Our Cattle Are Never In A Feedlot.
We recently had a question from a customer about whether our organic cattle live in a feedlot before they are processed. Our cattle are never in a feedlot or feedlot style setting and go straight from our farm to the butcher.
During the summer the cattle are rotationally grazed on fresh green grass with lots of room to roam. Rotational grazing is important as it allows the cattle to have more access to fresh grass, it allows the grass to recover between being grazed, spreads the manure around, increases organic matter by allowing more grass to be trampled down and also allows the grass to go to seed in-between grazing. They are given fresh water that is pumped from our dugout to the cattle so that they always have fresh water to drink. They are not crowded and are never standing in their own manure.
In the winter the cattle are given hay to eat at their leisure. They are given access to a large amount of pasture where they can spread out and bask in the sun and there are no corrals that confine them – they have windbreaks to go behind when the weather gets rough. Behind these windbreaks they are given straw in which they can bed down in. We feed our cattle chopped hay twice a day in feeders so that the hay stays nice and clean. These feeders are moved around the large pasture area throughout the winter to help spread out the manure to prevent build up.
Our cattle are never in a feed lot setting and are never fed anything other than certified organic hay or grass.
Thanks
Sheila
- Shae Belanger
