Our first beef – one year to go

In the last post we noted that we are three years into our beef operation, yet we have not shipped any beef yet.  Last year we had our first calf crop, 5 heifers and 4 bulls.  The 5 heifer calves were shipped off to be developed into future momma cows.  We kept the four bull calves and are “finishing” them out, fattening them in our pastures to sell as pastured grass-fed beef.  Our first beef – one year to go – will be ready to butcher mid summer 2015.  Could we speed things up? Sure, the industrial agriculture sector does it all the time. Just bring in an outside energy source (oil) and you can compress the growing to finishing process.  Calves put into feed lots can be “finished” in less than 18 months, fed corn, corn by products and provided other growth promoting technologies.  Our farm uses very little outside inputs (minerals and stored forages).  The main energy source used on our farm to create beef is solar.

So what does a solar fattened one year old beef look like.  We are happy to share the photos below of our pastured only fat yearlings.  These cattle are just over one year old.  We need one more year to get these animals to “fat cattle” that are ready for your table.  Join us over the next year to watch these animals turn into gourmet pastured beef!