Good husbandry is part of being a good stockman

Fresh clean water.  Nothing better.  We are so fortunate to have the best tasting sweetest water I’ve ever drank in our little cabin home.  I love it and drink a lot of it and feel real good and healthy when I am home.

Our livestock need good clean water that is easy to access, and is close enough to the main herd so they feel safe and get plenty before they need to get go back to the herd and end up dehydrated.  This is an important part of animal husbandry to understand and monitor.

I only have one tank in my corral and it services three pens and there is not much volume or space, but it has good flow.  I really have to make sure my livestock are getting their hydration need met.

I try to clean it every week.  I also have some other water spots on the place, the main one being the Musselshell  River, and I like to take cattle to it and let them get a good drink.  I have observed cattle like to have a big first drink, then after they do what they do in the gut, they come back and drink again.  If you are trying to get cattle to stay somewhere and be content, this is important to understand.

With red meat and fat, context is everything

Hi, Everyone,The idea that red meat and saturated fat are bad for us is deeply entrenched in the conventional medical paradigm and, thus, the mainstream media.But study after study over the past two decades have contradicted this belief, and now we have two more to add to this growing body of evidence. The first is a large new study that was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. It examined the intake of both fresh and processed red meat among almost 135,000 participants from 21 different countries. The study found no association between fresh red meat and the risk of early death, heart disease, cancer, or stroke. (They did find a small association between processed red meat and a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and death—more on that below.)One strength of this study is that the researchers did a good job of matching the baseline characteristics (e.g., sex, age, body mass index, and behaviors like smoking and drinking) of the group that ate more red meat with the group that ate less red meat. This makes a more “apples to apples” comparison possible. The second study was a meta-analysis of 59 systemic reviews published in the Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism examining the association between dietary fat intake and a variety of health outcomes. The researchers found “no association of total fat, monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA), polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA), and saturated fatty acid (SFA) with risk of chronic diseases.”I’m happy to see that many newer studies that look at the relationship between certain foods and health outcomes have at least taken some steps to ensure more accurate results. I think this is a major reason why most recent studies have failed to find any connection between red meat and saturated fat and chronic diseases. But we could still do better. We don’t eat foods in isolation—we eat them along with other foods in an overall diet pattern. When we eat red meat in the context of a diet high in processed and refined foods, it will not have the same effects as if we eat it in the context of a whole-foods diet. In other words, when it comes to red meat and saturated fat, context is everything. For example:Heterocyclic amines (HCAs) have been shown to increase cancer risk. But cruciferous veggies and spices reduce the formation of HCAs, and cooking meat at lower temperatures (stewing, low-temperature roasting, etc.) lowers them, too.Some studies have linked increased consumption of heme iron from red meat to cancer. But other studies have shown that eating fruits and vegetables attenuates the oxidative capacity of heme iron and reduces the absorption of iron in the gut. In all studies of the relationship between red meat and cancer that controlled for vegetables, a greater increase was seen in people not consuming vegetables. Vegetable consumption seems to confer a protective effect. Red meats are associated with a variety of cancers, but consumption of fruits and veggies is associated with protection against just as many and is most protective in cohorts at the highest risk. Most studies, even the more recent ones, including the two I linked to above, do not take this into account. And that’s why I’m still somewhat suspicious when I see findings suggesting that processed meats increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, or other bad outcomes—although I’m definitely open to the possibility that they do. There are just too many potential confounding factors to adequately control for all of them. So, my recommendation remains the same: eat a nutrient-dense, whole-foods diet with a broad variety of both animal and plant foods. This is what traditional wisdom, modern research, and clinical experience suggest is the best approach for the majority of people. In health,ChrisP.S. If you’re interested in these topics, and want to do a super deep dive, check out the curated resource page we put together for my appearances on The Joe Rogan Experience, which were focused on the role of meat in the diet.

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I like seeing things content and in the condition that fits the situation best.

Horses are made to eat a little all the time, and cattle do best when they eat small amounts often. I was at the Grey Summit, Missouri research farm for Purina/Land O Lakes and they showed the value of cattle “snack feeding” on Accuration. It kept the stomach bugs going because the PH balance stayed constant and you didn’t have a big kill off of the stomach bugs when they got empty and then overate.

Many good grazers us a lead/follow system of grazing. The highest value gain animals get the first crack, then are followed up with less valuable gain animals.

I bought some real nice grass/alfalfa hay this year. I let my calves have it first and they get the best of it. Then my horses come in and clean it up. They are happy because they get to eat all they want, but it is not hot feed so they don’t get to fat on it.

Before green grass started I would feed calves then move them to new feed. I would feed in four or five different places, move the calves to fresh, and bring horses in to follow. This makes real nice manure distribution and they are on clean ground to eat.

Now that green grass is starting, I have to lot em up to let the grass get a good start, and they won’t eat hay if they are out where the grass is trying to grow. So the horses are in during the day without feed while I am working them, and then they clean up in the evening and night.

I have some swampy pasture that the grass is early but I don’t have to worry about grazing it to hard that I put my calves out on for a couple hours each day. The calves get feed, my dogs get to learn to gather in the brush, and I get a couple horses some good real jobs so it’s a win win and win.

For me, I like to really work at creating an appetite for my cattle and by the way you manage I think you can get the calves to feeding those stomach bugs all they can eat.

Just like all things the more effort you put into thinking about creating the best situation, the better it will be.