The meaning of it all

My life is shifting into high gear for the next couple months. I thought I was already there, but after checking out my calender I have realized the fun has only just begun.
My calender is booked, my car is seeing some serious miles, and my mind is whirling with everything going on.
But, most of it is some pretty fun and interesting stuff. While I am about to self combust on the days I have to sit at my desk, the weekends and other days away from it ensure my mental sanity..I think.
If you've read any of the recent posts you will know my family is right in the middle of fall work. If you aren't directly involved in ag, this may not sound like much more than the shuffling of cows and moving of sheep I am always chattering away about on here.
But, this fall work is all done for the health of our livestock, the betterment of our marketable product (beef) and the continued successful management of our natural resources.
We are busy giving our calves shots this time of year, much like students get certain immunizations before entering certain grades. We are watching our freshly weaned calves diligently, and providing immediate assistance if any single animal becomes sick. We are feeding, watering and providing shelter for them at all times. We are literally at their disposal 24/7 to ensure they stay happy and healthy.
We are moving cows to different pastures to allow the grass to rest and re-grow in already grazed pastures. We are grazing new pastures because we need the grass for our cattle, and to improve the forage quality. It's proven that properly grazed forages maintain landscapes that are healthier, with more desirable plant species than ungrazed landscapes.
A lot of thought and planning goes into the when, why and how each pasture is grazed, and it's all done to maximize the health of the grasses on the entire ranch.
This benefits our cattle, as they have access to higher quality forages when proper grass management is utilized and will perform better. But, these benefits also extend to any wildlife in the area and improves water quality, soil quality, and forage species quality when done for extended periods of time.
We are also doing all these things to improve our product, which is meat in the end. I have the mindset that if I'm going to do anything, be it sweeping dirt or designing a rocket, I will do my very best at it. I have this same philosophy toward raising cattle, and so do a lot of other people. Not everyone is like this in any area/group/culture, but a high percentage of farmers and ranchers are.
I will do whatever I can within my available means to make the very best beef you will ever eat. That means taking care of the cattle I raise, the grass they eat, the environment they live in, and anything else that impacts their performance and quality.
So, when I'm showing you pictures and explaining what we're doing on a given day, that's only the tip of the iceberg. Those actions depicted in my pictures and descriptions can literally extend all the way to your dinner tonight, and there are thousands of people just like me that are working hard every single day to make sure your dinner is safe, nutritious and healthy.

My 1,017 pound babies

Have I mentioned I love cattle? I love looking at them, picking them apart visually, and breeding them to make them the best they can be. It's so exhilarating to take a bunch of cows and make them produce a superior product year and year. It's a fun challenge!

Every cow and bull has genetic triats, like people do. People pass traits such as eye color on to their children, and some traits are more heritable than others. Cattle are the same way, and through available information producers can select animals that have specific traits. That's what I do - select specific traits and make sure each bull we buy has the traits we like and doesn't have traits we don't like.

The result of all that time and energy are our cull heifers and steers we market each year, in addition to our replacement heifers we put back in the herd.

I believe you can have a herd that does it all and you can have high enough quality cattle to top any market you choose to sell them in. I think this is possible because there is so much information on the genetics traits cattle posses, and so many cattle to choose from.

My family has marketed our cattle in almost every way possible, with the exception of using the internet. We have sold weaned calves, backgrounded calves, grass fed yearlings, corn fed stockers and fat cattle. We've also sold cattle in the beef and on the grid. Let me know if you want to know more about these marketing options and I'll cover them more in depth or reference someone else who has.

We believe in being flexible, innovative and keeping up with trends, and it's starting to really work for us. Through selling our cattle in these different ways we have acquired a lot of data that tells buyers about the quality of our cattle before they even see them. We also keep a list of bulls we've used, which tells buyers about our cattle's pedigrees.

This year was the first time in about seven years we kept our steers home and put them on grass for the summer.

It worked well. The average weight of the bunch was 1,017 pounds each and they gained 2.64 pounds a day from May through September on just grass. The closest guess on weight was the buyer, who thought they would weigh 990 pounds each.

It's always nice when you're cattle perform better than even the buyer guessed!
The cattle buyer is a guy who has purchased our cattle several times over the last decade. He bought them sight-unseen. It's a wonderful thing when you can work with people you trust, and this was one of those situations.



Here we are loading the trucks. My mom took the first two pictures. Where I'm from is famous for it's gains on grass. Some places south of Lusk boast gains of over 3 pounds a day for yearlings on just grass. I'm ready to increase how much ours gain each day over the next couple years through genetic selection.

Some of the best cattle in the world are from my region of the USA. People work hard every day to produce a high quality, safe and wholesome product. My family is no different and these steers are the result of over a year's worth of work. We have nurtured and fed and doctored them since March of 2009, when they were born.


They will be fattened in a feedlot in central South Dakota and harvested in February of 2011 as black, implant free cattle. We are planning a trip out around Thanksgiving to go hunting and check on them.

Like I said, I love producing quality cattle, and these guys are result of my entire families work and dedication for the last year. Now it's time to move on to the next bunch, who are just about ready to be weaned from their mothers.

Oh, Organic?

I'm cruising through the blog world the other day when I stumble upon a girls post about food.

Oh dear.

She was explaining why organic meat was more expensive and that non-organic animals were usually infected with disease due to the industries poor housing of livestock, and so on...

10 deep breathes later I wrote her a nice comment explaining my background and what sentences in her post I felt were a little misrepresenting of the livestock industry.

So, how about organic? What's up with it? I decided this would be easy and googled the term "organic meat" to grab the stats that I heard so often in college...except they didn't come up...but I found out where that girl might have found her information, sadly.

The USDA defines organic meat (it's the first link) as that meat which comes from an animal that has never received antibiotics or growth hormones. Before a product can be labeled, "organic" the place it was produced must be inspected to ensure they are meeting organic requirements.

OK, but why the price difference?

It's a matter of supply and demand. Some consumers want the choice of organic and are willing to pay more for it. Organic meat has to be worth more for a rancher to produce it, because through choosing to raise organic cattle he will have slower gaining cattle with a higher death rate.

Choosing to produce organic beef means a rancher or feeder doesn't give them any antibiotics or growth hormones, everyone's got that part. But, in not giving animals these products animals aren't as efficient, and more of them get sick and die. So, in reality, the healthier animals are the non-organic variety.

If they get sick, feeders are encouraged to wait a couple days to see if health improves on its own in some cases. If health doesn't improve the animal is doctored and no longer an organic candidate.

It drives my family's cattle feeder absolutely nuts to not doctor a sick calf. He feels having to wait a couple days results in a much longer recovery period for the animal and can lead to more sickness in the animal's peers.

We don't raise organic beef. We sat down and penciled out the additional income we would receive from marketing our cattle that way and compared it to the additional loss we would expect and economically it came out almost identical, so we stuck with our traditional program.

On the other side of the organic beef choice is the fact that non-organic cattle can and usually are treated with growth hormones.

Consider this about hormones-The average daily hormone dose in oral contraceptives is 2,500 TIMES higher than what is found in a serving of beef from an animal that received growth hormones. A man naturally produces 15,000 TIMES more estrogen than he would consume if he ate 500 grams of meat.

Consider this also, ranchers eat their product. I don't know of a single rancher who doesn't eat what he produces. If the beef he raised wasn't healthy he wouldn't feed it to himself, his family and his friends, let alone to the entire world.

There's almost always reason and logic behind why food is produced the way it is, and this is a great example of that. Most people believe they are encouraging the production of happier, healthier plants and animals through choosing organic, when the opposite is closer to the truth.

Organic is a choice, and I am in no way saying it's a bad one, but it's also important to remember that non-organic is a good choice too. Having the option between the two is another example of the effort American Agriculturalists put forth to provide the consumer what they want.

The consumers perspective

I had to buy hamburger at the grocery store!? This was a new one for me.

Meat at my house comes straight from the butcher, wrapped in crisp, white paper and is stamped with either "TRH RANCH" or "HAMILTON" and "NOT FOR SALE" in bright red or blue ink.

I looked and looked and Albertsons had nothing wrapped like that.

There I was, standing in front of the beef display, eying my choices and noting differences. The first thing I noticed was a lot of price difference in hamburger depending on brand and fat content. Color variation was also notable, as was texture.

People are walking by, grabbing packages of meat as I continue to just stare at this new phenomenon in my life. I finally choose a cheaper variety (it is hamburger after all) of lean, I think 90% fat free, hamburger. I couldn't believe that if you wanted 93% or 95% lean hamburger the price more than doubled. I like the flavor fat adds anyway, and it's easy to drain any excess fat off during the cooking process.

I took my newly purchased meat home and made a casserole. While cooking I noticed that it smelled different than the hamburger I'm use to and cooked different too.

But it was good, and I was happy with my choice.

Throughout the entire process I had one nagging thought in my head, "where did this come from?"I can tell you the entire life story of the beef I typically eat. It was a little disconcerting to put my trust in someone I didn't know to provide me with my food.

I learned that as a consumer I am interested in knowing where my food is produced. I read everything I could on several different hamburger options before making a decision. I wanted to know about that product, as most consumers do.

My advice? Get to know the guy behind the meat counter. If I had been purchasing anything but hamburger (steak, roast...) I would have asked the meat person what their recommendations were. These people know what they're doing and can give you solid advice.

My first meat buying experience was positive, if a little overwhelming. It certainly gave me a new perspective.