I have always wanted to have a blog, and now I do.

 In 1983/1984 I was a member of the Purdue Livestock Judging team, in my senior year majoring in Animal Science.  That was the era of frantically trying to make cattle bigger.  To place cattle in a class,  you simply placed the largest framed one first.  Something about this always bothered me.  The ones that I gravitated to were considered to be the worst ones in the class.  The thick, heavy muscled ones were too "early maturing".   

I got into the sheep business after college and noticed that my most productive ewes were the whitefaced Finn cross ewes that would lay down and spit out 3 lambs and raise them.  The big stately Suffolks never came close to making me as much money as the more maternal ewes would do.  

I had a type set in my mind, for both cattle and sheep, a maternal female, that did what the breed was intended to do.  A centered animal, with natural thickness and volume, along with feminity, a problem free animal that did her job with minimum assistance from me and lasted.

Angus and Hereford cattle hale from the British Islands.  They are known to be a moderate sized, moderate growth type of cattle that produce good carcass quality and the ability to do well on forages.  The problem today is that breeders are trying to make these breeds be all things to all people.  That is simply impossible.  The smart thing to do is to use these breeds for what they are intended for.  They have already invented Charolais.  Just as I would use a Suffolk or Hamp ram on my finn ewes to promote growth, Using a continental breed on a good black baldy or straight angus or hereford cow is the key to success.   

In the future, we will have females for sale, moderate framed, good uddered, problem free, centered cows that will do the job and represent their breed as they were intended to be. All cattle will be produced with integrity and be able to provide value for the grassfed guy or the conventional cattlemen, as long as they are used as intended.  Not too big, not too small, just right! 

   It seems like these days everyone is talking about grassfed beef, and the opinions on the subject are very diverse.  Some of our customers would never even consider eating grassfed beef, while others want to try it or already know that is what they want.  The beef that we ourselves eat is grassfed and to be perfectly honest with you, we think that it is pretty good stuff.  

   There is a school of thought among nutritionists and the medical community that the American diet has become heavily oriented towards Omega 6 fatty acids.  Omega 6 fatty acids are thought to be present in the American diet at a rate 14-25% higher than Omega 3s.  This is thought to be a problem due to the fact that Omega 6 fatty acids tend to promote inflammation throughout the body, including the arteries.  Grainfed beef is thought to be higher in Omega 6 fatty acids.  Omega 3s are anti-inflammatory.   The proper diet should be equally balanced between 6s and 3s.  One excellent source of Omega 3 fatty acids is known to be grassfed and finished beef!

   Another good fat found in Grassfed beef is CLA, again it is thought to be found in higher amounts in Grassfed beef and is thought to help protect against cancer.  Some people go as far as to say that many of the medications and health problems that we seem to be taking and suffering from could be reduced or eliminated by eating the diet that we were intended to.

   Cattle, with their 4 stomachs, were certainly intended to eat grass and not corn, but there are other benefits that go along with this.

Grassfed beef is produced with less fossil fuel usage

Grassfed beef causes less soil erosion.

Grassfed beef is produced here without any chemicals.

Grassfed beef causes little or no water pollution

Grassfed beef is leaner, with no more cholesterol or fat than wild game.

Grassfed beef is usually a local product, reducing shipping and transportation and injecting money into local communities.

Grassfed beef comes from animals that spend their entire lives with freedom, not confined to pens so that they can be animals and are not treated like machines in a factory farm type of environment.

   At our farm, our product starts with the right genetics, cattle that are designed to flesh easily and to gain on grass.  It is followed by proper pasture management, keeping nutritious fresh grass or good hay in front of the animals at all times.  

   Our animals never receive hormones, antibiotics or any other chemicals.  They are fed only natural feeds, so the meat is clean.  Our animals are free to graze pastures, in the sun and most evenings they get to running and bucking, pushing back and forth and pretty much enjoying themselves as they live like cattle were intended to.  

   We are located midway between Lafayette, Indiana and Chicago, Illinois in Newton County, Indiana and our meat is processed at the Brook Locker plant, a small-town, family owned locker that does less than 10 per week, so that you can always be sure that close personal attention is payed to your beef.  

   Give us a call, or send an email, we would be proud to serve you, or better yet, come out and see the cows and spend a little time on the farm.

                                                        The Walkers 

This blog is more newsy than opinion.   We had our last calf in June, once again a successful season with no pulled calves and two sets of twins.  The 916S and 714T calves are born easy and jump up and nurse.  The disposition of the cows was great upon calving and tagging went like a dream,  I will tell you what though; you don't want to wait too long to tag these calves as they are pretty athletic.  

Haying has been very challenging, We got a lot of rain from Memorial day on and had some equipment problems, but to date we have baled over 500 round bales and have the barn filled... what a blessing. 

The pastures are excellent this year, with plenty of grass and the cows and calves are looking great.  This afternoon I took the bulls out to the cows and believe me the bulls were very happy to be back with the girls if you know what I mean.  :)  

On the pig front, we are the proud owners of 6 gilts.  They are crossbred gilts and are named:  Blackie, Gert, Evelyn, Cleo, Mathilda and Flicka.  They came from a confinement operation where they were kept in 8x8 pens, 3 to a pen.   When we got them home, they were frightened by standing on dirt.  It was very sad.  But, they soon learned how to be pigs and are now grazing, which they had to learn how to do, rooting things up and laying around in the mud.  In short they are being pigs.  We plan to breed them to a Berkshire boar in February and let them have their pigs on pasture, next May, so there will be some good pastured pork available in October or November of 2011.

We are also, now the proud owners of a feral Kitten.  The dogs treed it on the feeder near the woods.  I grabbed it and for about 24 hours we kept it in a dog kennel in the house.  It would hiss and run to the other end until day two.  By day three we were holding it and it was purring away.  Now she is into everything and attacks us when we move around and is an all around joy to have.  She has been rather hard on the house plants though.  

Our county fair was last week and Ian got grand champion angus steer.  It was, however the only angus steer there.  I told him not to let it go to his head.  :)  We are proud of him and his ability to bond with his animals in a short time.  We call him the cattle whisperer.  

That is about all of the news, for now, any of you that would like to come out and see the cows or walk the pastures are always welcome.  Nothing is too fancy, but it is functional and unlike the ads on tv for the California dairy cows we actually do have happy cows.  

                                               Greg