Grain Fed or Grass Fed?

You might remember that I run for TEAM BEEF MONTANA, I've written about it before. As ranchers, Jeff and I feel very passionate about our herd and the ranching lifestyle. We eat a lot of beef, and I also have always had a strong interest in eating healthily and nutritiously. When I saw this infographic posted on the Team Beef Montana Facebook page, I had to share it. I love that it explains the health benefits of beef, especially in terms of fat content, and Zinc, Iron, and Protein. All of which are very important parts of a healthy diet, and super important for fueling a run, or an active lifestyle! I also love that this poster does not point favorites between grain fed or grass fed animals, but simply explains them both and continues to endorse beef as a part of a healthy diet. 

On our farm/ranch, our animals are on pasture for most of the year. In the fall, the herd grazes on grain stubble and grass. In the winter, we feed them hay. Our calves ship in the fall and almost always go to a feedlot somewhere in the Midwest (varies by year.) The animals that we hold back to finish for our own meat-eating purposes, are finished on a mixture of hay and gradually increasing grain ration. So, I guess our calves are grass-fed/on mama's milk for 90% of their lives, then finished on grain. The cows that we keep are pretty much on grass or hay for their entire lives.

We also feed some supplements during difficult nutrition times of the year for the cows-- range cake, lick tubs, etc., so that the cows can continue to get the nutrients they need while nursing.

On a related note, I found this blog post on why Iron is super important for runners on the Oiselle Blog. Iron is especially important for female runners (really, Iron is important for EVERYONE!) Beef is a great source of Iron, as the graphic above indicates, and this blog post, written by a Dietitian and a runner, reinforces this idea.

In case, you needed a quick recipe for a healthy beef entree, I've got that for you right here, too. This recipe actually comes from Jeff's Aunt Linda, and is called Beef-Corn Dandy. This was a 4H specialty of Linda's growing up. I'm going to post the recipe as she has it written, then go through some of the tips and minor variations I often make when I make this recipe.

Beef Corn Dandy
Ingredients:
1 lb. ground beef
1 onion, chopped
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 c. diced tomatoes
1 can corn
1/4 lb shredded cheese.

Instructions:
1. Place beef, onion, and spices in a skillet and cook until beef is lightly browned and onion is soft. Drain fat.
2. Add tomatoes and corn. Cover and simmer over low heat for 20 min.
3. Top with cheese, cover until cheese melts. Serve and enjoy!

Katie's Tips:
So, the biggest variation that I do when I make this is that I really load it up with veggies. This dish becomes sort of a clean-out-the-fridge free-for-all when it comes to veggies, for me. I'll add carrots, zucchini, potatoes, whatever I have on hand to really bulk up the variety of veggies in this.

Also, I almost always cook some sort of grain or pasta to serve as a platform for the Dandy.
Typically, it'll be whatever pasta is on-hand. Sometimes I'll layer the pasta on the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish, then top it with the beefy-veggie skillet mixture, then top with cheese and into the oven it goes to heat it all through, and serve as a casserole.

Last tip-- get creative with spices and seasonings. A recipe like this is made for experimentation! You can take it almost any direction. I've done Italian with basil, oregano, parsley, and also Mexican with some leftover fajita seasoning, just to name a few examples.

A recent variation of Beef Corn Dandy, including zucchini, potatoes, bell peppers, corn, tomatoes, onion, garlic and green beans as supplemental veggies. Most of which came straight out of the garden, complementing our home-raised beef! 

What are your thoughts? Do you have a preference between grain fed and grass fed animals? Honestly, I don't have a very refined palate, so I can't taste much of a difference when I eat either. In the end, nutritionally, they are pretty similar and....well... EAT MORE BEEF! :)

Lions and Calves

March is in like a Lion in North-Central Montana this year. Our outdoor temperature has not read above -10 in several days and wind chills have been much, much colder than that.

March 1, of course, is our calving due date. Before my time on the ranch the due date used to be in February but they decided to move it back a bit to avoid the below-zero weather that can occur in the depths of winter.  I'll pause to let you consider that for a moment.

----------

I have been sleeping over with Jeff at Tom and Carol's house, functioning as Jeff's fourth alarm clock so he'll be able to rouse in the middle of the night to wander through the cows, checking for calves or signs of imminent calving. Yesterday, it was -17 outside (I didn't look at the windchill because I didn't want to know) and I was out helping Jeff isolate a few cows into the calving barn who looked like they were about ready to go.

We ended up with six in the barn and wouldn't you know, none of them calved over night. Those who did were the ones we left outdoors. Tom had found a calf around 12:30a.m. or so who had been born outside and was, well, it goes without saying, quite cold. Into the warming box in the barn he went.  Later, Jeff was out and the little guy still had frost on his ears and his tail, so Jeff spent some time trying to dry him off with a blow dryer, which he did not like at all. Tom went out again later and despite all of Jeff's drying efforts, the calf's ears and tail were frozen again. More hair drying.

Out every two hours or so, the guys wander through the cows. With the temperatures such as they are, it would not take long for more than ear or tail tips to freeze, but for the calf itself to be short-lived. Today, on top of the bitter cold, it has snowed all day. Such is the rhythm of calving, combined with Mother Nature's fickle moods, and we're all adapting quite well. We're looking forward to the rest of this week, which promises to be much, much warmer. Temperatures back into the 30's (notice I did NOT put a negative sign in front of that number!) will mean checks less often and fewer night-checks overall, which means more sleep for all.

Even among all the stress, lack of sleep, unexpected realities, we count our blessings that we get to do these things at all. That we get to do what we love in a beautiful place. Bringing new life into the world, of any kind, is a treasure that we as ranchers experience intimately. It's pretty special. This is a lifestyle I wouldn't trade.

First Calf of 2014!

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:  We interrupt this regularly scheduled 200th blog post to PrairiePonderingsMT to bring you BREAKING NEWS. The commemorative 200th post will be observed in the 201st post, which will be forthcoming. We now bring you to BREAKING NEWS, already in progress!

BREAKING NEWS: FIRST CALF OF 2014 BORN AT BANGS FAMILY FARMS!

Just in time for Valentine's Day, this little lady was born into the world:


Our first calf of the year was born on Thursday evening. She is a heifer calf and was the first calf out of a heifer (who is technically now a cow).

Here's mama and baby together--

The calf was born without problem. Mama didn't need any assistance, as heifers sometimes do. This heifer is actually part of our herd (Ours in this case = Me and Jeff, carrying the J3 brand), so congratulations to us I guess on the first calf.

The calf sure is cute and I'm glad it seems to be fine.  Being this early (our due date is March 1) it appears as though a bull may have gotten into the herd early. Interestingly, our first calf last year was born on Valentine's Day weekend, too: LAST YEAR'S FIRST CALF.  At this point, it looks like our next calf will not be born until later this upcoming week, perhaps, but one never knows for sure. But with the birth of this first one (one out of about 100 total to calve), Calving Season has officially begun!  Time to break out the rubber overshoes. :)

This is technically the 200th post to this blog (Woohoo!) but we're going to observe it in the next post. For now, have a great day and a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Bullpen: Answer Key

A few days ago I posted this photo and asked you all to find a few key items in it, sort of like a game: 

Here were the items to find:
Can You Find It?
1-3: Three bull tails
4.  Twine in the hand
5. A Diamond
6. A red hoodie
7. A yard light
8. Two windows

And below is the "answer key."  I'll admit I don't have the answer items numbered exactly the same as they are in the list, and some of the numbers are hard to see, too.My bad. Keep in mind this is the first time I've tried "Find It on the Farm," and there's room for improvement.

The item that had the most people stumped was the diamond. If you look very carefully, there is a diamond on Jeff's boot. Mystery solved!

Please let me know what you think of this new series. My plan is to go for once a month for this game and see how it goes. Which items were hard to find? What would make this a better activity? Leave comments below. Thanks, and glad you played!

Find It On The Farm! Volume 1: Bullpen

I'm starting a new series on the blog called Find It on the Farm. Today is your lucky day- you've stumbled upon Volume 1: Bullpen.

This new series, Find It on the Farm, is essentially a monthly I Spy game. I'll post a picture and a list of things for you to find in the photo. Then, the next day or maybe two days later, I'll post the answers-- which is going to be the same photo with the objects pointed out in them. I'm sure you've all played games like this before. I thought it would be a fun way to get some reader involvement and keep people coming back, plus you get an in-detail look once a month at what is going on at Bangs farms. Who knows, you might learn something!

This inaugural photo for Find It on the Farm was taken a few days ago by yours truly when Jeff and I were feeding cows. In case you missed that post (which I stupidly posted during the Superbowl, as if people were just trolling facebook and the blogosphere), you can read it HERE.  For now, enjoy the first photo in Find It on the Farm, entitled Bullpen. The list of things to find is right below the photo. Have fun!

Can You Find It?
1-3: Three bull tails
4.  Twine in the hand
5. A Diamond
6. A red hoodie
7. A yard light
8. Two windows

Answer post will be up within a few days!

Livestock Resource Management

Have you ever wondered what farmers and ranchers do in the winter?

Winter may not be as hectic and labor intensive as other seasons, but it is a time of office work. This is when we make big decisions about what to plant for the upcoming year and also when we budget and allocate expenses. In large business corporations, the Accounting Department helps crunch the numbers so the higher-ups can make informed decisions. On a farm the size of ours, we are our own Accounting Department and CFO rolled into one.

This time of year we are also something I like to think of as Livestock Resource Managers. That's a fancy way of saying...We Keep Our Cows Fed and Happy. We (ranchers) are managing the resources (hay and straw) of the livestock (cows). Normally, our herd grazes in pasture or stubble fields, but in the winter, they can't do that. They still gotta eat, so that means daily feeding chores.  Yesterday I had the chance to help Jeff with Livestock Resource Management on a beautiful, sunny, 8-degree morning.  I love being among the animals.  Harvey and Abby "helped" too. Here's a few photos...

Single digits and snow attracts large flocks of grouse. Can you see them roosting in the trees?
This is the sight that greeted us when we pulled into the yard yesterday. 

Abby, sitting pretty in the snow.

When it's this cold, Harvey wears his hoodie. He still looks handsome.

Jeff, driving tractor, unrolls the second hay bale for the cows.

My favorite photo of the day. Cows munching away, beautiful light, Sweetgrass Hills in the background. Love it. 

I think Abby and Harvey "help" only so they can have first chance to wrestle in freshly pitched straw!
They go nuts in this stuff!

Feeding the bulls. 

These are the heifers and 2nd-calvers.
They are already split from the herd in preparation for calving. 

Feeding Miss Daisy

When I was younger, as in Middle School or High School age, one of my daily chores was emptying the dishwasher.  I would get home from school, the clean dishes would be waiting, and I would put them away.  This I did with marginal efficacy, more-or-less occasionally.  I confess the regularity and thoroughness with which I completed this task was not up to my parents’ standards.  I’m sure they would agree.  More likely, I’d get home from school, procrastinate the dishwasher, and commence at lounging in the comfy recliner, watching crappy network afternoon television, snack in hand, until Dad got home and reminded me I had not done my chore. Well, secret’s out now!

 

These days, my most important daily chore cannot be so casually brushed aside.  It is my daily responsibility to feed our orphaned twin-calf, Daisy.  Since she may end up being in my freezer, I probably should have selected a less-cutesy name and gone with something like, “T-bone,” or “Brisket,” instead, to remind me she is destined for human consumption and not to become too attached.  If only it were a male calf, I could have named him Chuck. 

 

So, why exactly do we have this extra calf?  At calving time, in the uncommon event that twins are born, often both calves do not ultimately stay with the same mama.  Typically, at least one calf out of all the other calves born that spring does not make it for one reason or another.  In this case, a twin-calf could be separated from its birth mama and “grafted” with the cow who lost her calf.  This year at the end of the season, our set of twins was still a set.  Most cows cannot support raising twins.  They simply do not produce enough milk to bring both calves to appropriate weaning weight.  So Daisy was pulled off her mama and we now feed her.  She’s destined to become our fat-beef for the year, or, to sub in for a smaller calf in our load of calves that will ship this October.

 

Read herehttp://prairieponderingsmt.blogspot.com/2013/07/calf-sale.html for a post on our calves selling a few weeks ago!

 

And that’s how Daisy came to live at our house.

 

No, she doesn’t actually live in our house.  Could you imagine setting the table for two humans and a red Simmental-Angus calf? I bet she would be even less polite about begging for food than Harvey, not to mention the mess!  Best not to think about that too much.

 

Daisy lives in the small pasture adjacent to our yard.  I feed her something called Milk Replacer every day, usually in the evening. It’s essentially baby formula, only created for calves and other animals.  It’s mixed proportionally with water in a bucket with a nipple on the end, which acts just like a mama cow’s udder.

 

Daisy gets pretty insistent when it gets close to the time of day she usually gets fed.  For a small creature, she can be pretty loud.  I think her moo sounds a lot like a full-grown cow and not so much like a calf.  She comes right up to the fence and bellows.  I may be irregular about the time that I feed her, but she does get fed every day.  Sometimes it’s right when I get home from work, around 5:00pm… and sometimes it’s closer to 9:00pm, depending on the evening’s activities. One thing is for sure, I don’t have the option of lounging in a recliner with a snack and “forgetting” to feed the calf. 

 

Here's pictorial progression of Daisy's nightly nourishment routine!

This is the bag of "Calf Formula," if you will. 

This is the feeding vessel. 

 

 
Milk Replacer formula goes into the bucket and is mixed with hot water and...

 

 

Voila!  We now have feed-able milk replacer!

Can you believe I was an intern at Burberry?! I'm a long way from my Fashion Design days out here.  It's best to wear long pants and long sleeves primarily so you're less bothered by mosquitos, but also because the grass is itchy against bare skin.  It's perhaps hard to tell in this photo, but I typically also wear tall cowboy boots or rubber muck boots.  Reasons for this include protection from mosquitos, itchy grass, and rattlesnakes (oh my!) and also because Daisy tends to slop milk out of the bucket onto my feet.

When it gets to be the time of night she typically gets fed, she comes right up to the fence and starts really bawling and asking for it.  Look at her! She looks like a crack hound needing a fix, no?

 

It takes about five minutes for her to suck down a pail of milk.  Then, the little bit leftover goes to Harvey. We call it his "Milk Treat."  He loves it.

Harvey licks out every last drop!

After Daisy gets fed and Harvey gets his Milk Treat, we often go for a short sunset stroll down the road.  Can you see Harvey at the edge of this wheat field?

Unobstructed sunsets are a major perk living out here!

 

 

Lemonade, Baby Goats, and Hillbilly Music!

Lemonade....

 

How do they get them so shiny?

 

Baby Goats...

 

Who wants to buy a goat?!

 

 

Hillbilly Music...

 

 

 

Rhinestones...

 

 

What do these three things have in common?  They can all be found at the Montana State Fair!

Just look at all that Carney Food!

And So Can...

Cowboy Boots...

Yep. Those are mine.
Turns out taking a photo of your own boots while you're wearing them is not very flattering.

Art Deco...

A lot of their buildings are in this great Art Deco style! So cool!

 

and... Rednecks!

 

 

That's right, guys! I took my very first trip to the Montana State Fair last weekend! We didn't get a ton of time at the fair, which is held in Great Falls, since we were actually supposed to be getting ready for harvest, but I was glad we went.  I had some delicious fair food including fresh squeezed lemonade, a funnel cake, and a yummy teriyaki bowl. 

 

Giant pretzel, anyone?

This is what I actually had for dinner.
These guys were from Thompson Falls, MT. So yummy!

 Jeff and I also walked through the livestock barns. The day we were there was only the second day of the fair, so some of the animals we would have been more interested in (cows, horses) were not there yet.  But, we did spend some time checking out the goats!  They were awesome!  This is the mama goat to the babies in the earlier photo. If I remember right, they were Nigerian goats.  Any goat people out there want to correct me on the breed? They were pretty cute. 

Where are your kids, lady?
Hahaha I crack myself up!

The main reason we went to the fair was so we could go to the concert that night-- Dwight Yoakam. Since moving to the West in 2007, I have fully embraced Country Music.  I mean, if we're being honest, there's at least two Country radio stations to every one of anything else, so it was inevitable. Plus, there's something comforting about learning a song very quickly and being able to sing along. 

 

This year's concert lineup, listed on a sandwich board.
Mmm... sandwiches...

It really doesn't get any more Country than Dwight Yoakam, folks. He's got a great twang, almost a yodel-y aspect to his vocal style and the songs are about real people and real problems. Guitar heavy, lots of vamping... Just wonderful. The classics like "Guitars, Cadillacs," and "Bakersfield" can't be beat. He also played a number of songs off his newest album, which I love and would highly recommend.  And, they wore rhinestone jackets! RHINESTONES!  It was a great show and I'm glad we went down for it.

I also want to say a quick Thanks to everyone who keeps reading my blog! I know some posts are not as good as others, but there are also those posts that everyone clearly enjoys very much.  My
PREVIOUS POST about rattlesnakes jumped up to the third most popular post I've ever written!  Thanks for continuing to read and share my blog.  If you keep reading, I'll keep writing!

Calf Sale!

Arriving at work today, Tuesday, which is in fact my Monday, having asked a number of coworkers how they spent their weekend, I found I was feeling a bit confused.  One hundred percent of survey respondents stated their weekends were filled with lazy, dog-days-of-summer activities.  One hundred percent of those I asked reported going to the lake.  Other activities included “going to the fair,” “visiting family/friends,” and the delightfully general, “relaxing.”  Why was I feeling confused?  My thought was, “Why did all of these people have so much extra time for “relaxing?”  What happened to my weekend?

 

Yes, it’s true I have a four-day weekend.  By that I mean I work at a wage-paying job in town three days a week.  By no means are the remaining four days are spent idle.  My weekend typically involves gardening either at my house or in the big gardens at Tom and Carol’s, calf-chores, shuttling vehicles with Jeff, helping with cows, housework such as laundry, cleaning, cooking, putting up food from the garden… any or all of the above. 

 

To be clear, I am not trying to be one of those martyrs to being busy.  You know the type… “I’m so busy! You can’t possibly understand how busy I am all the time!  I don’t have time for anyone or anything but all my important, busy tasks! No one is as busy as I am!...” listing all their many, varied, “important” activities.  That’s not my point. 

 

What is my point? Summer is busy!  We’re all busy. Well, all of us except everyone I unofficially surveyed at work in Chester today.  My guess is that each of them were busier than they let on, but who wants to say, “Why, yes my weekend was filled with banal but time-occupying tasks around the house and farm…”  (The Busy Martyrs, that’s who!)   Truthfully, I’d rather be busy than not.  Besides, after being away from home so much in the first half of the summer, at this point it still feels satisfying to dig in to home and farm tasks and feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with them.

 

This weekend was a big weekend for the ranch side of our operation.  Friday and Saturday were spent moving each of the four bunches of our herd which had heretofore been split into four groups in four different pastures, with the bulls in each respective group.  Each group was brought back to the yard, the bulls separated out, and fly-treatment administered.  Newsflash: Cows get flies. Cows get flies realllllly bad. Bulls get them even worse than cows!  Do you like getting fly bites? Me neither.  I can’t imagine constantly having so many flies swarming around me.  I tend to reach for the bug spray pretty quickly.  Animals can’t apply it to themselves, so that’s where we come in.  They really seem to love the fly spray, which is mixed in with cool water.  On a hot summer day, it probably feels pretty good to get a cool shower and be rid of your bugs all at once! 

 

Yesterday was also important as it was the day our calves sold.  I’m not positive, but I think the selling price was another record high, and the calves look like they will weigh out pretty good at shipping time, so that’s good, too.  The past few years we have sold our calves in a video-auction format.  So, a local representative from the auction company visits the farm and takes a video of our cows and calves.  The video is posted on their website for viewing before the sale.  You can check out the video of our calves here: http://www.northernlivestockvideo.com/catalog.php?lot=19673&SaleID=816  The sale itself is televised.  Prospective buyers place their bids online or over the phone. Kinda crazy, and I’m sure I’m not explaining it very well, but it works. Even though the calves sold yesterday, we will continue to graze them until the shipping date in late October.  Tonight for dinner we are eating beef (spaghetti with homemade meatballs!) to celebrate our calves selling so well!

 

And speaking of food, another of my major accomplishments over the weekend was food prep.  Harvest is nearly upon us, so I have been trying to prepare planned-overs to have on hand for harvest meals.  I have also done some putting-up of produce from the garden and from our Bountiful Basket.  Right now, we have snow peas and regular peas in full force and green beans starting to come on.  Shelling peas is a nice activity for watching baseball games.  Snow peas have been eaten plain, in salads, and frozen for later.  Green beans will most definitely be processed into delicious pickled beans—one of my favorites!  I also tried a few new recipes this weekend for home-canned goods:  Strawberry Dessert Sauce, and Blueberry-Maple-Pecan Conserve.  Both of which were absolutely delicious when I scraped a spoon in the pot to clean out the left-overs, and both super easy to make. 

 

All of the activity over the weekend carried the decreasingly-subtle hubbub of harvest preparation.  It’s likely we will be cutting peas within a week to ten days, and there’s lots to do in the meantime before we start.  That electric excitement is starting to gather in the air, however. 

 

The other busy creatures this time of year are the rattlesnakes… More on this in my next post, due later this week!

Branding Day

Saturday morning was sunny and warm, and only slightly windy.  It was a good day for working outside. Specifically, it was a good day for branding.

Branding is the most widely used method of permanently identifying animal ownership. Other methods can include ear tags (which we also use) and RFID chip implants.  Branding itself can be done hot or cold.  We use a hot brand.  It is electric, so no need for a branding fire.

Many ranch operations choose to brand all their calves, each year.  From what I understand, it may be more important to brand more animals if the cattle are at pasture near many other similar-looking breeds, or if they graze on an open range, or if there are problems in the area with cattle rustling (yes, it still happens!) Around here, we only brand the heifers that we are going to keep as part of the herd. Our animals do not graze on open range, and are not too terribly close to others' herds, few of which are simmental or simangus anway.  Our calves are not branded because most of them will be sold in the fall anyway.  So, out of practicality, and I think for the sake of making less of a somewhat unpleasant necessity, only the heifers are branded.

Each year at calving time, each calf born receives a tag with the same number on it as its mother.  At branding time, the replacement heifers get a new "name" and the tags are switched out-- as easy as changing an earring. Painless.  Before the actual branding process began, Jeff and I worked on writing out ear tags for each of the animals.  We would be keeping 21 heifers; each receiving a new tag.  The front of the tag features our brand, J3, (pronounced: J Three Bar), and the number of the animal. There is a system behind the numbers and letters, but I'm not sure I understand it completely, so that will be another post for another time.  The back of the tag features three letters, S, D, and B.  S is for Sire, ie which bull sired this animal. D is for Dam, or the mother of the animal.  B is for the Birth Year of the animal.  All the animals we branded were one year old, born in 2011.


 All the heifers were brought into the corrals and one by one through the squeeze chute.  They each got a vaccine, their new ear tag, and our brand.  Carol helped herd the animals into the chute. Tom operated the chute itself and administered vaccines, and changed ear tags.  Jeff applied the branding iron and helped Tom.  I was the secretary, preparing the tagger and also taking notes of the cows' new numbers. The whole operation went very smoothly.

You should be able to see our J3 brand on the right rib of this cow.

The biggest difference of this branding  was actually the fact that we only used one brand, just the J3.  Tom and Carol have used a different brand, LES, on their herd over the years. This year all the replacement heifers were needed in our herd, as our cattle are older and many will need to be sold as soon as this fall.  These heifers were a combination of animals from our own herd, though most were from Tom and Carol's herd. They have a great set of cows, so these calves will provide a great boost to our cow herd, and we were very appreciative that they were willing to allow us to add the heifers to our cows!

One Hundred Photos for the One Hundredth Post

This is it. The one hundredth post to Prairie Ponderings MT.  Thank you to everyone who has been reading so far.  Whether you have let me know through comments on the posts, via email, on Facebook, through family members, or in person, your positive reactions and encouragement has kept me faithful to this blog. I am glad and honored to be able to provide a window into this very special life to each of you. 

To celebrate my one hundredth post, I compiled one hundred photos and created a little slide show set to music. Most of the photos were taken by me, but some were taken by Jeff, Carol, Tom, and Katie.  The "movie" lasts about ten minutes.  Go make some popcorn, grab a friend, and enjoy!  

Song Credits: 

1. To The Dream, by Southern Sun

2.  Red Clay Halo, by Gillian Welch

3.  Almost Home, by The Greencards