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What is a Cattle Feedyard and why is it called a CAFO?
A cattle feedyard is a farm like mine where cattle are fed a nutritionally balanced grain and forage based diet as final preparation for harvest. Cattle will spend 4-6 months in this stage of beef...
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Creatures of habit…two legged and four legged.
I am often asked what a typical day looks like. While I usually smile, shake my head, and say “there is no typical day when you are caring for animals” that is really only part of the truth. The...
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Welcome to Feedyard Foodie!
Life is full of transitions and changes—how else would a city girl get from South Florida to New Hampshire to a cattle farm in Central Nebraska? It will *hopefully* be less of a culture shock for this...
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Why do I feed them this? Part 2
When my husband and I moved back to the family farm in 1997, one of the big things that we looked at and discussed at length was “how to ensure that our farm was sustainable”, year after year. This is...
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Proving That We Care…
Just a couple of weeks ago, a social media friend forwarded me an email that she had received from a reader. The email was a cry for help from a fellow mom. It seems that her daughter, after...
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CNN Eatocracy…
Calling all Feed Yard Foodie followers! Head over to CNN’s Eatocracy site to see a neat article on Winter Chores…...
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Factory Farmer or Faithful Farmer?
I asked around a bit in social media circles last week looking for a definition of Factory Farm as it pertains to cattle. I was curious given that I had just read Fast Food Nation and had Mr....
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Empowering Myself as a Woman Entrepreneur…
I remember vividly as a child listening to my grandfather say, “Anne, strive to be unemployable!” My grandfather’s definition of a successful entrepreneur was someone who owns and operates a personal...
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National Ag Day…
If you had asked me 20 years ago what the letters Ag stood for, I would not have been able to tell you. Those initials represented a community of people that I seldom ran across in the swimming pools...
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March Madness…
It’s March. In Nebraska, this is the month known for wind, basketball, preparation for crop planting, and more wind. My favorite farmer is following the basketball tournaments with enthusiasm, while...
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Perfect Practice Makes Perfect Performance…
Our swim team t-shirts this season carried one of my very favorite quotes. I not only enjoy telling my swimmers that Perfect Practice Makes Perfect Performance, I live out the words in my own life. I...
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Putting One Foot In Front of the Other…
While the fall months are my favorite weather months of the year, my life is so busy that I often find myself one step short of frazzled. I often need to remind myself to take one day at a time …...
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Dartmouth Alumni Magazine…
I am incredibly honored to be featured in the January/February Dartmouth College Alumni magazine. The following article was written by Rianna Starheim, and appeared in the voices in the wilderness...
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Romancing the Feed Yard…
My favorite farmer gave me a birthday card more than 15 years ago that showed a picture of a man systematically mowing the lawn (including the flower garden) with a caption that read, I guess I’m more...
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Celebrating Success…
In the spirit of a little bit of friendly competition, all 21 Progressive Beef Certified Feed Yards are ranked twice a year according to how they scored on their last audit. I have always held a...
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Cattle Psychology – Where the Romantic Meets the Pragmatist…
A couple of weeks ago at the International Symposium of Beef Cattle Welfare, I heard Dr. David Fraser speak about the conflicting ideas of “romantic” vs “industrial” thoughts toward animal welfare....
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5 Reasons Why I Prefer a Cattle Feed Yard To a Shopping Mall…
Thoughtful Thursday I prefer a cattle feed yard to a shopping mall… My daughters went back to school this week. Just like many teenage girls, they thought that they needed to do “school shopping”...
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Preparing For the Fall Run…
The month of August can mostly be described as the calm before the storm at the feed yard. It is during this time that we finish up maintenance projects in preparation for the fall run of cattle. In...
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Connecting the Dots…
The vast majority of cattle have more than one address during their lifetime. This occurs because of the long life cycle of a bovine as well as the diverse resources needed to grow beef. Most of my...
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The Culture of Meat…
In addition to discussing food/meat in the written word, National Geographic is also doing a television series entitled “Eat: The Story of Food”. The second episode of the series centered on meat —...
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