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What about bone marrow?
Don’t know. Certainly love what I taste when I have osso bucco. But I have never really focused on the subject until our butcher, Doug Aylestock of Blue Ridge Meats, cut up some from our latest animal to introduce us to the treat. I’ve always been really happy with the soup bones we get from our animals and so I was only mildly interested. Wooz, on the other hand, got very excited when she saw the four bags of marrow bones on the gurney. Apparently marrow bones are just the ticket if you want to make serious beef stock….waaay better than the store-bought stuff. Not only that, but apparently it’s…
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Commenting on the comments…
Two readers of our blog (see the Roundtable below and the comments added) have prompted a response from Bill Roberts of 12 Stones Grasslands Beef. To comment on both thoughtful comments to the blog: We work with top grass fed cattle producers coast to coast. Several run grass cow/calf operations in the thousands and several finish fats in the multiple hundreds. Other than genetic potential, the three most common issues concerning limitations of grass cattle to grow and breed early or finish early are 1) Total nutrients available for the daily grazing 2) Adequate energy to meet animal requirements in the volume consumed daily 3) Mineralization 1 – is…
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Don’t cut back….
…on the minerals. We’ve noticed in the past week or two that the cows have suddenly increased their intake of minerals. We’re assuming the bitterly cold temperatures have finally done-in the fescue grass, which is pretty good feed in the winter. But the cows (or in this case, the young bulls) know best. We’ve also begun to put a bale of hay in front of our growing animals—the bulls and heifers—and it is interesting that they know how to balance their intake between the alfalfa and regular hay. As the old saying goes, God taught the cow all it needs to know to be a perfect cow! Incidentally, our main herd…
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The secret ingredient….
….in Thistle Hill cows and beef. But it’s no secret, we’ve been saying for some time we think (next to Wooz’ care, of course) it’s our mineral program. Visitors invariably remark that they have never seen a group of healthier, more vital animals than those at Thistle Hill. We do a lot of experimenting, try various grazing plans, top-seed clover, spray with different natural fertilizer combinations. But the one thing we’ve held constant is our mineral program. It’s a cafeteria-style approach, where the cows don’t have a mixture of all the essential minerals as designed by “experts” but select from trays of the individual minerals. They do actually self-diagnose. Soils vary…
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Still another innovation at Thistle Hill….
We’re constantly experimenting here at Thistle Hill, looking for new and better ways to care for our farm and our cattle and, not incidentally, improve the quality of our meat. This tanker truck is spraying some test pastures with a mixture of microbes and fungi…one of several approaches we’re using to strengthen the root system and thicken the grasses in our pastures. The improved yield means better nutrition for the cows and also could enable us to increase the number of animals on the farm. But what we are particularly aiming for is a stronger, healthier stand of grass in the summer. Virginia’s hot, dry summers bring grass production almost…
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All dirt is not the same…..
Water (not oil) may be our most precious resource but dirt isn’t far behind. And with all the changes we’ve made to our pastures at Thistle Hill (and the addition of more acreage) we thought it was time for a complete analysis of our soil. So last week we brought in Tellus Consulting again for a survey. Tim Woodward (on the left) took samples in seven key and representative pastures. Not sure who the old geezer was on the right who showed up to watch. The hundreds of samples are sent off to a lab in Ohio…put through a number of tests to identify the mineral content, fertility, pH and…
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Not all food is created equal….
A good friend has written an article on food production that we think deserves wider dissemination than we offer here…..but we’ll do our bit. Organizations such as Weston A. Price are stout advocates of what is termed “nutrient dense food”. It’s a phrase that is beginning to find its way into popular literature and Bill Roberts, of 12 Stones Grassland Beef, offers his take on it below. We think he’s right and spend a good deal of money each year trying to improve the mineralization of our soil. We also spend about 10 times what the average farmer does on natural, organic mineral supplements for our cows. America’s soils were…
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On the soap box (again)…
If Thistle Hill has a secret weapon, it may be our mineral program. It’s certainly not a “top secret”; many natural livestock people do what we do. But it is not generally used in the commercial industry because of the cost involved. A cow grazing in the wild doesn’t need mineral supplementation. She can select from the grasses, herbs and even the soil to keep her system in balance and her immune system strong. But in a fenced pasture, she is at the mercy of what is before her. That’s particularly a problem in the East, where the land was “farmed out” long ago. I’ve seen estimates that it would…