Just like people, cows need a complete and balanced diet.

People get their balanced diet by eating a variety of foods with different vitamins and minerals. If you eat steak, your body gets nutrients like vitamin B12, zinc, iron and selenium, just to name a few. If you have a kale salad with your steak, your body enjoys vitamin K and vitamin A.

You already know that — but how do cows get all of the vitamins and minerals they need to be healthy?

What do cows eat so that they get a complete and balanced diet?

Grass – but the answer isn’t really that simple.

Grass is surprisingly complex.

When most people look at grass, they say it looks good if it’s green and mowed.

When a Farmer looks at grass, they see nutrition. They know that to get the best meat, you have to have good grass. In fact, grass is so important that college classes are devoted to teaching farmers how to manage it and keep it as healthy as possible.

Hey! Let’s talk about hay. On our farm, we are constantly working with hay — either making hay or feeding hay. We start making hay in late spring and finish in early fall. We then feed the hay from late fall through spring. Quality hay is essential to raising healthy cattle and quality grass fed beef.

Hey friends! Have you ever thought about hay? We do. A lot.

On our farm, we are constantly working with hay — either making or feeding it. We start making hay in late spring and finish in early fall. We then feed it from late fall through spring. Without quality hay, you can’t have quality beef.

What is hay?

Hay is dried grass. It is used to feed animals.

On average, one cow will eat five bales during a typical winter. A typical bale weighs about 600 lbs. That means we make a lot of hay so that our cattle have plenty to eat year-round.

We’re sometimes asked, “Do cows have teeth?” and “Can they bite you?” Teeth are extremely important for a cow because they need to be able to chew grass so they can digest it. Cows do have teeth but they can’t bite you. Here’s why —

Do cows get cold? How do cows stay warm in the winter? What do cows eat in winter? What’s it like for cows in snow? What’s winter like on a farm? What do farmers do in the winter?

Do cows get cold? How do cows stay warm in the winter? What do cows eat in winter? What’s it like for cows in snow? What’s winter like on a farm? What do farmers do in the winter?

These are just a few of the questions we get during the winter. We’ll try and answer all of these questions on what winter is like on our farm, especially for our cattle.

We have a new little one at our house! It’s a girl and she has the cutest red hair you’ve ever seen. Meet little baby Scarlet! She’s a bottle calf.

What is a bottle calf?

Scarlet is what’s called a bottle calf.  A bottle calf is a calf that has somehow ended up as an orphan.

Scarlet was about one week old when we found her mom lying in the pasture with all the other cows and calves, and she had passed away. It’s a sad, but true, fact that cows are a lot like humans and sometimes they pass away unexpectedly from things like a heart attack or stroke.  We believe that’s what happened to Scarlet’s mom.