We rotationally graze our cattle and sheep their entire lives. This is achieved by dividing our large pastures into smaller paddocks with electric wire fencing. The animals then graze these paddocks consecutively. When they “finish everything on their plate,” not just their favorite legumes, they are moved on to the next paddock. This technique allows the animals to graze the pastures evenly and in a more efficient manner. The animals are not left in one area too long to overgraze it.

And grass is the natural diet of cattle and sheep, not grain. Forcing these “herb-avores” to become exclusively “grain-avores” as in a feed-lot situation, changes the natural balance of their nutritional makeup, reversing their ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids and increasing the proportion of saturated fat.

When the animals are free to roam the pasture, they are also happier, healthier and lacking the additives, antibiotics and growth hormones routinely given to crowded, confined feedlot animals.

Since we have started rotational grazing, our legumes, such as vetch and clover, have spread more widely over the pastures, naturally replacing the nitrogen in the soil. We no longer resort to commercial fertilizer.

There is a wealth of information on the many-fold benefits of pastured meats and dairy products. A must-see web site dedicated to the disseminating of the research on pastured farming’s effect on health, the environment, the farmer and animal welfare is www.eatwild.com.