4) Seasonal harvest
I’ve seen some farms offering beef nearly year round. I can appreciate being able to provide beef whenever a customer would like it, but the reality is that grass fed beef, like all other fresh foods, is best harvested at a specific time of year. I could go buy strawberries at the grocery store right now (in January), but I know that they wouldn’t be anywhere near as good as strawberries harvested in June or July.

Our “Premium Summer Beef” is named as such because it is harvested in late June, when the steers have had 6-8 weeks to dine on the premium grasses during the period of lengthening days, giving them the highest sugar content. Higher protein grass – such as grass in the fall and winter – makes for gamier and tougher meat. This grass is better for growing calves and for milking cows. Grass with higher sugar is better for fattening animals and making more tender meat. Because the sugar content (Brix) in grass is higher in the late spring/early summer. So, we plan our seasonal harvest so that the meat benefits from the animals having grazed mainly on sweet grass leading up to harvest. This is also why we adjust our price for the “Neighborly” beef shares available during the fall… those animals have had less sweet grass prior to harvest, and their meat, while excellent, is not usually quite as tender, and we adjust the price to reflect that difference.

Incidentally, the sugar content of grasses is also higher during the afternoons after the grass has had time to absorb sunshine, which is why we usually move the steers onto a new pasture later in the day, rather than in the mornings.

We’d love to be able to supply families with beef shares all year, and to supply local restaurants as well. However, we know from experience that the taste and texture of grass-fed beef changes quite a bit during the year, and we prefer to limit our harvesting to the time of year when quality is at its peak.

5) It’s the law, ma’am (Rules regarding “custom-exempt” meat processing)
Here’s a link to an OSU report summarizing small-scale (custom exempt) meat processing rules.

a) why ¼-animal shares?
Our beef shares are butchered and processed by a local state-licensed facility. When you buy a share, you are actually buying ownership of 1/4 (or more) of an animal. While we could legally sell 1/8 shares, this is stretching the limits of the “custom exemption”, which is basically a a loophole in the Federal Meat Inspection Act to enable farmers to be able to get their own livestock processed for their own use. When farmers use this loophole to divide up an animal among more than 4 customers, they are really stretching the intent of the loophole, and it can cause additional scrutiny (and possible repercussions) for both the farmer and the butcher. We think the loophole works just fine as is, so we don’t push the boundaries just for the sake of making additional sales.

b) butchering and cut/wrap charges.
The laws are definitely clear cut about this. Customers are supposed to pay the farmer directly for their share of the live animal (based on live weight or hanging weight), but are not allowed to pay the farmer for the butcher’s services. While some farms include the butchering fees in their per pound cost (ostensibly to avoid confusion or “hidden” fees), they are not actually following the law. We choose to follow the law about this, and have our customers pay the butcher directly for their services.

c) meat delivery
By law, we could deliver the meat to customers. However, given our small scale, and our lack of a delivery vehicle, we don’t do any deliveries. We feel that the easiest way to handle the beef shares is for the meat to leave the butcher shop directly with each owner, rather than us getting into the delivery business.

d) cowpooling
We are happy to facilitate cowpools… this is when 2 (or more) families get together to purchase a quarter share of an animal. If families are interested in cowpooling we are happy to take note, and to try to connect them with other families. When cowpooling, families need to come to agreement about their cut/wrap preferences, about who will contact the butcher with the preferences, and how pick-up will be handled. We are willing to hold a quarter share for a potential cowpool for a limited amount of time, but can’t guarantee that we will find another family to share the share. We encourage families who are uncertain about a full quarter (due to freezer space or other considerations) to talk with friends and families members about sharing a quarter.

2) grass fed and grass finished
No grain, repeat, no grain! Not a handful right before butchering, just none at all. We purchase our calves from our neighbors at about 9 months of age, and the calves have never had grain at any point in their lives. Rich goes to the neighbors’ ranch to train the calves to get used to him, and associate him with good things, which is a good beginning to their lives with us. It doesn’t take long for them to learn to come to the fence edge when Rich is out doing chores, eagerly awaiting the next move to a grassy, clovery feast.

Why don’t we feed any grain? The health benefits of foods high in CLAs (Conugated lineolic acids) and Omega 3 fatty acids are pretty well documented. The problem is, when grain is included in the finishing ration, even tiny amounts, it throws the proportions of good : bad fatty acids out of whack, and it can take weeks, or even a month of exclusive grass feeding to get them back to where they were.

It’s a shame that a day of feeding grain can kick the high quality grass fed beef down to something that is commodity-grade, from a health standpoint, but that’s the nature of nutrition. We don’t make the rules; we follow them.

3) small (scale) is beautiful
We’ve learned too much about the farm crisis of the 1980′s to be comfortable with going into debt to farm. So our philosophy of farming has always been to start small, and grow slowly.

We purposely named our farm “Mossback Farm“, not “Mossback Farms“… we have no interest in growing super big, or creating an agricultural empire. We don’t wish to wholesale. What we want to do is raise a small number of animals which help us manage our landscape, while also providing artisanal-quality food for a dozen or two families a year. While we do partner with our neighbors, the Thorntons, to get calves and hay and to offer our “Neighborly” beef in the fall, we do so in a way that is mutually beneficial, and allows us both to retain our autonomy, and practices that work for our scale.

Our scale… it’s small because our land holdings are small. We have 33 acres, but only about 20 are actually in pasture. The rest is forest, riparian buffers, road frontage, and the homestead area. While some people choose to have a higher stocking rate, we prefer to keep ours low so that we can better manage the grass and the animals. (see Intensive Rotation, above) This way, we don’t skimp on quality for the sake of quantity. As our water and other farm infrastructure improves, we’re slowly increasing our herd, monitoring the impacts on our land and lives, and making sure that nothing gets out of balance.

(Part One)
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A customer recently asked us a very good question. She pointed out that she had found information about a farm selling “grass-fed” beef for a significantly lower price than us, and inquired about why there was such a difference in price.

Her questions prompted me to do a couple of things. One was to do an informal survey of beef in north-western Oregon (mainly coast range, and northern Willamette Valley) to compare prices, which is something I do periodically. Prices ranged from about $2/lb to about $4.80/lb (plus processing). The other thing I did was ponder (along with Rich) how to articulate what makes our beef, and specifically, our animal and land management practices, different from other farms.

What makes us different:

1) Intensive rotation (i.e Management Intensive Grazing) – not “free range” = improved grass/soil/ecosystem health

Many farms like to tout that their animals “roam free” on their pastures. I think they do this because of the idyllic picture it paints for people… happy cows, allowed to wander at their will. However, the reality of good management is that “free range” cattle creates many problems for the land, from soil compaction along paths, to damage to creeks and riparian areas if that cattle are not fenced out, to poor grass quality (and the need for off-farm inputs, i.e. fertilizers and/or herbicides).

When we bought our property in 2002, we witnessed the results of poor management first hand. The prior owner had more than 50 cattle on the property year around, and as a result, the land had a very poor complement of species, low fertility, high compaction, very poor water retention, and the creeks were degraded by gullies with no riparian cover.

We practice Management Intensive Rotational Grazing (MIRG), and ideas based on Holistic Management. We have 5 main fields with perimeter fencing (which we have worked long and hard to put in place!), and we subdivide these fields into many smaller fields with electric wire and water points. The steers are moved nearly every day in the peak growing seasons of spring and summer in order to take advantage of the huge pulse of growth that happens during that time of year.

Imagine you make a big feast, with a lot of ingredients. The first time you sit down to the meal, you eat some of everything, and especially the good parts. The 2nd day, you need to eat again, and there’s a good spread still in front of you. You probably have some of most of it, but maybe pick around some of the wilted lettuce or less appetizing ingredients. The third day you have it, you probably are very selective about what you eat from it, leaving behind all the parts you don’t really like. As the days go by, the good stuff is mostly gone, leaving the unappetizing-to-downright unpleasant bits to be eaten. You’re not eating as much each time, and it’s generally not as fresh and nutritious as day 1.

Steers do this as well, if left on the same pastures every day. The result is usually that they will eat the grasses they like best, and avoid the ones they don’t like. They will eat the “good” grasses down to the point where regrowth may take a long time. And by making the beneficial, high-nutrition species so short, the species they don’t like have better access to sunshine and are allowed to prosper. The farm then is left with a pasture of less appetizing species, that will probably need to be eradicated through re-seeding, herbicide application, fertilization, etc.

Our approach means that the steers get a fresh feast every day in the growing season. They can eat as much as they want, stopping only when they’re full.. The next day, they are moved to a new paddock and have a brand new feast. This allows the “good” grasses to be eaten down to the point at which regrowth is stimulated, and for the less desired species to not usually have the chance to out-compete the good grasses. In this situation, even the less desirable species get nibbled on as part of the feast, and don’t become a problem.

(Next post will discuss why our steers never receive grain, and also the issue of scale.)

We have 1 or 2 quarter shares left at $3.25/lb plus butcher charges (around $100 per quarter). We estimate the heifer to have a hanging weight of around 150-180 lbs. The butcher date will either be in early October, if we get enough orders now, or in December. Orders are taken first come, first served, and we ask for a $150 deposit to hold your order.

Please contact us ASAP to reserve a quarter share, and enjoy wonderful grass fed beef all winter! (Or contact us to request our ordering info flyer.)

If you’re interested in finding out about steer/heifer shares for 2011, please email or call us (503 852 9585) to get on our mailing list. Ordering info will go out in the winter (although we will take share reservations for 2011 at any time starting now).

And thanks to everyone who continues to support our farm!

Now, however, things are back to normal, whatever that is. And here’s the tale:

We had planned to take delivery of our replacement steers from our neighbor a few days after harvest of the last ones, in early July. Harvest went well, and by all accounts, as well as the data from the processed weights, the beef turned out better than it ever has. After a few days downtime, we arranged to have the new cattle brought over. It was in the early stages of our July heat spell, with temperatures in the 90-95F range. We chose a day that was relatively cool (90F), but obviously not cool enough.

The steers were exceptionally skittish (never a good thing in a 800lb beast), due to the heat, as well as the fact that the neighbor had just cut them out of the main herd a day before, so they had never lived by themselves before. One of the steers was a twin, and always hung out tight with his brother. The topping on all this was that there was a yellowjacket nest just outside of the corral where they were acclimating that got run over by the delivery truck. Hot worked up cattle…hot worked up yellowjackets. Get the cattle more worked up, get the yellowjackets more worked up. You see how this goes. They lasted about an hour and a half, when while I was watching, their circling of the pen accelerated until one of them reached escape velocity…namely, enough bravery to dive into a woven wire and electrically charged fence. Where one goes, the others follow, so the end result is a gaping hole in the corral and a small herd of steers running down the road.

But it doesn’t end there. Fortunately, the neighbor’s adjacent pasture was empty, and had a gate located on the road…a quick zip ahead of them to open the gate, and a little light pressure, and they were in, if not in my pasture, at least contained and safe.

So the next day I spent the afternoon in the scorching 95+F heat, patching and beefing up the hole in the corral, as well as dispatching the yellowjacket nest. The neighbors loaded up the boys again in the relative cool of the evening, and we brought them back to the now woven, plus barbed, and twin electrically charged corral. And they stayed there….for about 8 hours. Come morning, I was walking about a couple hundred feet away to check on them, and they decided that I was the cause of all of their discomfort the previous day. Escape velocity was reached again, through the beefed up corral, in the exact same spot they went through the first time. This time, however, they didn’t want to use the convenient gate to get back into the neighbors pasture…they saw some shade in his trees, and bolted over an old fence into some thick doghair fir and vanished…for 2 days. The thought of losing a few thousand dollars of beef on the hoof to the vagaries of the Coast Range was fairly disheartening, to say the least. Add to that the inevitable stories of the ghost cattle in the rain that people would tell for years afterward, and I was getting pretty bummed out.

A couple of days later, we managed to coax them out of the shady trees, and back into the neighbor’s barn…again. Rather than banging our head against the wall…again, we opted for the charm offensive…the steers stayed at the neighbor’s where they grew up, where there was good shade, a big bale of hay, and I’d go over there once or twice a day to give them treats and get them to associate me with good things. After a couple of weeks of that, they would walk right up to me and nudge the bucket, hoping to get some alfalfa. Now that the weather has cooled off, it seemed that we were on track.

So last Thursday night was the big test…around 8pm, we loaded them, again. Drove them over, again. Instead of the little corral, we gave them half of our big pasture. At first, I thought we were going to be starting from zero (or worse) with them…when I’d show up, they would trot down to the far end of the fence and watch nervously. But, at least they stopped at the fence. Now (Weds), they are pretty interested in me, and while still cautious, can be coaxed to walk up to within 20′ of me to eat some alfalfa treats.  The next step is to rotate the pasture in a few days…hopefully I won’t have a story then, too.

Fortunately, Time magazine comes through with something, so we don’t have to. Their new issue has an article on buying beef by the quarter, conveniently, the same way we sell it. A surprisingly well done piece.

I’ll be talking about our nearly 10 years of experience raising animals, options for consumers who choose to opt out of purchasing factory-farmed meat, and challenges facing meat producers in our state. Chrissie and Koorosh from Kookoolan Farm will also be talking.

The event will be held at Roots Organic Brewery‘s event space, just south of the brewpub at 1520 SE 7th, from 5:30 to 8:30pm. Pints are $2.50 all night long, so come on down to share in the conversation about alternative meat. For more info, please check out the Friends of Family Farmers site.

Hope to see you there!