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)​

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.

If you own a milk cow, you always have Milk Calves around. I ran into a guy the other day who bought a Milk Cow. He wasn’t sure what he should do next, so he just put her out to pasture. She was not in lactation, so his goal was to get her bred again then calf, then milk.  Cows gestate for 9 months, like humans, and then 83 days after birth are re-bred to have another calf. This makes for a nice 12 month cycle. 

Anyway, we've been there... the romantic thought of having your own milk source. I had a rude awakening years ago when we got our first Milk Cow - I was absolutely amazed at how much work they were. I remember coming back from the barn after milking at 5 AM, before heading off to work that day. I had 8 gallons in my bucket (from one Cow!) and told the kids to start drinking... 

"Yep, Dad, we had a few cups, we made Hot Coco", they replied.  
So, I went to Eve and asked, "Hey honey, did you get some milk?" 
"Yes", she replied, "it tastes great, I even made butter".
"Ok, uh, what are we going to do with this?", as I held up the 8 gallons of fresh milk.
"Just put it in the fridge", she blurted out...
"Sure, sweetie, I will, but the fridge already has 25 gallons of milk in it", I replied.

By the end of that week we had 85 gallons.  It was time to call all our friends, and get some pigs (milk fed Pork is really awesome). I learned quickly - Milk Cows are bred to produce!



A few days before Christmas this year, one of our Jerseys had a real nice heifer (female) calf. You can see her in the video above.  The Cow in the background is not the calf’s mother. The heifer’s mother approached right after I stopped shooting the video to check me out. She is an excellent mom, and a great producer to boot (about 9 gallons per day).

A few things about calves – first and foremost, Mother Milk Cows cannot keep their calves. Our average Jersey produces between six and ten gallons per day. A calf needs about 1-2 gallons to be healthy, so within a few days of birth, a young calf will be die because it cannot stop drinking her mother’s milk and mama won’t tell them to stop either (she likes the relief).  The Calf gets "Scours", or diarrhea, and actually dehydrates as it just can’t process that much liquid.


Our management technique is to separate mother and calf for a portion day and all of the night. Milk calves get a nice warm stall with a heat lamp, during the night, and time with their mothers while mom grazes during the day. Time with mama is limited to a few hours at a time - so as to prevent over-drinking.  I tell Eve those darn calves need to join "MA", or, Milk-Anonymous, as they all clearly have a drinking problem. 

In the winter, Mother and Calf are together from after morning milking (at about 10 AM) until sundown. It works really well, we end up with a very friendly, easy to lead calf (she is led out and in by us via her halter) and a happy Mom who gets to look after her calf all day. Our Calves also learn herd behavior as the Mother and baby forage with others in the group. Grazing is a learned behavior and calves watch what their Moms eat  as they slowly transition from Milk to Grass over about 3 months time.  These elements are missing from most Dairy Cows as they are conditioned to live in confinement and only eat grain.  We need to have efficient grass-to-milk converters who have heard and grazing skills. This is only the case for our dairy heifers, not our bull calves – bull calves are fed enough milk to grow up and are quickly put on a grazing rotation, so they can be of use as a feeder steers or sold at market.

In theory, it's pretty simple, but in practice, it can be quite challenging.  This is something we will teach to each of our apprentice and interns during their time here at SonRise (beginning in 2016). They must know how to manage Milk Cows as they are the center of the sustainable farm operation. Here is a brief summary of how it works…

• 40% of the earth’s surface is grass
• Cows eat grass
• Man cannot eat grass
• Chickens and Pigs can eat grass, but in very small quantities
• Other farm animals eat milk and milk by-products (Chickens, Pigs)
• By correlation Chickens and Pigs eat grass
• Man eats Cows and milk, milk by-products, Chickens and Pigs
• So by correlation, Man eats grass

The pro-GMO world’s talking points include the argument that we can’t feed the world without the large production levels that GMO’s with immunity to pesticides allow.  However, I propose that we just use the worlds grass supply, that is, if we can get to the grass before desertification can.