Questions to Ask a Beef Farmer

Are your animals raised on pasture? When cows are raised on pasture or in fields, they graze outdoors and have plenty of room to roam and a diversity of grasses to eat. Cows belong to a group of animals called ruminants, whose stomachs are best suited to digest grasses. Ideally, you should choose beef from cows grazed on pasture.

Are your animals fed anything else besides grass, hay and grass silage? On factory farms, feed may be supplemented with unsavory additives such as animal byproducts, rotten food, poultry manure and feathers, and even cement dust. The best answer to this question is that the cows ate only grass, hay, and silage. Beyond that, you want to be sure that the cows had a 100% vegetarian diet. Many farmers, including some sustainable farmers, supplement cows’ diet with corn. While this is still vegetarian feed, it’s important to remember that cows are not well adapted to eating corn, and a large amount of corn in a cow’s diet can make it sick.

How are your animals finished? “Finishing” is the weight-gaining process an animal undergoes as it’s readied for slaughter. If an animal is finished on pasture, it eats only grasses and hay up until slaughter and is 100% grass fed. If an animal is finished on grain, it means that for a certain amount of time before slaughter, it was fed grain. The most common grain used, and the hardest for a cow to digest, is corn. Many farmers maintain that grain gives meat the marbling and texture that most consumers are used to, but providing only grain to a cow will make it sick.”
The information belongs to the following website:
http://www.gracelinks.org/bestoftheweb

to be continued…