They Say His Grass-Fed Cattle Look Too Fat

They Say His Grass-Fed Cattle Look Too Fat LIVESTOCK Beef 27-4-44 Doug Gunnink knew he was doing something right when a customer complained that his beef looked too fat to be grass-fed. When he first switched to grass fed beef, even he didn't like the product that well. After a couple of years, he began to see improvements. Recent research has shown grass-fed beef to have higher rates of "good"' fat than grain fed beef. It is also the richest natural source of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), shown in animal research to fight heart disease, cancer, diabetes and other ailments. As people are becoming more health conscious, they want these benefits, but they don't want to give up good tasting beef. Gunnink thinks he has found what it takes to satisfy both consumer desires. Gunnink describes his ideal animal as having a lot of depth and width to the chest and a lot of rib as well. He also likes a big wide rump. "We like old style Angus with a smaller frame," he says. "A big wide muzzle seems to go with chest capacity and a big wide rump," says the cattle breeder. "They seem more durable, not as many health problems, and they stay in pretty good flesh even on mediocre winter feed. When they get on good grass, they put on weight." Gunnink is recording weight gains of up to 3 lbs./day on grass, equal to many grainfed feedlots. On average, his cattle are hitting 2.6 to 2.7 lbs. average daily gain (ADG). In the winter, that falls to 1.5 to 1.7 ADG on a light ration of alfalfa grass hay. Gunnink moves his cattle to fresh grass twice a day. "We are running about 2.5 stockers on an acre by pushing the land a bit with fertilizer and reseeding every 3 to 4 years," he says. "We started with worn out alfalfa pasture overseeded with brome and orchard grass. We have moved toward rye grass pastures." Today, Gunnink is working with new, improved tall fescues. He is a distributor for Barenbrug Seed, a Belgian company that gathers seed from throughout the world. Gunnink is using some rye grass from Rumania and fescues from other parts of the world. "The Europeans have done more research into quality grasses, while U.S. companies have concentrated on corn, soybeans and alfalfa," he says. "They have put their research dollars into developing a more productive, more digestible, more palatable grass." Gunnink stresses that good grass requires a good variety and good fertility. He likes to see soil tests with a pH at least in the 6.5 to 6.7 range. Phosphorus should be up in the 45 ppm range. He prefers a soluble P source such as liquid fish with its other micronutrients. He often applies gypsum to get both calcium and sulfur. Gunnink is confident grass is the way to go. He knows intensive grazers netting $300 to $500/acre with grass. "A lot of those were dairy," he says, "but we are doing very well with beef." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Doug Gunnink, 25303 461 Ave., Gaylord, Minn. 55334 (ph 507 237-5162; email: dgunnink@prairie.lakes.com).

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