I have a bunch of them. My mowers don’t take gas, do not require oil changes and never need their blades sharpened. I never have to empty the grass bag where the clippings are collected – they do that on their own. I don’t have to push them – they have “power assist”.  My kids don’t complain when I ask them to mow the lawn, on the contrary, they rather enjoy it.

It usually takes me about a day to mow the entire yard, and both sides of our 1/8 mile long driveway. When I am done, the place looks nice and clean.  All the weeds are gone, the grass is tidy, and my mowers are very happy.  I run them until I find them standing all day. I can tell the mower bags are full when the Cows sit down and chew cud. If I find them standing all day looking for grass, they are not getting enough. When you drive by Cattle and see them lying down, they are full and have plenty of feed. If they are standing all the time, they are underfed and the grass is usually overgrazed – you can tell when you see them in the same spot each day that they are not managed very well. Cattle need to rotate from one setting to the next to keep themselves and the grass healthy.

So, I don't sweat very much doing my lawn care... oh and my Cows are happy too.

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Enviro-rancher

11/19/2014

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PictureSonRise Ranch Cattle mob grazing a new "rotation" after a mere 48 hours - mirroring the natural phenomenon of "eat and move" found in nature, necessitated by predator pressure (in this case, an electric fence).
“Internal schism”

“Split personality”

“Lunatic Rancher”

I have never known how to brand it, but I am constantly divided between two far-distant lands. In one, a Rancher, Capitalist, Outdoorsman and Energetic young “take on the world” critter grazer lives. On the opposite side of the political, religious, world view perspective lives a concerned Environmentalist, Earth Lover and Student of Nature who cares deeply about any scars he might leave on the earth and holds a genuine concern for the world God has trusted us with - constantly aware of the inalienable fact that my children will inherit the choices I make.

I have often mentioned that Grass-fed and finished beef draws these two diametrically opposed worlds together. Many have entered into Grass-fed beef out of necessity – the cattle business is brutal and any marketing edge one might acquire is fiercely pursued – Grass fed and finished beef, with its higher premiums, offers a tempting choice for traditional cattle producers looking for higher profits on their herds.

The problem with this premise is that traditional cattle husbandry methods don’t match up too well with the Grass-fed and finished direct marketing strategy – in other words, it’s hard to take your feed-lot destined calves and “just keep them a bit longer” to make grass-fed beef out of them. It’s taken us years to perfect our methods – making sure we have enough really good grass to keep all the mouths fed and get those critters fat.

Real Grass-fed cattle production requires maximum attention to grass growth and recovery, and this is borne out only through an authentic concern for the environment (one that goes far beyond talking the talk, but really means walking the walk). At its genesis, to be a good Grass-fed and finished cattleman, you’ve got to be a die-hard environmentalist. This creates an internal conflict of sorts as most right-leaning cattlemen don’t have a left leaning, earth hugging, and long-haired environmentalist living inside them.

I spoke with a Rancher recently who proudly exclaimed that his cattle drank out of a stream, and had no water troughs, no modern conveniences and was “livin' off the land like in them old days” – I was absolutely aghast. 

Most average folks know that when ruminant animals drink, they tend to manure about the same time. Here at SonRise, we use this to our advantage by placing the water trough in nutrient depleted areas thus attracting more manure deposits for future grass growth (did  I mention my main goal as a cattleman is to grow grass?).

So, pray tell – what might the first true environmentalist (or, worse yet, any environmentally concerned millennial) say the first time you tell them that not only do you have running water on your Ranch, but you let your Cows poop in it? 

Holy surface water contamination, Batman!

Worse yet, this guy was marketing and selling Grass-fed beef… so his likelihood of encountering that well educated environmentalist was far greater than your average worn out old Cowboy having a cold one at the pub complaining about the price of feed this year. 

And what happens when that stuck-in-his-ways stubborn old Rancher does run into that environmentalist? You guessed it - Grass-fed cattle gets another black eye.

That is why Grass-fed cattle can’t be just a slick marketing technique, but must be a lifestyle change – I know I sound like a die-hard Paleo dieter trying to convince a WeightWatchers member to start eating Bacon here, but this is a really critical point – we can’t take on the industrial, confined mega-farming complex with those who don’t care about the environment in the ranks.
Picture
Terracing (above the fence line) caused by cattle continually passing back and forth looking for grass on the hillside. This particular pasture has cattle on it year round with no chance for the grass to fully recover. This is not natural, as in nature the herd would pass by and move on only to return months later for another bite.
I have included a picture of an overgrazed pasture for your enjoyment.  Some cattlemen would be proud – after all “we got every last ounce of grass out of that pasture,” and to heck with the year-over-year destruction it might cause from nutrient depletion, terracing (left and right grazing lines on the hillside) or erosion due to the shallow roots of overgrazed plants (most plants grow 1/3 above the surface and 2/3 below in root structure – so taller plants hold more sub-surface soils together).

Either way – you are the judge….  And I will be the “Christian Fundamentalist Lunatic Libertarian Environmentalist Rancher” who can’t fit in anywhere.
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