You can go to a Michelin-rated restaurant, or you can go to a fast-food joint. We don’t have to explain the difference in quality to you – but what so many fail to recognize is that the beef they consume often comes from cows that graze on the equivalent of junk food.
Our cows are 100% grass fed – but that’s not the whole story. When we purchased the ranch in 2005, we didn’t introduce any cows for five years, but rather began our operation by first restoring the native rangeland to its original stature. Letting the overgrazed indigenous grasses return to a natural state was very important to us, as that is what makes grass fed cows thrive.
The cows feed on a rotational grazing system, in which the grasses are eaten down to about 4 inches tall before the herd moves onto another location. By not eating all the way to the ground, the cows only ingest the healthiest part of the stalk, and the root structure of the grass stays intact. Stronger grass makes for happier cows, which in turn yields healthier, tastier beef.
We’ve made the decision to never max out capacity of our land. We could raise more cattle, sell more beef – but at a consequence to the animals and our customers. And that’s simply unacceptable.