DS Family Farm
Worried about what you are "really" eating? Have peace of mind with pasture grazed meats.
Pray for rain?
Grass farmers keep tabs on rainfall because grass growth tends to track well with the amount of rain a pasture receives. We have been told the amount of soil moisture you have at the beginning of the water year (October 1) is a good indicator of how grass growth will start off the following growing season. In our part of Nebraska, last October 1, we had some soil moisture but overall, we were dry and remain dry! What has happened since October 1, 2022? Here are a few interesting rainfall summaries for our area:
The above map from comes from the Drought section of PRISM Climate Group. Since the beginning of the Water Year we are in an area that has received 30% to 50% of “normal” or “average” Precipitation. Does that mean we will only grow 50% of the amount of grass we normally produce?
The chart above displays the last 100 years of precipitation records for October through April. There are only 14 years during the past 100 years that have been drier for this time period (Oct. – Apr.) in our County. We have been grazing our pastures since 2011, so this is obviously uncharted territory for us, usually we have had at least 4 more inches of rainfall by this time of year to work with. This chart is very easy to make for your County by visiting the NOAA website.
Current Soil Moisture
While planting some trees this past week, maybe not the best thing to do during a drought, we found some soil moisture. Much of the property looks green. We do believe that our past management is paying off entering a second growing season with less than ideal moisture conditions. Why do we have some soil moisture and why do the pastures look green? We guess it is based on the following main points:
- Holistic Planned Grazing
- Reduction in herd size starting April 2022
- Leaving appropriate soil cover
- Warm season grass pastures
Warm Season Grasses
Our pastures are predominantly warm season grasses. These are native prairie grasses such as Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, Indiangrass, Switchgrass and Eastern Gamagrass. These are also known as C4 plants, which thrive when it is hot and dry. These native grasses are just now starting to take off and will begin to use the available soil moisture. The warm season grasses have bought us some time in hope of receiving some early summer rains.
Cool Season Grasses
Our pastures do contain some cool season native grasses and primarily two invasive cool season grasses; Smooth Bromegrass, and Reed Canarygrass. Over the past few weeks, we have heavily utilized reed canary grass in our sub irrigated land (which does have some good soil moisture). Smooth brome invades upland native grass pastures and is highly palatable (cows love it). Usually this time of year, smooth brome is a couple feet tall and we are happy to graze it while waiting for our warm season grasses to take off. The upland cool season grasses appear to be producing about half (50%) than what we would expect for a typical spring grazing season.
We are happy that our pastures look green and pleased with this amount of growth on our cool season grasses as neighbors have told us they only expect about 25% of typical growth on their predominantly solid stands of smooth brome.
Pray for Grass?
We have been praying for rain but not receiving much rain. The largest rain event recently has been a quarter of an inch, and we were grateful for that. In spite of the lack of rain, God has blessed us with grass and the opportunity to adjust our operation for what appears to be another below average year of grass growth. So maybe we should be praying for more grass rather than rain… cows eat grass, not rain.
Looking for more information on drought forecasting, check out the many resources at the “U.S. Drought Monitor“:
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap.aspx
We also like the Vegetation Drought Response Index (VegDRI).
Grassfed Beef – The Real Burger
With Earth Day 2023 fast approaching, we are happy to partner with the Good Meat Project to be Nebraska’s local Grassfed beef provider of “The Real Burger of Earth Day“. Purchasing Pasture Grazed beef from DS Family Farm is a great way to celebrate Earth Day. What better way to grill during this upcoming season than with a new Big Green Egg grill/smoker/oven?
Cattle are good for the earth?
If you are not a regular reader of this blog, you may be asking why The Good Meat Project and others are celebrating Earth Day with grassfed beef. Back in the early 2000s as we were planning on adding cattle to the farm, we noticed the media beginning to put out the message that beef was a problem. A problem with elevated carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, global warming, and now the shift to climate change. These climate-related messages followed decades of misinformation that saturated fats were causing all kinds of health problems.
Cattle raised and cared for as nature intended, living their life on grass, is good for the Earth, good for You the consumer and good for our local economy. Browse our many past posts on these topics for specific information related to our farm. For a good general overview check out the Good Meat Breakdown website.
Remember: Nutrition Follows Flavor – try some grassfed beef and taste the difference!
Opportunities in Animal Agriculture
Managing animals on a pasture based farm gives us the opportunity to raise animals in what we consider a more “natural way”. With that said, we do experience the loss of animals on occasion as death is part of the natural cycle of life. It is extremely rare to lose mature cattle raised on pasture but we do lose a calf now and then for various reasons. Day-old chicks are another story. When ordering chicks, the hatchery will actually send an extra chick for every 25 chicks ordered, some death loss is assumed. In some cases we have grown out more chickens than what we actually ordered because of the added chicks! Unfortunately, this spring we have experienced chick loss beyond the expected one per 25 chicks.
USPS versus a HEN
Day old chicks arrive in the mail from the hatchery. This part of raising chickens is far from natural! Without a mother around, the chicks have a challenge at the start to their life, the most critical portion of their existence. We do our best to provide for their needs in our brooder chicken coop. Feed, water, and a warm dry, draft-free climate.
When our boys were young, we had a small 4-H chicken flock of bantam hens and a rooster. We let a hen set on a clutch of eggs and hatch out her brood chicks. It was simply amazing how mother hen was able to raise her young chicks. We didn’t provide her chicks special feed, water, and a controlled climate, she did it all.
Other young animals on our farm
The calves born on our farm are raised by their mother and stay in the same herd their entire life. There are just very few health issues with cattle raised “naturally”. The calf learns from its mother and herd mates early on in life. Transgenerational learning on what to graze and how to act provides many health benefits to a herd. If we bring in other animals to raise, such as a steer or pig, these individuals will have been raised by their mothers elsewhere giving them a great start in life.
Sustainability
Is our chicken operation sustainable? No, relying on a hatchery and the mail is not sustainable in the long run. It works under the current agriculture system, and we feel the chickens that we order from the hatchery live out a very good life on our farm versus a life in a confined animal feeding operation (CAFO). A future goal would be to transition our chicken operation to a better source of chicks. Having a breeding flock would be an option but there are only so many things we can do. We would prefer to source chicks from another local farm that specializes in caring for a breeding flock.
Opportunities in Ag
There are many opportunities to change our current agriculture systems for the better. We are trying to do our part by raising high quality pastured meats for our customers. Please reach out to us if you know of anyone interested in raising meat bird chicks. We would love to be a customer to someone that has the drive to change this portion of our current agriculture system for the better!
Bionutrient Soil Results
We have previously written about the importance of healthy soils to grow healthy grass to raise healthy animals. You have probably heard it said, you are what you eat. We feel that you need to find out what your food ate! Vegetables and fruit grown in healthy soils will be nutritionally superior. Animals raised on healthy pastures will taste better and be nutritionally superior. We believe YOU ARE what your food ATE!
In our participation with the “Defining Nutrient Density BEEF” project, we previously posted the forage test results, an estimate of what our beef was consuming before harvest. The photo below shows an example of the pastures being grazed prior to beef harvest in August 2022.
Soil Mapping by Vegetation and Landscape Position
During Doug’s employment with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, he learned from Soil Scientists how soil maps are created. Soil Scientists utilize the topography of the land and vegetation to distinguish different soils. Soils develop differently primarily based on vegetation and gravity, or erosional forces. The Web Soil Survey is a great tool to find soil maps for your home or farm.
For The Bionutrient Institute’s “Defining Nutrient Density BEEF” project, we collected a “composite” soil sample across the pasture where the beef grazed before harvest. A “composite” soil sample is created by taking multiple “soil cores” zero to 6 inches deep and mixing them together. Looking again at the photo above, we collected “soil cores” in the upland, in the draw, and under the trees. These were all areas where the cattle were grazing the different forages that were growing. The soils on the uplands will have different levels of nutrients and organic matter compared to the soil in the draw or under the trees. By mixing the soil cores, we end up with average test results for the soils in our pasture.
Soil Test Results Summary
Doug was a little surprised with Percent Organic Matter. Test results = 4% soil organic matter, this is higher than what Doug was expecting. Considering that the hills being grazed this time of year are native grasses seeded back to old cropland. Before seeding the grasses, these hills were farmed for almost 100 years. Through the years, much of the topsoil was eroded and degraded. Typically the hill soils will have around 3% or less organic matter. Considering that we mixed in some bottomland soils, 4% soil organic matter does seem to make sense. Historically, we believe the soils under the Tall Grass Prairie in this area of the country would have had soil organic matter as high as 8%. We do have room to improve. Hopefully, our management will continue to restore and regenerate our soils to a healthier state.
Soil Organic Matter is used to calculate the “Estimated Nitrogen Release #N/Acre” value of 90 lbs. Nitrogen. This is plenty of nitrogen to grow 3,000 – 4,000 lbs. of warm season forages per acre (average for this area of Nebraska). We never apply synthetic fertilizers to the pastures. Nature is providing adequate Nitrogen. It just makes us stop and think, what is the potential forage production if our soils were restored to those much higher levels of organic matter around 8%?
As for the other nutrients/minerals listed on the report, we are just happy to see that they are all listed to some level. It is the biology in the soil that unlocks the available nutrients for plant use. As long as the minerals are there, it is our job to manage for active soil biology to release the minerals to the plants. Healthy soils = Healthy plants = healthy happy animals.
Bionutrient Forage Results
Last year we enrolled in the “Defining Nutrient Density BEEF” project being conducted by THE BIONUTRIENT INSTITUTE (see our June 2022 blog post). We are still waiting for the analysis reports from the harvested beef samples. At this time we do have the Forage analysis report that we can share.
Trying to collect what the herd grazed…
The results below are from forages collected a few weeks before last year’s August beef harvest. We followed the herd and tried to collect a sample of what they were consuming during their typical graze events. The green material collected was predominantly warm-season grasses but also included cool-season grasses, forbs, and some leaves from shrubs and trees we noticed they had browsed. The freshly collected sample was sent to the laboratory in a cooler to prevent spoilage.
In the above test results, the “Median” column represents the testing lab average values for a “mixed hay” sample (best match to what we collected). The “Dry Basis” column displays the results of what we think our cattle were eating at the time. Numbers in orange were below the lab Median and numbers in green were above the lab Median. The bold, dark outline cells, point out items that were either below the 90% Low column or above the 90% High column (depending on if the cell is shaded orange or green). We highlighted in Yellow the macronutrient test results; we are most interested in when trying to get animals “Grass Fat” leading up to harvest.
Forage Test Summary
The above image displays the Dairyland Laboratories, Inc. final results and summary table. We added the box with the Protein: Energy Ratio. This forage sample was collected during the time of year when we are trying to “finish” our Pasture Grazed Beef. DS Family Farm beef are grass-fed their entire lives, what others call Grass Finished Beef. The Protein:Energy Ratio is actually a tool used for human diets. We are not sure if it applies to cattle, but it seems to make sense that the same combination of macronutrients that make humans fat would make other mammals fat. This time of year, we are trying to keep our Pasture Grazed Beef gaining weight (fat) right up to harvest. A Protein to Energy (P:E) Ratio of 0.19 would indicate that cattle consuming these forages would be gaining weight.
Some closing thoughts…
It has been proven through studies, that humans are not very good at trying to collect samples from forages to match what cattle are “actually” grazing. Consistently, cattle will select better forages to consume with their nose (smell best forage) and tongue (rip that exact forage) than what humans will do trying to clip forages behind the herd. This has been proven by comparing human selected samples to what actually ended up in the cattle’s gut (use of esophageal-fistulae). As you look at the data reported above, be assured that the cattle did a better job selecting the best forages available than what we did in trying to collect a sample of what they were eating!
The forage sample is just one piece of the puzzle of information submitted for the Beef Study. We also sent in:
- Soil Sample
- Manure Samples
- Harvested Beef Samples
As more data becomes available we will be happy to share our experience with the study here on our blog.
Graze 24/7 – 365
Another year of grazing pastured beef and pasture chickens is complete. In 2022 we tried our hand at grazing pasture pigs. The pigs were a highlight for the year, something new. A below-average rainfall year in 2022 gave us some challenges and we scaled back the beef herd in response to the reduced moisture. We have entered the 2023 water year in a low moisture position and will continue to monitor our pastures.
So what does a year of grazing 24/7 – 365 days per year look like? Enjoy a month-by-month snapshot featuring our cow herd and pastures. Thank you for your interest in our Pasture Grazed farm and we look forward to connecting with you in 2023.
Trust
It seems everyone is pitted against everyone else these days. What happened, who can we trust? I hear that we are now in a “service-based economy”, yet it seems difficult to get simple jobs completed, and on time. Quality is sacrificed at the altar of “cheap and efficient”. When it comes to the agriculture sector, Bob Quinn, in his book “Grain by Grain”, describes the following in our country’s obsession with “cheap food” and the impacts of industrial agriculture on our rural areas as follow:
“deleterious social impacts, unemployment, crime, depression, diminished civic participation, even a reduction in the degree to which rural people trusted one another.”
Bob Quinn and Liz Carlisle “Grain by Grain”
At DS Family Farm, we are not removed from those who eat the food we produce, trust is important.
Lack of Trust
Not only do rural neighbors show a lack of trust in each other, but the toll of industrial agriculture in the chase for “cheap food” has pitted eaters against farmers. Why is that? Bob Quinn goes on to explain that this lack of trust results from the farmer being “further and further removed from any sort of concern with the people who ate the food.” It isn’t completely the farmer’s fault. They are just doing what they thought was best and what people wanted, producing as efficiently as possible. The same could probably be said for the ag and food corporations (but the industrial food complex has profited the most from this situation). Let’s face it, as a society, for what seemed like good intentions, we took the road of “cheap is better”. After a couple of generations traveling down the “cheap is better” road, the results are a more sick society and sick environment in which we all live.
Efficiency & Quantity versus Quality
When we started our pasture-grazed (grass-fed and grass finished) beef operation, we understood that to produce an acceptable product, Quality was our only option. We were warned that cutting corners in pasture finishing animals would result in a product you could not sell. Finishing animals on pasture takes longer than finishing animals using the “efficient industrial agriculture process”:
- 40% longer for pastured cattle (100% Grass-fed and 100% Grass Finished)
- 35% longer for pastured pigs (Pastured with supplemental grains)
- 40% longer for pastured chickens (Pastured with supplemental grains)
Grain finished versus Grass Finished Beef (grain finished photo source USDA).
Flavor = Quality
We have written previously that flavor in meats is a result of numerous factors, such as diversity in diet. Our bodies intuitively know that food nutrient density (Quality) follows flavor. If you take a bite of food and it tastes great, chances are that food is extremely nourishing!
The Choice is Ours
Despite our society’s previous choice to go down the road of an efficient and cheap food system, we have the power to choose what we put in our body daily. Voting for the type of agriculture you want to support comes down to how you want to spend your income. Over the past few generations we have witnessed a switch from more of our income being spent on FOOD to now being spent on HEALTH CARE. This appears to be caused partially by the choice of putting CHEAP FOOD into our bodies.
We encourage you to do your research on this topic. If you would like to be able to look your food producer in the eye and trust the food you are feeding your family, please consider sourcing directly from a farmer. Here are some resources to help you in your search:
We are thankful for all of our customers that have searched out and source their families food from our small grass based farm. It is very rewarding to receive thank you notes like the one from Heather above. If you would like to visit our farm to see what we are doing, please reach out to us. We would be happy to gain your TRUST.
Pasture Pork Experience
Pasture raised meats is our focus here at DS Family Farm and we had a great experience with our pasture pigs in 2022. When trying something new we like to start small. In keeping with our “pasture grazed” moto, the pigs of course needed to be able to enjoy “Fresh Grass and Move“! Review our May 2022 Mobile Pork post for how we planned to move the pigs.
Fresh Pasture and Move
The Mobile Pig Pen served its purpose for our four pasture pig test in 2022. A few things to note:
- The shade tarp barely survived the 5 months.
- The upside-down side pig panels slid nicely with the pull of a 300 cc ATV.
- The front panel on the caster wheels worked fine.
- Leap-frogging the portable pig net from move to move worked well under the tree rows.
- Access to trees on almost every move was greatly enjoyed by the pigs.
- Moves every other day or every third day worked out for most of the summer.
- The water tank (30 gallons) and nipple would last 2 days.
- Steel mesh below the nipple worked as a skid and deterrence from creating a puddle.
- The single hog feeder worked well but took pig punishment the last few weeks.
- Pigs received about 2 lbs. of no soy / no corn formulated feed each day in feed pans.
- Four to six lbs. of seed screenings were added to the feeder each day.
- Pasture disturbance was appropriate.
- With little rain, these pasture pigs were not able to root around too much.
Grow Out
We estimate the pigs weighed around 30 lbs. when they arrived in mid-April. Mid-May the four Idaho Pasture Pigs made the move from our garden into the portable pig pen. Six months of Fresh Grass and Move with their daily no soy / no corn (non-GMO) grains and seed screenings. One of the four did not grow out the same as the other three. Harvest was the last week of October. The pigs were able to jump into the back of our livestock trailer for the ride to the butcher. Final hanging weights: three pigs = 160 lbs. and the fourth smaller pig = 110 lbs.
Future Pasture Pig Enterprise?
Our customers indicate they are interested in pasture pork. We will need to do an economic analysis and complete further research on ways to scale pasture pork. There are some excellent resources available online, and now that we have a growing season of experience, we can better pick and choose options that best fit our goals and farm context.
One definite conclusion is that pasture pigs have personalities! The farm did feel a little lonelier after the pigs left. The pigs were a hit with our farm visitors, especially during the hot summer of 2022. These four were always up to perform their signature PORK BELLY FLOP anytime you added water… please take a moment to enjoy their performances:
Regenerative Agriculture
Sheila and I were visiting our son Jacob recently at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne Indiana. After chapel service, many of the students and professors meet for coffee. While visiting, one of Jacob’s friends brought up the term “Regenerative Agriculture”. I asked him where he had heard that term. He replied that his wife was researching the best way to feed their family and she has been searching out local producers practicing “Regenerative Ag.” This young mother is on a mission, refer to this past post Moms On A Mission.
When we started on our path of grazing cattle in a manner that mimics nature, the term “Regenerative Ag” had not been widely promoted. We were following in the footsteps of those practicing Holistic Management and the local Sustainable Ag movement. The leaders in these movements realized that virtually all agricultural lands across the USA are degraded. To “sustain” land in a “degraded” state is not our goal. What we were promoting and implementing on the ground better fit under the definition of “regenerative” rather than “sustainable”. We are improving degraded lands (not just sustaining) while at the same time meeting current food needs. For another take on this topic, we encourage you to read “Why Regenerative Agriculture” from our friends at Understanding Ag.
Regenerative or Reformation?
We are ok with the term “regenerative” and are happy to be part of the overall “regenerative ag movement”. For a deeper dive into regenerative ag, check out some of these websites and follow the bunny trail to numerous others: [KISS THE GROUND] [Farmers Footprint] [Understanding Ag] [Regenerative Organic Alliance] [Noble Research Institute] [NCAT Soil For Water] [Regeneration International] [Soil Carbon Initiative] [Quivira Coalition] [Holistic Management International] [Center For Regenerative Ag – Chico]
The term “regenerative” is much better than “sustainable”. We agree that new “soil” can grow (regenerate) from a previously eroded scar in the earth just like new skin can grow from a scar on your arm. So maybe the term “regenerative” is the best fit for what is being promoted.
Why not “Reformation Ag”? We need to take action to reform the institution of agriculture as currently being practiced. Many of the organizations promoting “Regenerative Ag” are calling for change. Problems or impacts of industrial agriculture include:
- Unemployment
- Crime
- Depression
- Diminished civic participation
- Reduction in trust among rural people
- Ecological simplification (monocultures, loss of diversity)
- Nutritional loss (crops bred for yield)
- Dependence on chemical inputs
- A disconnect between those growing our food and those consuming it
- Loss of rural communities (infrastructure, institutions, relationships)
- (Bullet point summary from “Grain By Grain” by Bob Quinn and Liz Carlisle)
What can you do?
To take part in Reformation/Regenerative Ag, here are a couple of ideas:
- Learn more about Regenerative Ag using the links above
- Improve your piece of land (size does not matter) utilizing Soil Health Principles
- Support a local farm by purchasing directly from the farmer
- As the 2023 US Farm Bill is debated, let your congressperson know you support Regenerative Ag
Let’s fast-track the Regenerative Ag movement through a 21st Century Reformation Ag Movement.
Grazing Through A Dry Summer
For most of the 2022 summer, our pasture has not been in a “drought” as defined by the U.S. Drought Monitor. At the end of August, we have slipped into the category of “D1 – Moderate Drought”. We are thankful for the timely rains that have kept us out of the “drought” category for most of the 2022 growing season. With the New Water Year just one month away, we are starting to think about our 2023 grazing year. How much grass will grow in 2023? Soil moisture conditions on October 1 will give us an indication of what to expect for grass in 2023. This will be the second year in a row that we could enter a new water year with “low” soil moisture conditions. We did notice reduced pasture production this growing season due to low soil moisture at the beginning of the last water new year, October 1, 2021.
Grazing Warm Season Grasses
The 2022 Pasture Grazed Beef looked great coming off our pasture this month. Timely rains, predominantly warm season pastures and, our management, took us through the dry grazing season just fine. Warm season native grasses such as Big Bluestem, Indiangrass, Switch Grass and, Little Bluestem (Nebraska State Grass) are known as “C4” plants (more info concerning C3 vs. C4 plants). Carbon 4 (C4) plants thrive when it is hot and dry, therefore known as “warm season” plants. Carbon 3 (C3) plants are called “cool season” plants and do better during the cool wet periods. We want both C3 and C4 plants in our pastures for diversity, to take advantage of our entire growing season that cycles from cool spring to hot summers to cool falls. But when we are managing pasture grazed beef through our hot dry summers, warm season grasses are critical.
Heeding The Experts
Before starting our 100% Grass-fed / Grass Finished beef herd, we researched what the experts were saying. The experts warned that it would be difficult to finish or get beef fat, on warm season perennial grass. This information was valuable! Over the years we have learned to adapt our grazing management to utilize warm season grass to finish and fatten beef in our environment.
A Flavor Unique To Our Farm
You are invited to taste the difference of grass-fed beef, what we call “Pasture Grazed Beef“. Many of our customers, in search of grass finished beef, come to us for health reasons. These customers return because of the taste and flavor. Flavor comes from fat. The grass fat from our pastures has a unique flavor to our farm and this area of Nebraska.
Why is Flavor so important?
Licking and rubbing in the sand is a favorite activity.
With droughty, sandy soils, warm season grasses are critical for our hot dry summer months.
