What Is “Pasture Raised” Food?
When we say our animals are pasture raised, we truly mean that they live their lives on pasture. Pasture raised implies this idea but unfortunately most items in the store that say they are “pasture raised” aren’t what you image. Big companies have co-opted the term and will provide their animals access to a small […]
How did you get started with pigs?
To be honest, we weren’t planning on raising pigs. However, we realized that producing the kind of healthy beef we wanted would take time to grow; to raise and finish a cow on grass alone takes about three years. In the meantime, we needed to generate an income and establish ourselves as a business while […]
Benefits of Rotational Grazing
At Cove Creek Farm we use rotational grazing to improve the health and productivity of the pasture.
What is Rotational Grazing?
For many who use rotational grazing, planned frequent movements of livestock on pasture, the goal is to use livestock as a tool to improve the soil and the forage diversity of the farms they manage. Instead of letting animals continuously graze down an entire pasture, the animals are herded into a section of the pasture for a short period of time. Many small farms raising grass-fed, grass-finished beef, lamb, goat, or pastured pigs and chickens, use rotational grazing techniques. The constant movement of animals in tightly packed herds with extended rest between grazings would have been natural for large herding animals. And as was the case in a more natural state, not just the land, but the animals’ health and the quality of meat ultimately produced are winners.
(more…)Converting a monoculture pasture
In December of 2018, we purchased an old dairy farm in Monteagle, TN to be able to expand our herd. The location of the farm is excellent and the soil fertility is in decent shape but we noticed that there were only a few dominate species of forage growing. In particular, fescue dominated most of […]