Healthy Cows Eat Dirt

There is actually a term for eating the earth, geophagia (geo = earth; phagia = eating).  So what are the health benefits?

• Minerals
• Clay absorbs toxins

This article from Answers covers more topics than geophagia, scroll down to the section “Eating Dirt” for a little further reading.

Our pastures contain remnants of past glacier activity in this part of Nebraska.  As the glaciers receded, sand, gravel and boulders were deposited across our farm.  The exposed “sand pit” the calves are visiting in the photo above has very fine sand with clay.  We have a few of these open sand areas across the farm where the vegetation is sparse.  When the cattle move into these areas they take advantage of the naturally available minerals and clay.

As you can imagine, we and the cows, prefer vegetative cover and not bare soil patches in our pastures.  Since the majority of our pastures are covered with grass, we can count on the local badger population to create small exposed earth patches all across the farm.  When our herd encounters these badger earth piles, they will paw, scratch and lick the earth.  During fly season the cattle will use their hooves to throw the “dirt” onto their bellies and backs as fly repellant.

In addition we offer clay as part of our mineral program to allow animals to self medicate when bare earth is not available.  A quick search of the internet will give you ideas on how to add clay to your medicine cabinet also.

Please leave a comment if you have experience with the health benefits of clay as part of your diet.