DS Family Farm
Worried about what you are "really" eating? Have peace of mind with pasture grazed meats.
2023 Omega 6:3 Results
Since 2015 we have tested our harvested Pasture Grazed Beef fatty acid profile. The 2023 grazing season presented some challenges as we navigated, and continue to experience an extended drought. For much of the past growing season, our farm was in D4 (Exceptional Drought), according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. We were thankful for an unusually wet 2023 July that really helped our beef put on some grass fat leading up to harvest.
100% Grassfed and Grass Finished Beef
As you can see from the results in the chart above, DS Family Farm Pasture Grazed Beef continues to display an Omega 6:3 ratio that is expected from 100% Grassfed & Finished animals. We just don’t just guess, we test to make sure our product is as advertised.
Rest Assured With a Purchase From Our Farm
In addition to the annual testing of our beef products, you can be assured that we are raising animals with their welfare in mind.
- Follow us on Facebook or Instagram to see how our animals and pastures look throughout the year.
- Schedule a farm visit like some of these past guests to see first hand how we steward our resources.
Still not sure about our management and the meat we raise? In 2023 we went through the process to become the only farm in Nebraska to be “American Grassfed” certified. Read and learn more about the American Grassfed Standards that our farm meets to be certified.
What about beef and the environment?
Want to support your local community and the environment with your meat purchase dollars? In 2023 we completed the “Regenerative Verified” and “Regeneratively Grown” process. This testing ensures that how we manage our animals makes a positive impact on our soil, water, plants, and related resources. Beef are a keystone species for maintaining a tallgrass prairie ecosystem when they are managed in alignment with nature. We manage our natural resources in sync with God’s created order to the best of our ability.
Thank you for your interest and support of our farm in 2023 and we look forward to meeting new friends and renewing old friendships in 2024. Happy New Year!
What’s Your Goal?
We agree goals are important. We also agree that a written goal has a better chance of becoming reality. Finally, if we don’t have a goal, we agree with the following quote by Zig Ziglar.
A Holistic Goal
When we began our research into starting a beef herd, it didn’t take long before we were reading information from folks promoting and utilizing Holistic Planned Grazing. Along the way, Doug has completed a number of Holistic Management International Training courses. As you might expect, establishing a Holistic Goal is a critical first step and referred to in all of the courses.
We will not share our entire Holistic Goal in this blog post but we encourage you to do the difficult task of working through a goal setting process that works for you. Below we share some components of our holistic goal.
Holistic Context
Leading into a holistic goal, we first needed to establish the context within which we strive to operate our lives. Here is one of the key bullet points from our Holistic Context:
- Stewardship of resources
- What does this mean?
- We are part of God’s creation, called to be good stewards of ALL our resources. We try to follow God’s patterns or created order as expressed in nature and revealed through the Bible. We work as sub-creators within our farm’s ecological context.
- What does this mean?
Behaviors and Systems
Here is one of the important behaviors from our holistic goal that we need to do, over and over again:
- Be willing to investigate and try new things.
- What does this mean?
- We understand that we can never know the perfect way to steward our resources. In fact, as you learn more about Holistic Planned Grazing and the Holistic Decision Making Process, a key step is to ALWAYS “assume all decisions affecting nature are wrong”. We live in a fallen world and many of our decisions, applied to stewarding complex natural systems, will be wrong.
- What does this mean?
Future Vision
The Future Vision is the summary of your Holistic Goal. Here is one of the bullet points from our future vision. What we are working towards, what we are trying to create.
- We embrace diversity and complexity as a way to find balance and stability between all living creatures. We focus on health and life with respect for how death plays a role in this process. Our farm will mimic nature in an attempt to align with natural processes designed by our Creator. Increasing energy flow through our farm will raise all aspects of our operation.
Photo on left shows current FORM of an area we want to REFORM.
Photo on right shows an example of an area that resembles our Future Vision or FORM we desire for the entire farm.
In our mind, the photo on the right shows a small slice of what we would view as Eden here on earth.
What do we mean in the above definition of our Future Vision?
- We actually do not “create”, but being made in God’s image, we are creative and act as sub-creators.
- We know that the current creation is not what He called “good”.
- The current state of our natural world has been “bent” rather than what it is supposed to be. (C.S. Lewis)
- This makes what we see in nature all that more amazing AND it makes the future “creation restored” all that more unimaginable. (Johnathan Fisk, Echo)
- As we strive for our “ideal” farm, we cannot take the principle of “ideal” from nature, as there is no principle in nature. (G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy)
- Since we cannot get the “ideal” farm by looking at nature, we must have our own vision or goal.
- Work for what you want, have a definite vision. Do not manage against what you do not want (i.e. invasive species). (See also Alan Savory, Holistic Management.)
- God has provided us the resources we need for our ideal farm.
- We must be fond of this world, in order to change it. We must be fond of another world in order to have the vision to change it for the better.
- Chesterton prefers to call this effort, managing toward what you want, as “REFORM”.
- REFORM implies FORM, that we are trying to shape the world into, in a particular image, to make it something that we already see in our minds.
- REFORM is a metaphor for reasonable and determined individuals, it means we see certain things out of shape and we mean to put it into shape.
- The farm we are stewarding has a certain FORM and we are in the process of REFORMATION, working and managing for what we want, our Future Vision..
- What do you want?
- Chesterton says “My ideal at least is fixed; for it was fixed before the foundations of the world. My vision of perfection assuredly cannot be altered for it is called Eden.”
- The Future Vision we list above is our attempt at forming a small slice of Eden, here on earth, as we see it.
- We know Eden was destroyed during Noah’s flood and as noted above, this world is bent. We wait for the new Eden or Paradise, to fulfill our TRUE longing to walk again with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
- Working in a fallen world makes our Future Vision flawed but it is the best we can do here on earth at this time. The Stewards that follow us may have a different vision based on the FORM that we leave behind.
- The “order” we try to impose on natural systems during our REFORMATION must always submit to design that we don’t necessarily understand. (Joel Salatin, ACRES USA, Order vs. Wildness)
- Here is where following Holistic Management steps makes good sense. We consider our decisions are wrong, monitor, and have an on going REVOLUTION as we work toward our goal.
- We agree with Tony Malmberg’s post, and approach God’s Creation as Humble Stewards. We do not want to control nature, we simply apply influence.
- Plan For What You Want > Apply Your Management To Influence Nature > Monitor Your Influence > REPLAN.
- What do you want?
A creature is not a creator, and cannot be. There is only one Creation, and we are its members.
Wendell Berry – What Are People For?
Goals Should Be Measurable
How many times have you heard it said that “you can’t manage what you can’t measure”. We agree and as noted above, monitoring is part of our stewardship activities. A simple, but Big, Hairy, Audacious, Goal (BHAG – Dave Ramsey) is to see our average Soil Organic Matter (SOM) reach 8%. It takes a lot of energy flow for soils to store excess organic matter. Much of our pastures are currently around 3 to 4% but recent results of 5% SOM show that we are moving towards our goal.
We encourage you to put your goals on paper. Take the small part of this world that you have been entrusted to steward and influence it toward your vision of Eden here on earth.
Hello FLERD!
FLOCK + HERD = FLERD
Earlier this spring, son Nathan purchased a small local flock of Katahdin hair sheep. We arranged with neighbors to graze the flock on their pastures while we upgraded our perimeter fencing to handle sheep. The ewes (females) went to one neighbor along with a couple of head from the beef herd. The ram (male) went to another neighbor’s pasture. The ewes came home in mid-September and yesterday the ram arrived.
Breeding Season
The experts will tell you that one of your largest costs to owning livestock is keeping your pregnant female animals fed and happy. To keep expenses low and animals healthy, it is best to mimic nature’s pattern. In our area, the wild deer (white-tails) breeding season is the first part of November. The female deer (doe) will start dropping fawns in May. If we can come close to mimicking how nature functions in this part of the world, we should be matching our pregnant female animal needs with our local forage growth cycle.
2024 will be our first year of lambing. If things work out, lambs will start arriving the first of April. Will that be too early in the growing season? From experience, we like our calves to start arriving mid-April. We will learn and adjust as needed.
Fence and Protection for Sheep
This past summer, grazing the sheep on green growing forages, we were able to keep the flock controlled with a single portable poly-wire electric fence. Now that our forages are going dormant for the year, a single poly wire does not keep the sheep contained. The flock is sticking close by to the cattle herd at this point. We hope the sheep continue to bond with the beef herd as we are counting on the cattle to protect the flock from any predators.
Mimicking Nature
In previous blog posts, we have tried to champion the idea that nature follows a created order. Humans are here to care for the earth, and work within its natural bounds. When we try to exceed those bounds, nature simply will not allow it. Pests and weeds will arrive to correct the mistakes imposed by human mismanagement. If something appears ugly, such as an erosion scar, nature will send weeds to cover and heal it. If something smells bad, such as ammonia coming from too many livestock in an area, nature will send pests and pathogens to try to disperse the animals. Nature loves and encourages balance, not excess.
We recognized that by only grazing cattle, we were not following nature’s pattern. Though cattle are a significant keystone species for managing grasslands, with only cattle, we were like a crop farm raising a single crop (mono-cropping).
We have a God of abundance expressed through diversity in His creation. In our effort to increase diversity, this past year we did a better job distributing our chicken shelters across the farm. Adding pigs last year brought some exciting diversity to our pasture-forest edges. Now with the addition of sheep, we bring new impact to the forbs and shrubs within our grasslands and are anxious to see how this impact will hopefully diversify our grasslands.
2023 Pasture Pork
This is our second year raising and grazing pasture pigs. We have made changes from our experience last year. In 2022 we used a Mobile Pig Pen and you can read our summary from year one. In 2023 we doubled the herd size to 8 pasture pigs and eliminated the portable pen. We are moving the pigs similar to how we handle the beef herd, behind portable electric poly wire.
One Poly Wire?
We purchased our pigs after weaning in early July. Through September we have been able to keep the pigs on the move with a single electric poly wire. Resources on the internet suggest two poly wires to contain pigs. We are ready to add a second wire if needed, but the single poly wire is currently working fine. Trees have provided all the shade needed for the pigs this year. Pig herd moves have been about once a week with plenty of space for them to explore on each move.
“Fresh Grass and Move” is how we treat all the animals we raise. Frequent moves result in excellent animal health. In this process, we mimic how nature works. Animals use and dung an area and move on to a fresh patch of land. The result, soils and vegetation are regenerated.
Water
Notice the black pipe shown in the bottom left of the above photo? This is a 3/4 inch poly pipe delivering water to the herd on the move. Hauling water is a job we try to avoid. During the non-frost part of the year, we use the black poly pipe across the pasture surface to follow all of our animals on the move with water. Though I am sure the pigs could easily chomp through this pipe, create a water leak, and make a mud wallow, they simply have not bothered the pipe. A water barrel with a float valve (photo below) provides water for the herd. Thirty gallons of storage will provide water for a couple of days if the water source is interrupted. A screen below the nipple provides “some” protection to the soil from pigs creating a wallow hole.
Portable Feeders On Skids
We came across these “Osborne Wheel Feeders” that work great. They are portable and adding a “lid” to the feeders protects the feed from the elements. We ordered a new lid (green) from the company which was very expensive. The black stall cover, cut to fit the feeder top, was a cheaper and just as effective option to protect the feeder. A “wheel” in the bottom of the feeder “spins” out feed as the pigs push feeder arms with their nose. A couple of days of feed can be added to the feeder and the pigs will meter the feed out as they like.
Pig Impact
Managing animals for appropriate impact on the farm regenerates soil and forages. Animal impact is an important part of every ecosystem. We are excited about the impact pigs will have under tree areas. Pigs need protection from the sun and they love to root around under the trees. Cattle will retreat to trees for shade but provide little impact on tree areas besides just concentrating in an area for a short time. Pigs, armed with their snout, provide wonderful impact under trees and not so much impact out in the grass pastures. Pigs complement our cattle herd by providing animal impact across more of our farm landscape.
Based on our second year experience with pigs, we will look to expand the herd size again in 2024. The experts tell us that a pig herd of about 14 is the maximum size before the herd becomes unruly. Twelve might be the magic number.
2023 Grassfed Beef
Our annual line up of some Pasture Grazed Beef. 100% Grassfed and 100% Grass Finished Beef. No Grains ever. Fat cover and supple hides are a result of frequent moves to a fresh patch of forage every part of the year. Yes our beef herd is on pasture 365 days out of the year, never in a dirt or concrete lot. We do this with Holistic Planned Grazing, portable electric fencing and numerous water locations throughout the farm (follow the herd with portable water during the frost free part of the year).
Regenerative Grazing
We are developing healthy animals for our community while regenerating soils and plants. Holistic Planned Grazing results in improving land while at the same time harvesting high quality protein. Pasture Grazed Beef is meat that will heal. Numerous folks search us out for our nutrient dense beef to help heal chronic health issues.
People seek out our meats for healthy eating… they stay for the flavor.
God designed nutrition to follow flavor.
When you taste the difference in pasture-raised meat, your body will thank you with every bite.
Let Food Be Thy Medicine
Hippocrates’
Regenerative Ag Certification
The term “Regenerative Ag” has taken off over the past couple of years. Since we practice stewardship of the resources that God has provided us, we have been following the “Sustainable to Regenerative” movement through its various forms over the past two decades. With a new Farm Bill under debate, you can petition Congress to get on the Regenerative Ag band wagon (https://regenerateamerica.com/petition/#/4/).
A few of the Regenerative Certifications that might be of interest:
DS Family Farm recently completed the certification process for Soil Regen. We went ahead and completed this certification because we were familiar with the process and science behind the certification. It was reasonably priced for the data we received and fairly simple to get completed.
If you would like to see the data behind our certification, click the following link – 2023 Soil Regen DS Family Farm Data Results. The data results are based on the Soil Health “Haney Test“.
Click the following link to view a copy of the Soil Regen Verified Certificate for beef, poultry and pork raised at DS Family Farm.
If you have questions about the process we went through, feel free to contact Doug for more information.
Annual Omega 6:3 Ratio Update
We first harvested grass-fed beef (what we call Pasture Grazed Beef) in 2015. Before harvesting our first beef, we researched the science of pasture-raised animals and how they were unique. One key indicator of beef raised on an all-grass diet is the resulting Omega 6:3 fatty acid ratio of the harvested meat. A low ratio of Omega 6:3 fatty acids indicates the animal was harvested off fresh growing green vegetation. When you see green growing vegetation, you are looking at highly perishable Omega 3 fatty acids. Green growing vegetation quickly withers and dries up (perishable) if cut off and the Omega 3 fats are gone. Plants use Omega 6 fatty acids in their seeds for long time storage. Seeds can lie in the ground for years with the Omega 6 fats just waiting to help nourish a newly sprouting plant.
Cattle harvested off green growing vegetation will have more Omega 3 fats in relation (ratio) to Omega 6 fats. More Omega 3 fats make for an overall lower Omega 6:3 ratio. Cattle harvested from a confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) fed ground-up corn and soybean seeds, will have more Omega 6 fats in their meat making the Omega 6:3 ratio higher.
What does that mean for human health?
We have written extensively about this topic, feel free to read back through some previous posts. In short, the Standard American Diet (SAD) contains more omega 6 fats than omega 3 fats. Both fats are important for human health, but over doing either omega 3 or omega 6 fats causes problems. Over the past 50 years we have had a huge public relations campaign that “VEGETABLE OILS” are good for us. Many food items, that use to be cooked in animal fats, are now cooked in “SEED FATS”. As explained above, seed fats are Omega 6 fats. We are simply over consuming Omega 6 fats.
What can we do to counter Seed Oils Omega 6 Fats?
First, stop cooking with “VEGETABLE OILS”. Vegetable Oil is a nice-sounding term describing seed oils or seed fats. Convert your cooking oils to Coconut or Olive oil or better yet cook in Lard (pig fat) or Tallow (beef fat). You will be amazed at how much better your food tastes using Lard or Tallow. If you were born before 1980, maybe you can remember how good fast food French fries use to taste when they were cooked in tallow!
After reducing your seed oil consumption, search out whole raw foods and be sure to include pasture grazed meats.
DS Family Farm 2022 Harvested Beef Omega 6:3 Results
This past year’s harvest data comes from our participation in the BioNutrient Beef Project. The Nutrient Density Metabolomics Lab at Utah State University, under the direction of Stephan van Vliet, Ph.D. is providing our Omega 6:3 ratio data this year. We look forward to receiving a full bio-nutrient analysis of our beef soon.
The fatty acid results show DS Family Farm Omega 6:3 Ratio = 1.83. The report compares our results to all grass-fed beef farms participating in the project. The average Omega 6:3 Ratio for all grass-fed beef samples = 2.79. In a review of our past results for Omega 6:3 ratios, over 9 past harvests, DS Family Farm beef has never shown an Omega 6:3 ratio above 2.4:1. It appears that we are providing a truly grass-fed product. If you are interested in trying grass-fed beef, try some of our Pasture Grazed Beef. The data shows our Pasture Grazed Beef has a lower Omega 6:3 ratio than the average grass-fed beef farm.
Summary From Utah State Concerning Omega 6:3 Ratio
Description: The ratio of omega-6 fatty acids divided by omega-3 fatty acids.
Potential Health Effects: A lower omega 6:3 ratio is typically considered beneficial. Lower levels means a higher abundance of omega-3 fatty acids. Randomized controlled trials suggest that beef with a low omega 6:3 ratio can increase omega-3 blood levels in consumers, which is generally considered beneficial for human health.
Doug’s added note: The reason a lower Omega 6:3 ratio is considered “beneficial”, in my opinion, is the Standard American Diet results in over consumption of omega 6 fatty acids. Anything you can do to reduce omega 6 consumption is probably a beneficial move for the health of most of Americans.
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!
