Compassion makes sense…if not dollars

Our mission at Pole Creek Ranch is to create healthy land, healthy bodies, and healthy communities. Those bodies that we intend to keep healthy are not only our own and those of our customers, but those of our animals as well. Putting the health of our animals first is often expensive and time-consuming, but well worth doing. 

Perhaps the most obvious and visible example is during weaning. Weaning is the process of separating calves from their mothers, and converting their diets from one of roughly equal parts forage and milk, to 100% forage. This process happens at about 7 months of age, when the calves become so large as to present a danger to the cow physically and physiologically by continuing to nurse. 

There are two processes happening at the same time when we wean calves. We are training calves to forage for all of their nutrition as well as to be independent of their mothers. Cattle are social animals, and mothers spend a good amount of time grooming and comforting their calves. 

Most cattle operations wean by taking calves away from their mothers and putting them into a different pen. This causes both the cow and the calf will "bawl," a kind of distress vocalizing, nearly constantly for over a week. This is a result of not being able to nurse (and for the cow, having a sore udder from not being nursed) as well as being separated from their mothers (and for the cow, thinking that they have lost their calf). Inflammation of the vocal cords often develops and can easily escalate into  pneumonia or other respiratory disease. 

What’s more, most cattle operations wean and vaccinate their calves all at once. This is one of the most dangerous periods in a calf's life as they are hit with the one-two-punch of weaning stress and vaccination induced fever. To combat disease loss, most operations will feed their calves low levels of antibiotics to keep them healthy. We all know that extended low levels of prophylactic antibiotics are how antibiotic-resistant superbugs are created. Not good!

We do things differently at Pole Creek Ranch. You'll notice in the photo above, that the calf has a yellow "clip" attached to its nose. This is not a piercing, but rather something like a clip-on-tie. The flat paddle hangs down and blocks the calf from reaching the cow's udder, teaching the calves to go without milk while still being groomed and comforted by their mothers, cutting distress vocalization by more than 90%. Nose clips also separate the weaning process into two distinct and therefore less stressful steps; learning to forage first, and then when calves are more independent, to go without their mothers’ care. Reducing vocalization and stress in this way significantly reduces the risk of disease that we would have to treat with antibiotics. 

Why doesn't every cattle operation do this? Because it is labor intensive, and therefore expensive, especially when compared with prophylactic antibiotic use. This is one of dozens of ways we go out of our way to reduce antibiotic use while still keeping our animals healthy. It is also why we require a slightly higher price for our beef than you will find in the grocery store. The margins on our beef products are tighter than traditional operations, but we believe in putting compassion for our animals' health first. As with everything in modern life, we vote our values with our dollars, and buying Pole Creek Ranch Natural Beef is a vote for humane and responsible beef production. 

Riley Avery,
Livestock Manager, Pole Creek Ranch

Riley is the President of the Western States Red Angus Association and manager of Pole Creek Ranch Natural Beef. As a 27 year veteran of the cattle industry, he is passionate about sustainable, natural beef production and agricultural education and outreach.

The Grass(fed) Isn’t Always Greener

After several decades in the food production business I’ve learned not to tell people what or how they should eat, it’s a fraught subject to say the least. But the most common question I get from customers is whether they should buy grass-finished or grain-finished beef. And as with most things in modern life, there is no right answer, rather just various shades of grey. 

First, a little terminology. “Finish” is how an animal is fattened before being processed into beef. Beef without a certain level of finish tastes gamey and tough, whether grass or grain finished. The finishing phase (in most other operations) happens after cattle leave the range or pasture where they grew up, but before they are harvested for food. Okay, now onto the fun stuff! 

Grass-finished beef really shines in terms of health. The Mayo Clinic claims that grass-finished beef is significantly higher in omega-3 and -6 fatty acids and antioxidants. The trade off is that, depending on how it is raised, grass fed beef can taste gamey because of the lack of marbling (that tasty inter-muscular fat).

Grain-finished beef shines in terms of efficiency and methane emissions. We feed grain in order to get cattle fat more quickly than if they only eat grass. Even though grass-finished beef is leaner than grain-finished, we still have to get them to a certain level of fatness, or even the best chef wouldn't be able to make it taste good! 

Grain finishing beef means we can shorten the time it takes to get an animal fat enough to harvest from about a year (grass finishing) to a few months (grain finishing). A year in which that animal isn't producing methane or waste is a significant reduction in environmental impact! Cattle also produce less methane when their food is more easily digested, which grains are, when compared to grass or other forages. 

When we take into consideration the efficiency boost, shorter finishing time, and the lower methane emissions from more digestible feed sources, grain-finished cattle have been shown to produce between 20%-60% less methane emissions per pound of beef compared to grass-finished. That's a big deal!

In case you're thinking that grain-finished beef is an easy solution, remember that most grain-finished cattle are fattened in feedlots. Leaving aside the ethical concerns of crowding so many animals together in their own waste, feedlots are breeding grounds for disease. Most feedlot operators combat those diseases by feeding low levels of antibiotics on a daily basis. As we all know, that's a recipe for creating antibiotic resistant superbugs. Waste runoff also causes algae blooms, water poisoning, and fish kills. Not good.

So which is better? Grass- or grain-finished? I’d say that a hybrid (pasture raised but grain finished for the last few months) is the more responsible way to produce beef.

At Pole Creek Ranch we finish our cattle on a grain diet but still allow them to roam on pasture, which distributes their waste back into the environment as natural fertilizer without runoff or ecological harm. This has the added benefit of keeping our animals on our land, and with their companions, for their entire lives. Because of our extensive timber ground and our holistic pasture management system which sequesters carbon underground in our pasture’s root system, our beef is low emission too. 

In a world of grey areas, our pasture raised beef is a rare instance of a humane, ecologically responsible, and incredibly tasty product. It's a win-win-win. Seriously...give it a try! 

Riley Avery,
Livestock Manager, Pole Creek Ranch

Riley is the President of the Western States Red Angus Association and Livestock Manager at Pole Creek Ranch. As a 27 year veteran of the cattle industry, he is passionate about sustainable and natural beef production.

The Power of Buying Local

I get a lot of questions about the farm-direct model and why I’m so passionate about it, so I figured I’d take some time to explain how this model is better for our environment and our animals.

Overgrazing and overstocking are the enemy and are responsible for net greenhouse gas emissions associated with raising cattle. Grasslands properly stocked with herbivores actually sequester more net carbon than if those herbivores didn’t exist. Herbivores also return nitrogen and organic matter to the soil. This is a vital ecological process that, when replicated with synthetic fertilizers, acidifies soil over time and kills the soil microbiome that is so vital for continued productivity.

Herbivores and grasslands evolved together, and they are most efficient when working in cooperation. Deep and drought-resilient root systems, greater yields, and exponential carbon sequestration all result from herbivores being part of an agricultural ecosystem.

But the current model of the cattle industry pushes ranchers to overstock their land, deplete their soil, and release large amounts of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. The reason? The meat industry is controlled and distorted by four mega-corporations, the “Big 4,” who buy live cattle and process them into meat for the retail system. 

The Big 4 use their market power, almost 90% between them, and opaque purchasing algorithms to drive down prices for live cattle. Ranchers are then forced to raise more cattle on less land just to keep their businesses afloat. Most ranchers earn an average of $100 per animal they raise while the Big 4 earn over $1,000. The rancher has years invested into each animal, the Big 4 have usually less than a few days.

By supporting farmers directly, you give them a way out of this downward spiral. Armed with the real profits of the industry, they can invest in the kinds of innovations that sequester greenhouse gasses, heal their land, and take better care of their animals. If we want farmers and ranchers to do the right thing, we need to pay them for it.

And that is the long term goal of Pole Creek Ranch, to prove that there is a market for restorative, land-centric, direct-to-consumer beef operations. If we can replicate and grow the model, we can help stabilize rural economies while also slowing the climate crisis. It’s all about reconnecting people with the land and animals that produce their food. And that’s what we all need; a little more connection.

Riley Avery,
Livestock Manager, Pole Creek Ranch

Riley is the President of the Western States Red Angus Association and Livestock Manager at Pole Creek Ranch. As a 27 year veteran of the cattle industry, he is passionate about sustainable and natural beef production.

The Calf Barn

The calves getting some extra food in the calf barn

I walked out to the calf barn today after several weeks away. Now usually that wouldn't be an accomplishment, but since I got my leg injured by a particularly defensive cow while vaccinating her calf, even this short walk is something to write home about. The calf barn is about 2,000 square feet, a pretty typical old barn that smells like aged oak and horses. It’s filled with dry bedding for the calves to snuggle up out of the wind, rain, snow, and keeps the cows, who would otherwise steal this space for themselves, out.

The first calf I walk by, number 32, doesn't even bother to stand.  I remember finding her at 2 am, huddled and shivering in a snow drift and only a few minutes old. It was lucky I found her in time that a hot water bath was enough to pull her out of hypothermia. It took 3 weeks of bottles, plus her moms milk, to get her strong enough to rejoin the herd. She’s often a nuisance, always in my way when I’m in a hurry. Even still, the reminder of a life saved is worth the hassle.

I thread through the sleeping calves, careful not to wake them. But the infamous number 5 spots me and jumps straight into the air. He’s in such a hurry to get away that he stumbles over his front feet, doing a somersault and spending a few seconds in a dazed pile before running off again, a little more cautiously this time. 

Now alert and wary I may be trying to trap them in the barn, the calves edge towards the exit. They’re led by number 12, my favorite calf. He’s a hunk; the cow equivalent of The Rock. I can't wait to use him as our next herd sire, fathering the next generation of Pole Creek cattle. I stand perfectly still hoping to stop them leaving. The calves, naturally curious, begin to inch back towards me. They thrust their necks out slowly as their curling tongues reach out to touch me, I suppose to see if I taste dangerous. 

My healing knee is aching from the cold, so I shift my weight slightly to the other leg. This tiny movement is like a gunshot at a footrace, the entire group of 50 calves shoot out of the barn at top speed, led by the infamous number 5, now certain of my bad intentions. Though startled at first, soon the calves are each competing to lead the group, feeding off of each other's energy as they nearly collide, feint, and vault over each other with comically deep bellars. 

They act like a flock of birds, billowing, scattering, reforming, and billowing again. The cows are agitated by their sonorous bawls and come thundering across the field. They plunge into the group of calves, who swirl around them in small eddies, slowly locating their calves and splitting off from the herd. One by one they find a quiet corner of the pasture and begin earnestly licking their calves, checking for any damage I may have done to them. And the contented, smug little faces of the calves peer around their mothers, their eyes already narrowing lazily in the afternoon sun. The calf barn is always good for a pick-me-up, and I grin all the way home.

Riley is the President of the Western States Red Angus Association and Livestock Manager at Pole Creek Ranch. A 27 year veteran of the cattle industry, he is passionate about sustainable and ethical beef production and sharing his love for Red Angus cattle.