Pig’s on pasture are  possible.  Our Pig’s are pastured from the time they are approx. 4 week’s old, until there are taken to the processor.  Their have been allot of 100% grass-fed Pig’s claims out there.  And allot of those claims have been "called out" or dis-proven as not being 100% grass-fed simply due to the producers either lack of education or simple dishonesty.  I remember when we first started looking into attempting pure unadulterated 100% grass-fed/pastured pigs.  We went to some supposedly 100% grass-fed Pig producers web-sites and saw photo’s of the farmers feeding the pig’s grain on the ground from a bucket!  Hello!

   Our family had raised "pastured" pigs since settling in this country back in 1726.  But they had always been supplemented with grain, especially in the long North-East PA winters when forages were not available to graze.  But we were determined to find a way to limit the amount of grain required by the pigs to continue to grow and at the same time not jeopardize their health.  We weren’t interested in finishing them as soon as possible to make a quick buck by the time they reached maturity (250/lbs. by 6 months of age), if it would take an extra month or 2 to reach that "optimal weight" we were comfortable with that as long as they stayed healthy.  We than started looking at other breeds that may be better adjusted to living mostly on grass.  It took awhile, but we found the Tamworth breed was best suited to survive strictly on a 100% forage diet.   Due to what we found in the past, we decided to do additional research on this breed to make sure the few success stories we found about the Tamworth breed were not just isolated incidents. 

   Coincidently my wife knew someone through a past work associate that owns Tamworth Pig’s and has been successful at raising them on a 100% grass-fed diet.  I still wasn’t convinced.  So we made an appointment to go see them.  It was a few hours south of us, but it was still within our state so I knew we were due to experience close to the same climates throughout the year.  My main concern wasn’t with could they survive on 100% grass pastures 6-8 months out of the year during the forages normal growing season, I was wondering how they stayed healthy during the winter on either stockpiled forages or stored dry hay.

   The Tamworth is probably the purest of the modern breeds of swine.  They have been improved more largely by selection and care than by the introduction of the blood of other breeds.  Fortunately the class of men who had undertaken the improvement of some of the other breeds, by sacrificing almost everything to an aptitude to fatten, did not undertake the Tamworth; hence the preservation of the length and prolificacy of the breed. For a number of years previous to 1870 the breed received comparatively little attention. About that time the bacon curers opened a campaign against the then fashionable short, fat and heavy shouldered pigs, which they found quite unsuitable for the production of streaked side meat for which the demand was constantly increasing. The Tamworth then came into prominence as an improver of some of the other breeds, in which capacity it was a decided success owing to its long established habit of converting it's food into lean meat.  Tamworth pigs are especially hardy and tolerate our harsh NorthEast PA winters quite well.  The Tamworth originated in Ireland where they were called "The Irish Grazer".  Around the year 1812 it is said that Sir Robert Peel (being impressed with the characteristics of them), imported some of them and started to breed them on his estate at Tamworth, England. They have been bred quite extensively ever since they were imported into that country.

   Unfortunately the last paragraph you read was about all the information I could find on-line about the Tamworth Breed.  But have no fear if your interested in additional information about these promising pastured pig’s,  we have been raising them on our pastures for the last 2 years with over-whelming success!  If a picture is worth  a thousand words, go to our farms web-site and see for your-self!  www.TheKuhnFamilyFarm.com

If your still skeptical like I was before breeding these pig’s, make a point of stopping by our farm if your ever in the "neighborhood".  I’m sure you’ll be as impressed with them as we are everyday.

The Best Spring ever!  Well, so far.

   Here in NorthEast Pennsylvania we have been experiencing the nicest "ease into" spring in memory.  Usually we go from winter snow right into summer sweltering in a matter of a week!  But this year we have had just the right amount of precipitation, sun and gradual warming that has made everything burst back to life and an unbelievable abundance of fruit blossoms that if they all produce fruit will make up for last years loss due to a freak slush storm.

   But just as everyone is out planting their corn and greasing up their disc-bines for what seamed to be an earlier than usual first cutting…..the forecast for this weekend is showing dangerously close to freezing temperature overnight, with daytime temperatures in the mid 60’s!  I guess if it was February and the Sap was still running, these temperature extremes would be great.  But aright already!  I’m ready for hay fever and tank tops, not the Flu and sweat jackets AGAIN!

   Our pastures are about a week away from being ready to start rotational grazing for another season, and some of our hay fields are looking ready for 1^st cutting already.   For the last 2 weeks we’ve been reaching daytime high’s around 70 with overnight lows around 40-50.  That’s why everything is growing so well.

   But before you head out to knock down your first blade of hay, let’s look at some factors to consider when planning your early season hay making.   Of all the factors affecting hay quality, stage of maturity when harvested is the most important and the one in which greatest progress can be made. As legumes and grasses advance from the "green" to "seed" stage, they become higher in fiber and lignin content and lower in protein content, digestibility, and acceptability to livestock.  Making the first hay cut early permits aftermath growth to begin at a time when temperature and soil moisture are favorable for plant growth and generally increases total yield per acre, and most importantly, early cut hay results in high-quality feed and superior animal performance such as reaching that much needed average daily gain most producers are attempting to achieve.

   After mowing, poor weather conditions can lower hay quality.  Rain can obviously cause alfalfa (legume)  leaf loss and can leach nutrients from plants during the dry-down process.  Sunlight will also lower hay quality through bleaching and lowering Vitamin A content.  Raking and/or tedding dry, brittle hay will also cause excessive leaf loss.  Hay with an 80% moisture content must lose approximately 6,000 pounds of water to produce a ton of hay at 20% moisture.  Crushing or "conditioning" at time of mowing will cause stems to dry at more nearly the same rate as leaves.  Conditioning will usually decrease the drying time of leafy legume plants by about one day and can result in leaf and nutrient savings.

   Hay handled in a rough manner before it gets to your livestock will lose an excessive amount of leaves. For the average small square bale (14 inches x 18 inches x 30 inches), about 29% of its total volume is contained in a 1-inch depth all around the bale.  For large round bales, the outer 4 inches contains roughly 25% to 30% of its total volume.  

   Legumes such as Alfalfa & clovers are higher in quality than straight-up grasses, but within each group there can be a wide range of quality based on the level of plant maturity when harvested.  When both grasses and legumes are harvested at the proper stage of plant growth, legumes are usually higher in total digestibility, rate of digestion, protein, and many minerals and vitamins.  A mixture consisting of an adapted grass and legume is usually of high quality when properly managed.  In addition, grasses can improve the drying rates of mixed stands compared to pure legume stands, sometimes by as much as 2 days!   And as any "Grass-farmer" can attest to, every day in the field is another chance of rain diminishing your quality.  Perennials, such as alfalfa, orchard-grass, timothy, fescue, Bermuda-grass, etc., are usually more economical for hay crops than annuals, although annuals, such as sorghum-sudangrass and ryegrass, can be fed with comparable feed to meat conversions if properly supplemented with mineral blocks.

   Hay that is cut early, green, leafy, soft and has a pleasant odor will be of high quality.  If you’ve ever gone to a hay auction at your local sale barn you’ve undoubtedly seen prospective buyers sticking their noses and sometimes their entire faces or heads into the center of a hay bale to get a whiff of that sweet smell of quality.

Welcome back to part 3 in a 3 part series on……

MARKETING YOUR GRASS-FED MEATS

   The BEEF business is completely different from the cattle business. You need a completely different mind-set to market beef to customers, especially GRASS-FED BEEF. You will need a totally different set of knowledge and skills.  Pay attention to your competition.  Begin to read the food and business sections of your local newspapers.  Read on-line trade journals that will help you understand the beef, pork, poultry, lamb etc. businesses.   

Learn about regulations.

   Think about your geographical marketing area.   Are you located in a rural setting out in the middle of nowhere?  Are you within 15 – 30 minutes of a town, city or retail market or restaurant?  Learn about managing a business.  Look for training in marketing - selling approaches, demonstrating, negotiating with retailers or restaurants, and most importantly, closing the sale.

• Be prepared for your business to take anywhere from 6 months to 3 years to take off.

• Your processor/butcher is key to your success. Choose them carefully.  And talk to them on a regular basis.

• Look for close markets first such as Farmers Markets, health food stores and especially restaurants who       prefer to buy locally.

• Be yourself and be professional. Capitalize on your down-home, family farmer image.  It’s how you live your life, be proud of your heritage.

Always promote a positive impression of your products.

   In a world of unsafe food, consumers fears about food safety and quality outweigh any sociological considerations they may have about agriculture. You must appear to be well-organized, and committed to quality to build the trust you need to make the sale and have repeat customers.

• EDUCATE your customers.

  Compare your 100% Grass-fed BEEF to other species such as venison when referring to cooking time.

  If your customers cook your meat incorrectly they won’t buy more!

• Offer delivery for the elderly and restaurants that feature Locally raised food.

• Be positive when presenting your 100% Grass-fed BEEF, Pastured Pork, Poultry, Lamb etc.

• Building your niche market takes steady work.  Stick with it and be prepared for success!!

Target your marketing to the right customer.  We have found that individuals with an existing or new interest in healthy, lean meat are the choice consumer niche.   

The following points are some of the interests of consumers in the 100% Grass-fed BEEF marketing niche:

• Great taste.

• Pesticide-free food (for customers with chemical sensitivities).

• A healthy, high-protein diet (for reduction of cancer risk or for cancer patients).

• No artificial/injected growth hormones or animal by-product rations.

• Safe locally raised foods with no danger of E. coli or BSE.

• Lean meat.

• Humane Animal welfare.

• Cost-saving through prices lower than the chain stores.

• Convenience and TRACEABILITY!

• Desire to support farmers and eat locally raised foods.

Welcome back to part 2 in a 3 part series focusing on:

Marketing your 100% Grass-fed Meats

There are two good online sources for direct marketing information:

- Beef Marketing Alternatives is a publication from the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/PDF/altbeef.pdf

- How to Direct Market Your Beef, by Jan Holden is the second online resource. It is from the Sustainable Agriculture Network, the national outreach network for the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. www.sare.org/publications/beef/beef.pdf

   If you’re going to direct market your 100% Grass-fed BEEF, Pastured Pork or Poultry, it’s important to accurately estimate how many pounds of meat or various retail cuts you’re going to have to sell after slaughtering and processing an animal. To estimate the amount of product you will have for sale:

-          Dressing percentage x live weight = expected carcass weight.

(dressing percentage is the percentage of live  weight that results in carcass weight).

-          Dressing Percentage = (hot carcass weight ÷ live weight) x 100

-          Expected carcass weight x expected lean meat yield (cutability).

            Example: 1200 pound beef steer with a 720 pound carcass.

            Dressing percentage = (720 ÷ 1200) x 100 = 60%

   When direct-marketing your 100% Grass-fed BEEF, Pork and/or Poultry, the actual pounds of saleable product will be determined by such factors as:

-          Carcass Fatness: The more trim fat an animal has, the lower the lean yield.

-          Muscling: Heavier muscling will result in a higher lean yield.

Meat Cuts Sold: The largest fat deposit in the carcass, by weight, is seam fat, not back fat, so cutting methods for marketing purposes greatly affects the amount of saleable product.

Bone-In versus Boneless: Bone-In products will result in more saleable pounds than boneless.

Leanness of Ground Beef: Selling a 90% lean ground beef versus an 80% lean ground beef will mean using less fat trim in the ground product. However, consumers generally like a leaner ground product. Especially when grilling.  And our customers have come to love the lack of burger shrinkage on their grills due to the lower fat content of our 100% Grass-fed BEEF products!

Trim: Closely trimming steaks and roasts will result in slightly lower yields due to more fat trim that needs to be used in other products.

Value-Added Products: Having the ability to make some sausage products, 100% BEEF hot dogs, etc. will greatly increase the ability to use fat trim.

   There has been allot of ill will focused toward this blog by readers who obviously feel that Grain-fed BEEF is best!  The reason these aggressive verbal attacks have been directed at 100% Grass-fed BEEF is because the Grain-fed/finished producers think only their process can produce tenderness that has been identified as the most important palatability attribute of meat, and the primary determinant of meat quality, and consumer acceptability.

   Let’s break it down. The two primary determinants of meat tenderness are maturity of the connective tissue, and myofibrillar toughness. Right?! One mis-conception that exists in the BEEF industry is that 100% Grass-fed BEEF systems always result in carcasses that have less tender steaks compared with grain-finishing systems.  However, this is not always the case.  In two studies where a forage based system was compared with a grain based system, the carcasses from grain-fed cattle had a higher marbling score, and whiter fat, but there were no differences in Warner-Bratzler shear force or muscle tenderness as rated by trained sensory panel scoring. This same finding was reported in 2006, while comparing forage versus grain finishing, however, in that same study there were no differences in marbling score, with carcasses in both groups being USDA Select.

Well that’s enough for this week.  Let’s meet again next week and finish this 3 part series on Marketing your 100% Grass-fed Meats.

Grass-fed Lamb production

   Pasture lambing is best accomplished in April-May.  Why?  Because it is when temperatures start warming up the ground & forages begin to grow.  The milder outside temperatures also help reduce indoor housing and lambing accommodations that would be required if lambing was in February or March, especially in the North East. 

   But what is the right choice of management for lambs. Should a producer feed his lambs on a high concentrate diet of grains after weaning at 60 - 70 days, or should he/she raise them on high quality pasture?

I hope you know the answer to those questions relatively quick!

High Quality Pasture of course!

   This isn’t rocket science folks.  I can’t for the life of me figure out why any producer would think rearing and raising any livestock inside a building would be a better alternative to the animals being outdoors on healthy/lush pastures where they can run and romp in sunlight, not fluorescent light.  For some reason, at some point in time a bunch of corporate money baggers decided that raising animals on concrete with their feed, water and light being electronically controlled was a healthy option.  Think about it, isn’t that kinda like prison?!

   Thankfully many producers are now considering making better use of their forage resources by raising their lambs on pasture. Their decision is based on the following considerations:

- better soil stewardship and a higher quality environment.

- ability of ewes and lambs to harvest forage

- better carcass quality of lambs

- reduced cost of production

   When the carcass characteristics of lambs raised and finished either on 100% grazed alfalfa & white clover or on 100% high concentrate in drylot were compared, they were found to have no difference between the amount of intramuscular fat.  However, lambs raised on high concentrate grain feed diets had significantly more trimmable fat.  Folks, that’s called WASTE.  The trimmable fat may be reduced with the all forage finishing system but without large reduction in the fat content of consumable product. The forage based system would solely lead to reduction of waste during processing.

   If lambs are raised on forages and then finished on grain the amount of trimmable fat will be the same as on lambs raised and finished on a high concentrate feed/grain diet. Therefore, the beneficial effect of raising lambs on forage is lost if lambs are finished on grain after having been raised on a good quality pasture.  Again, WASTE of time and money.

   The carcass quality of lambs can be improved, in terms of external fat, only if lambs are marketed at slaughter weight directly off pasture.

Disadvantages of raising lambs on "drylots".

-Drylots have to be cleaned on a weekly (if not more frequently) basis.

-Urinary calculi can be a problem if ammonium chloride is not added in the ration.

-Rectal prolapses have to be expected at the rate of 1%.

-Drylots do not have a good image to the consumers.

-Some sort of feed storage will be needed.

-Drylot needs to be built on a well drained terrain to avoid accumulation of mud.

- Feed cost is very dependent on grain price.

Advantages of raising lambs on pasture.

-More natural environment and better image to the consumer.

-Manure returns to the land although it is in an uneven fashion.

-Lower overall feed cost.

   Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages. The producer of slaughter lambs should study carefully before setting up his or her chosen system. Knowing that the carcass quality of lambs is not really affected by the type of feed, the choice of system will be based mostly on the management ability of the producer, your market opportunities, and your ability to find consistent trusted feed resources.

   Creating a label for grass-fed is proving to be very controversial. This is because people have different interpretations of what grass-fed should be. The standards that USDA originally proposed for a "grass-fed" label stipulated that at least 80% of the ruminant's primary energy source be composed of grass, range, pasture, or other forage. "Purists" oppose this definition because it would allow short-term feeding of animals in feed lots or feeding supplemental grain to grazing livestock.

   I will be the first advocate for Grass-fed livestock to point out the numerous health benefits that can be obtained from grass feeding livestock. According to various research studies, the meat and milk from grass-fed ruminants contains more conjugated lineolic acid (CLA), vitamin E, omega-3 fatty acids, beta-carotene, and vitamin A than the meat and milk from grain-fed animals.

   CLA and omega-3 fatty acids are good fats with anti-cancer, anti-diabetes, and anti-fat properties. The improved nutritional profile of grass-fed meat and milk may enable some producers to command a premium price for their products if they direct market them to consumers, restaurants, and specialty food stores/chains.  We don’t abuse the opportunities we have to offer a healthy and wholesome product to ALL consumers.  We understand that not everyone can afford to pay what allot of Organic or 100% Grass-fed producers are asking for their final packaged product.  We have been blessed by God to be a blessing to others.  We’re farming to make a living, not to make a killing.

   A New Zealand study showed that lambs nursing dams with high CLA content in their milk had 37% more CLA in their meat than those lambs whose dams had low CLA levels. Single lambs had 35% more CLA in their meat than twin-born lambs. CLA is produced naturally by the microflora that live in the rumen of ruminant animals like cattle, sheep, and goats. It is formed by the digestion of dietary linoleic acid. The linoleic acid content of grasses varies by plant species and maturity, being highest in grasses that are in a growing, vegetative state. CLA is readily absorbed by the animal from the rumen and ends up in milk, meat, and fat. The concentration of CLA in animal products varies, partly due to diet and management practices. Even without diet manipulation, lamb is one of the richest natural source of CLA. Dairy products are usually the best sources of CLA. Ewe's milk contains more CLA than cow's milk.