“Is it grass-fed?” What a loaded question.
As a consumer, I feel certain that this question comes from the knowledge that cows traditionally eat grass and have for thousands of years. It’s also most likely from a desire to avoid grain fed products, which I totally understand.
As a producer, let’s breakdown why grass-fed is a human created ideal and an anomaly among the dairy farmers of today.
First off, all cows eat grass. So when asking this question it’s important to be more specific in your questioning since grass-fed doesn’t always equate to being natural. We have this idea that grass-fed means cows on open pastures grazing tall fields of green grass, but even conventionally grass-fed cows can be fed commercially sprayed corn silage in a covered cement barn and be considered grass-fed.
Guernsey cow painting circa 1850 courtesy of WorldGuernsey
It’s also worth noting that even the first undomesticated cows didn’t traditionally eat the grasses we think of today. They grazed a variety of grasses including oats, wheat, rye, and barley to supplement their diets with the oils, fats, proteins, and carbs needed to produce milk at different stages of lactation. When given the choice, a cow will naturally include 5-18% of grain in her diet depending on her needs. What many of us think of as “forbidden grains” are actually seeds from grasses that the industry has harvested into grain products.
Traditionally Guernsey’s and Jersey’s (one of the most common cows on small farms) were on open pastures of varying grasses. They even had access to kelp on the islands they come from, which is a staple in their diets today for natural mineral balance.
The Isle of Guernsey in Europe
However with the evolution of farming came the introduction of commercial grains into the diet of cattle. As families moved to cities and no longer had livestock of their own, the demand for foods from more rural areas grew. Farmers needed to produce more milk to feed more people, thus focusing on quantity over quality. Cows were bred for production and given ample amounts of grain to increase milk volume. The dairy industry has fed grain in some form to increase milk volume for over 150 years.
Now I know you’re thinking “Well if it’s so hard to do, why can I find grass-fed butter at the grocery store? Kerrygold can do it, why can’t you?” There are absolutely herds of grass-fed dairy cows that do exceptionally well, but they come from many decades of grass-fed girls that haven’t ever been exposed to concentrated grain feeds.
We decided on Guernsey cows because of their rich milk that has higher butterfat and is filled with more vitamins than the average producer. What we didn’t know was that they have more metabolic issues than other breeds and can be considered “fragile” depending how they were raised as calves. (This coming from a well known grass-fed Jersey dairy mentor who is also an organic vet.) What we’ve learned over the years of owning these gentle giants is that they have very specific dietary and mineral needs, some more than others. Making converting a conventionally grain-fed cow, from a line of conventionally grain-fed cows, impossible to convert to eating only grass without killing her. Ask us how we know.
As producers, we have to feed the cow we have, not the cow we want. And while we will have a pasture full of grass-fed Guernsey’s one day, it’s something that takes immense planning in pasture health and will have to be selectively bred for over the next decade.
Our Guernsey girls on pasture.
So are our cows grass-fed? Yes. They have open access to pasture year-round and are fed the highest quality pesticide & herbicide free hay money can buy. But they are also supplemented with grain during milking (a much smaller and higher quality ration than their commercial counterparts) to keep their body metabolically balanced and prevent health issues that result in unhealthy milk.
After all, healthy cows are happy cows that give the highest quality milk.
