Study: grazing cows are worse for the environment

An animal rights group is up in arms after a study suggested that beef from cows that graze naturally outside has a higher environmental impact than beef from cows fattened on farms.

The study, published by the Swiss federal government’s agricultural research body, Agroscope, last month, compared the environmental effect of cows raised on alpine pastures in the summer and those reared on farms complying with the Terra-Suisse label.

The report found that, since cows reared on pastures graze on natural grasses, they take around 20 months to reach the required weight for slaughter, compared with 15 months for cows fattened using concentrated fodder on farms.

As a result, pasture-raised cows ultimately eat more, and produce more methane, it said. …

We have an organic co-op in Wisconsin

https://www.organicvalley.coop/

They market many products among them is what they label Pasture Butter. It is made strictly from cows that pasture feed. It is delicious and tastes like fresh clover.

Brangus are hardly a typical size breed of cattle, as you well know. Drive across the ranch lands of Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska and the most common breed is Herefords or Shorthorns. Further south, you will see Texas Longhorns, a bigger than average size.

As far as Mormons and coffee go, love them or hate them, they are great record keepers and preservers. You can view scores of pioneer journals online such as this site. The tea came later. Coffee was the beverage of choice until the later half of the trail history. Mormons were much more lax on enforcing their admonitions against drinking coffee and alcohol until safe drinking water became widely available by the late 1870s.

While pioneer journals about the Mormon Trail are relatively common because of their centralized hierarchy where every company was assigned one journal keeper (and many more kept their own journal), those of the much greater traveled Oregon Trail are relatively rare because each company was organized according to the whims of the members.

Many of the individual journals mention the pollution of these rivers due to buffalo crossings. And, while it is true that there was no EPA in those days to take water samples and provide actual data, given the number and concentration of the bison herds in those days, it is a logical inference.

Just go to the website a read a few of the pioneer journals if you need further convincing.

I think you are correct, my husband bought 2 Longhorns just for their looks. One has died from cancer eye, the other is magnificent! I named him Meatloaf. The one who died was named Hamburger. Those names were just a warning that they should behave themselves.......or else!

Long Horn’s? Please tell me your joking. Some people raise long horns as a novelty or a Texas tradition but I don’t know anybody who raises them commercially, other than to sell them to novelty buyers.

Quite the contrary. Longhorns have a commercial role, though it's specialized.

Many livestock breeders believe that calves produced by a longhorn-heifer mating have a better birthing rate -- better survival by the calf, better survival rate by the heifer.

But, once she's a cow (instead of a heifer), standard breeding practices will prevail.

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