Category: Cattle

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Pasture Posts #228

Here’s the weekly roundup from Watson Farms and your direct connection to your farmer. Enjoy the latest edition of Pasture Posts!

No Pens, Mud, or Grain – Just Grass!

We turned the cattle onto their first paddock of pearl millet yesterday! Take a look at the video as we peel back the curtain on how were working hard to grass-finish a set of cattle. Happy cows make better beef!

Also, don’t forget our Summertime Beef Event continues into its second week! There’s plenty of great deals to be had! Scroll down to see some limited-time bundles that we’re offering at around 25% off of retail! We think you’ll love them.

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Today’s Paddock (3-16-24)

This is a fun blog series where we show you exactly the paddock that our animals are enjoying on a particular day. All of our animals are raised in their natural environment and the common denominator among them all is PASTURE ROTATION! So take a look through these blog posts to see where the animals find themselves on a given day.

Our pasture is in a growth spurt right now and the cattle are extremely happy! They’re gaining well and in fact there’s more grass than they can eat. We hope to be purchasing more cattle soon to take advantage of this annual glut of forage.

  • Size: 3.42 acres
  • Number of head: 110
  • Class of livestock: feeder and finisher cattle
  • Type of grasses: rye, ryegrass, clover
  • Grazing duration: 24 hours
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Today’s Paddock (4-24-23)

This is a fun blog series where we show you exactly the paddock that our animals are enjoying on a particular day. All of our animals are raised in their natural environment and the common denominator among them all is PASTURE ROTATION! So take a look through these blog posts to see where the animals find themselves on a given day.

Our cattle herd of about 160 head are eating their fill in the paddocks recently as this time of year usually provides lots of lush pasture that consists of rye, ryegrass, vetch, clover and some volunteer species. The goal in these paddocks is to allow the cattle to trim the grasses down in order to keep them in a vegetative state which will lead to more grass longer into the summer. Here they are with heads down filling the fermentation tank (rumen) and resetting the growth cycle.

  • Size: 7.87 acres
  • Number of cattle: 160
  • Class of livestock: feeder cattle
  • Type of grasses: rye, ryegrass, vetch, clover, native species
  • Grazing duration: 48 hours
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Today’s Paddock (3-23-23)

This is a fun blog series where we show you exactly the paddock that our animals are enjoying on a particular day. All of our animals are raised in their natural environment and the common denominator among them all is PASTURE ROTATION! So take a look through these blog posts to see where the animals find themselves on a given day.

Our cattle herd is enjoying lots of premium pasture right now! They are grazing right in front of the layer chickens which you saw in Tuesday’s edition of Today’s Paddock. This prepares the grass for the chickens by taking from approximately 2 feet tall down to about 1 foot or less. The chickens can move around better in shorter grass and don’t tend to lay eggs as much in it, which makes daily gathering much easier. This is one of the many benefits of multi-species grazing. Take a look.

  • Size: 2.74 acres
  • Number of head: 115
  • Class of livestock: feeder and finisher cattle; cull cows
  • Type of grasses: rye, ryegrass, vetch, clover
  • Grazing duration: 24 hours
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Videos: A window into our farm

We know that transparency is a huge priority to our customers.  You want to know how our livestock live and are treated.  You want to know what they are fed and what they aren’t.  You want to see what a day in their life is like, so that you can be assured that you are actually making a difference in our food system by supporting a local family farm.  

While not all consumers feel this way yet, we can see that the number of those who do is perhaps growing faster than ever.  We especially see this in the number of new customers that we not only have seen in the past year or so, but even the past few months.  It’s been really great to see more people wanting to become informed about where their food comes from and wanting to truly make a connection with a pasture based livestock farm.  As this new wave of consumer demand continues, not only will our farm continue to adapt to meet it, but our nation’s overall food system will do the same.

So for this edition of Pasture Posts, I have included some videos from the past that do a good job of allowing customers to peer into our operation.  I also was able to shoot a video after feeding some hay to one of the cattle herds this morning where I show you how our cattle live during the winter.  These older videos are a great way for newer customers to get better acquainted with Watson Farms while returning customers might have also not seen them yet. 

Take a look and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel to be the first to know when we upload new videos!

Check out this video from just this morning showing how the cattle are doing and what they eating these days.
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Cutting through the claims in grass-fed beef – Pasture Posts #48

Hello again from Watson Farms!

One intention we have with these newsletters is to provide valuable information that can help you stay informed about our food system.  Being that you’re already some of the most informed consumers out there, that can be a daunting task, but hopefully with this issue you will learn something about our food system that you didn’t already know.  

One of the largest problems in our food system today is that consumers can’t easily cut through all the marketing jargon to see how the animals are actually raised.  Many consumers subconsciously give up the struggle to find truth in what they consume, and settle for labels that paint a rosy picture.  

We’re glad you have decided to go beyond the labels, and in the following paragraphs I hope to remind you of five misleading claims that have likely driven you to that decision.

After all, I know how disgusted it makes me feel when I have invested my dollars in something that doesn’t live up to the claims.

Unfortunately, that is happening on a daily basis when consumers buy beef.

Let’s begin:

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Caring for livestock in wintry weather ❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️ – Pasture Posts #47

We hope that everyone who has gotten the winter weather, as we have here at the farm, is doing well and staying warm. We wanted to take this opportunity to give you a look at some extra measures we take to care for the animals that you all entrust us with. As your farmer, we feel obligated to be transparent with our practices, so we put together a video this morning showing how we keep our animals fed, sheltered, and bedded during winter weather.

The layer chickens are pretty cozy this time of year in an up-fitted turkey barn that has a deep layer of pine shavings so they didn’t make an appearance in this video. On the other hand, the cattle and hogs stay on pasture year-round so we have to take some extra measures to ensure their well-being during winter weather events. Take a look!

Pigs are a little more susceptible to wintry weather than cattle as they don’t have the hide like cattle do.  So we try to provide them with some more substantial shelter and bedding which they love.  The main objective for our cattle during winter weather events is to provide them plenty of forage (we never feed grain) and some access to wind breaks (trees).  
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High Density Grazing

With our spring grass at a very high rate of growth we are rotating our cattle over it very often and at a high density as well. This yields many benefits from the cattle’s rate of gain to soil health. We’re sequestering carbon while producing a premium quality grass-finished beef product. It’s truly a win for all involved!

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Reserve your custom-cut beef!

Act fast! Limited time and slots.

This has been a very popular option over the years for customers wanting the flexibility of steak type and thickness as well as roast size and many other options. We have a ton of information on our Custom Beef page about how it works. Don’t worry, we’ve refined the process over the years to make it pretty easy. Oh, and you can save money also!