Thursday, July 8, 2010

My cows go to the beach every day

Now that is just crazy talk right? The nearest beach is a good 6 hour drive from here. So in the physical sense this statement is crazy talk but what my cows do get is that miracle vitamin called Kelp meal. What the heck is kelp meal?



Kelp is the green stuff in the picture above. It hangs out in the oceans of the world and grabs nutrients out of the sea. Those nutrients are stored into these wonderful plants until they are harvested by kelp farmers!! They then air dry the kelp and grind it up. That leaves the kelp meal that the cows can gobble up. on average they will eat about 1 oz of kelp meal per animal. Why not just give them grass you ask? Well the simple answer is kelp meal is like the cattle version on Veema (a multivitamin). Just like us cows are picky eaters and left to their own accord they would only eat the junk food grass on pasture. So what we are able to do is supplement their diet with this kelp meal that is kept out on pasture with them. They can eat as much or as little as they need b/c it is fed buffet style. The nice thing about kelp is that is is super high in iodine so it helps the animals avoid getting pinkeye disease. When you pour it out it smells just like the ocean so it makes me think of the beach every time I am in the field near the mineral feeder.

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