The simple truth
is animal genetics, the quality of the grass and hay they eat, the
minerals we mix, and never using dewormer, hormones or antibiotics ensure
that we have a consistently superior product. While many beef producers claim “all
natural” or organic, their cattle are fed grain or grain by-products. Our beef is from grassfed
grass-finished animals that never receive grain or grain
by-products.
All of our grassfed beef cattle are born & raised on our family farm in Anderson, SC.
Animal
genetics. We start with a superior line of Trask
Polled Hereford, an heirloom variety of Hereford cattle. We knew Mr. Trask personally and have
had Trask cattle on the farm since 1950.
We choose animals that show phenotypic traits for finishing exceptionally
well on grass. We base this on
information gained through years of studying the teachings of Gearld Fry and the
late Charles Walters, who base their teachings on the wisdom of Dr. Jan Bonsma,
James Drayson, and Heino Messerschmidt.
Quality grass and
hay. We follow the Albrecht method of soil
fertility as the first step in producing quality grass and hay. Simply stated, if you feed the soil
microbes what they need, the soil will feed the grass what it needs, which in
turn feeds the animals what they need to finish on grass. We annually send soil samples from our
pastures and hay fields to a lab that tests for trace elements to ensure we apply
what is actually needed by the microbes.
The standard “a ton of lime per acre” is NOT what hay fields
need. If it worked people wouldn’t
have to keep doing it, yet this is what folks who are “supposed to know"
recommend without even doing a soil test!
We use management
intensive grazing practices, or rotational grazing, which is how foraging
animals eat in the wild. This
encourages distribution of grass and forbe seeds, ensures the animals
continually eat the most nutritious grass and forbes, fertilizes the grass, and
reduces the carbon footprint by sequestering
carbon!
We do not use
herbicides or pesticides in our pastures and hay fields!
We believe that the Creator put everything we and our animals would ever
need right here. Most of the
“weeds” that people kill by spraying herbicides are actually full of nutrients
and medicine. We love to see
Plantain, Violet, Clover, Shepherd’s Purse and Chickweed in our fields and
pastures!
Minerals. We mix
our own minerals as the store-bought bags do not contain enough of most
elements. Using our formula learned
from Gearld Fry, we no longer need to vaccinate and deworm our cattle. Most other producers vaccinate and
deworm twice a year!
No antibiotics or hormones
ever. We do not take antibiotics
or hormones, so why would we give them to the animals that we eat? Because of our animal management
program, rarely do we have an injured or ill animal. We see each animal several times a day,
so if something unforeseen comes up we are on it almost immediately. When medicine is required we use herbal
remedies as we do for ourselves! If
anything serious were to come up, the animal would be removed from the grassfed
program. We choose for genetics
that do not produce problem animals!