The early snow has pretty much all melted, and we got one batch of ram lambs back out on our triticale pasture regrowth. We made sure they were all pretty full of hay before putting them out, and we made an aisle of electric fencing to prevent too much plugging of the permanent pastures. We’ll bring them back in the corrals at night to reduce predator pressure.
Our plan is to replant this pasture in the springtime so that any pugging that does happen won’t matter. I’d rather have that feed go to the sheep than be wasted.
This brought up an interesting dilemma regarding the labeling of food products. I’ve already explained why I consider USDA Organic regulations to be cruel and inhumane for livestock. However, there are other labels that we might qualify for that we have not used so far. Terms like free-range, cage-free, no hormones, vegetarian diet, and the like are all proper descriptors for our products.
Grass-fed has, up until now, not been regulated by the federal government. That has since changed, and there is now a federal grass-fed standard. I’ll talk about it more in a later entry.
The American Grassfed Association has developed a very strict interpretation of “grassfed” that limits feeding of stored forages and use of winter corrals. It’s a nice idea, but we’ll never qualify in our region. The sticking points for us are, “All livestock produced under this standard must be on the range, pasture, or in paddocks for their entire lives. This means that all animals must be maintained at all times on land with at least 80% forage cover or unbroken ground,” and “AGA grassfed ruminant animals cannot be fed stockpiled forages in confinement for more than 30 days per calendar year.”
The limit of 30 days confined feeding is not necessarily enough to protect our pastures from severe pugging and erosion in wet, muddy times. Our attempts at feeding hay on our pastures resulted in the destruction of pasture in that area for a year or more following. Our heavy clay soils are the most likely culprits in the problems and compaction we experienced. The people I know who successfully meet those restrictions either have sandy soils, or have large areas they can plow for annual crops. They use those for their feeding of stored forage, and so they meet the no-confinement requirement.
I had hoped to be able to do this on our farm with a multi-year rotation that would include brassicas and small grains, such as oats and triticale, as pasture for our sheep. In addition to providing feed during our summer slump, it was also going to help extend the grazing season into fall. Plus, it would provide a way to feed hay on pasture in winter, reducing VM contamination of our wool.
Unfortunately, we learned by trial and error that plowing our fields only brings up new crops of rocks. We’ve been talking to people who have tried no-till, but so far, everyone has said that nothing works with our soils. The giant rock walls that ring our pastures haven’t really made a dent in the rock content of our soil. There’s a reason why our mesa has always been planted to perennials like fruit trees, hay, or more recently, wine grapes.
As a result, we must use our winter corrals as places to put sheep when pastures are too wet or muddy to safely graze. We use stored hay forage as needed when pastures are dry or not growing. Now, if we sold primarily lambs, we could get them to qualify from birth to harvest. They would meet those restrictions. However, our primary product is mutton, which comes from an older sheep. Our mutton are typically between 18-36 months old, and thus, they’ve experienced at least one winter here. Many of our butcher animals are old ewes or rams who have performed other jobs for years. They go on to their final and, in many ways, most important job: providing tasty mutton for our customers and ourselves.
The new federal grass-fed standard requires that animals get 99% of their feed from pasture or hay, and that they are on pasture from the last frost in spring to the first frost in fall. So, what does it mean when we pull sheep off before the first frost? Sometimes, we pull them when pastures are too wet, but we return them to pasture after the first frost has passed. Maintaining sustainability means that we must take good care of our land, so that it continues to produce for generations. A rigid standard that ignores individual farm conditions does seem counterproductive. Other farms in our valley can plow and plant crops without encountering huge rocks, but those farms aren’t us. And yet, our farm is highly productive when I work to the strengths of the soils we have. Permanent crops that require little or no plowing thrive here. Shouldn’t labels designed to promote healthy food and better land stewardship be flexible enough to account for individual needs?
What about other labels, like free-range, cage-free, or no hormones or antibiotics?
Free-range is also federally controlled. The definition of “free-range” for poultry is that birds must have “access to the outside.” There is no regulation for how long or how much. There’s certainly no requirement that they actually be outside once they’re done brooding. Since the time from the end of the brooding period until slaughter is so short, even if they do venture outside, they get very little time there.
In short, many birds who are labeled “free-range” never make their way outside at all. There may have just been an open door at the end of a broiler house for the last week or so of their lives. Since “free-range” doesn’t mean what people often think it means, we have generally avoided it. If our birds are to qualify, we make sure to explain that our birds are truly free range. We have picked slower-growing crosses, which we don’t butcher until 14-16 weeks of age. Our chickens are outside during the day, but are penned at night for predator control. When outside, they get to free-range to their hearts’ content. Our birds walk freely across the farm, eating all sorts of plants and insects.
“Cage-free” only means no cages. Most birds are now raised cage-free, in large sheds or row houses. These confinements are packed with thousands of birds. Plus, cage-free has no requirement for outdoor access. Be aware of this when purchasing meat or eggs from “cage-free” birds.
“Vegetarian diet” is another descriptor that we see used often. For ruminants like our sheep, a vegetarian diet is natural. Geese, too, are almost exclusively vegetarian, and only rarely do they eat insects. What about chickens or ducks? How can one call a chicken or duck “vegetarian fed” when they will naturally eat any accessible insect?
One of the best fly controls is to have chickens range behind grazing ruminants. They scratch and eat the fly larvae and adults. Ducks can be important for preventing liver fluke infections, since they eat the snails that are intermediate hosts. Using these natural parasite controllers makes sense, but it means they’re no longer eating a vegetarian diet. And yet, “vegetarian diet” is promoted as natural for chickens, when it is not.
“No added hormones” is a misleading one as well. It is illegal to add hormones to poultry or pig feed. As such, adding “no added hormones” to any pork or poultry label is an empty marketing ploy. And yet, it can be relevant for ruminants like cattle and sheep. Dairy animals are most commonly given additional hormones, though many consumers prefer to avoid them. The takeaway here is that whether the label is meaningful or not depends on the species.
For the record, we do not give our sheep any hormones, except when used to bring them into heat for artificial insemination. This is a procedure we use very rarely, and so far, only with imported semen from UK rams.
What about “no antibiotics”? Poultry are routinely given antibiotics in feed from birth to death. Pigs are too often given low levels of antibiotics in feed. They are also used in ruminant feeds. All of these applications are potential problems. While they do increase weight gains and therefore farm income, it’s not in the best interests of the animals or the consumers to eat constant antibiotics. Yet, if an animal is sick or injured, antibiotics are a necessary part of humane care.
Here’s a recent example from our farm. One of our ewes, Ann, received a severe injury. We found her with the inside of one front leg skinned from knee to elbow. She was put in a small pen, and we bandaged the injury. There was no skin to put over the wound, so as a precaution, we put her on a course of injected antibiotics with pain meds to keep her comfortable. We also used an antibiotic and antifungal ointment on the wound at each dressing change to prevent any contamination problems. She made a full recovery, there is no nerve damage, and there is good scar tissue over the whole area now. She has raised two lovely lambs for us, and she’s a wonderful young ewe who is worth the extra expense to treat.
However, like many of our sheep, she will eventually be a slaughter animal. We hope it will be many years from now, but there is always the chance that things change. If she does something to put herself on the butcher list, like failing to care for a lamb, starting to eat trees, causing significant behavioral problems, or getting too old. When that happens, she’ll be processed.
Should we prevent her from ever becoming sustenance because of an injury that healed years ago? If the rule was “no antibiotics ever,” then yes, we would have to.
The bottom line for us is that we want our customers to ask questions and talk to us about how we care for our animals, how we produce our meat. We automatically double the federal slaughter withdrawal from any drug, dewormer, or vaccine we use. We always provide the best and most humane care to our precious sheep. However, we are unlikely to conform to federally-regulated labels unless there is no way we’d have to compromise on care. For us, the higher goal is long-term, sustainable food production, given the limits and challenges of our particular farm, soils, and climate.