Feeding Grass-Fed Cattle During Winter

  Scott Lively, a leader in the US organic beef industry, leads Pure Land America. Prior to this venture, he founded the largest organic beef company in the country. Through these two companies, Scott Lively has sold and advocated for organic, grass-fed beef products.

Depending on the location of a grass-fed cattle farm, winter may bring about dormancy of the cattle’s usual pasture. This forces farmers to either find alternative methods of feeding their grass-fed animals during winter or grow and store enough food to get them through the winter.

Farmers who opt to grow extra feed during normal months must pay close attention to the quality of their soil. Since soil provides plants all the necessary nutrients to grow, poor soil will result in poor pasture growth. When farmers improve the quality of the soil, they not only increase pasture production, they also boost the health of their cattle.

Assuming soil is healthy, the crops grown on the farm must be harvested at a time when they reach the highest levels of nutrition possible. Doing so ensures any stored crop will remain nutritious through the winter.

Conversely, farmers who either cannot store enough food for the winter or choose not to can purchase alternative food options. This includes haylage or dry hay, along with a good dose of vitamins and minerals. Such feeding programs focus on avoiding grains, since they are difficult for cattle to digest. Although alternative food sources do not allow for grazing, they still meet grass-fed requirements since they provide cattle with as natural and balanced a diet as possible.

It’s also worth noting that some farmers can support winter grazing, even through deep snow. This requires preparation and planning. Rather than giving cattle complete freedom over a pasture, farmers must limit the animals to specific areas to ration out parts of the pasture that grew before winter set in.

The Advantages of Grass-Fed over Grain-Fed Cattle

Scott Lively

Scott Lively is a longtime leader in the organic beef industry who currently leads Pure Land America, a company that partners with leading Midwest sustainable beef producers and sources meat from 100 percent grass-fed cattle. A key selling point of the product Scott Lively offers is that its organic beef is leaner and healthier than that from grain fed cattle.

Consumer interest in grass fed cows has increased in recent decades, reflecting the fact that cattle evolved over the millennia eating grass in pastures. Grain fed cows are fed grain-based feeds containing cottonseed, corn, soy, and sorghum that are not part of the diet their stomachs evolved to work best with.

Research has backed this up, demonstrating that digestive issues and bacterial contamination are more common among cattle that eat grains than grasses. More than 10 percent of grain-fed cows have been shown to develop liver abscesses after four months in a feedlot setting. By contrast, less than 1 percent of cows that stick to more natural pasturing habits suffer from this serious condition. The bottom line is that feeding cattle nothing but grass not only results in meat that is lean and packed with omega 3s, but is more humane for the cattle.