Our customers had this controversial topic on their minds this summer

The best part of our business is meeting customers at delivery.  None of us are really extroverts by nature, but we do really enjoy getting to know our little tribe of customers and finding out more about them.  This spring and summer, there was one topic that kept popping up: vaccines, specifically mRNA vaccines.

The bottom line is that we don’t use any vaccines of any type, no dewormers, and, thankfully, no antibiotics.  We certainly don’t use any growth hormones either!  If nearly every beef producer and feedlot use some or all of these, how do we get away with being such heretics?  Five basic things that aren’t so basic anymore:

Select healthy animals that can grow on grass, without grain

Move them to fresh grass every day

Clean water

Toxin-free, natural minerals from out west

Good stockmanship - we handle them every day without stressing them

What’s going on with vaccines in the “industry” then?

Merck has an mRNA swine vaccine that has been used since 2019 (“Sequinity” – who comes up with these names?).  Although the cattle vaccine is in the works, it has not been approved for usage yet.  Some of your grocery store beef comes from Brazil and Canada, so we don’t really know about the background on it, or even which beef is imported. 

There is proposed legislation called “MCOOL” (Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling) that will identify US-produced beef.  That sounds like a better situation, but the proposal is also loaded up with all kinds of other rules that will make life more difficult for small, independent outfits like ours.  No surprise there!  We’ll just keep our heads down and keep doing what we’re doing. 

Let us know what else you have on your mind!

Happy Cows