Finishing cattle on grass is an art and science. Here’s where we swap stories about how to do it right.

Water Quality Improvement at Sylvan Dale Ranch

A Pilot Project of the Colorado Conservation Exchange

 By David Jessup

Can ranches and farms in the Poudre-Big Thompson watershed improve the quality of water used by Front Range urban dwellers?  That question is being addressed by a pilot project at Sylvan Dale Ranch, a 3,200-acre working guest ranch located at the mouth of the Big Thompson Canyon west of Loveland, Colorado.

Owned and operated by the Jessup family since 1946, Sylvan Dale hosts family dude ranch vacations in the summer and everything from weddings to corporate events during the rest of the year.  The ranch also runs a cow-calf operation that raises 60 calves per year to grow and sell as grass-fed and grass-finished natural beef directly to local consumers.

The Jessups have been concerned about runoff from manure in their cattle pens and horse pastures next to the river.  Although small in amount compared to feedlot operations, the nutrient runoff reduces water quality in the river and may even contribute to recent duckweed blooms in the ranch’s trout ponds below the pastures.

In 2010 the ranch invited the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to analyze the problem and suggest solutions.  Three options were suggested, all of which required considerable cash outlays.  As with many close-to-the-margin family ranches, such expenditures sometimes fall to the bottom of the list as equipment repairs, leaky roofs, broken water pumps and other urgent projects rise to the top.

Several organizations came forward to help.  CSU’s Institute for Livestock and the Environment (ILE) provided an implementation grant with a community outreach component to share lessons learned with a larger public.  A group in formation at CSU’s Center for Collaborative Conservation, preliminarily called the Colorado Conservation Exchange (CCEx), saw an opportunity to demonstrate how a marketplace might be created for community members to support land stewards who seek to conserve and enhance natural resources.  The Big Thompson Watershed Forum (BTWF) provided technical expertise to measure nutrient runoff before and after any changes are made.  Northern Water (NW) agreed to provide a Parshall flume and rain gauge for these measurements, and the City of Loveland Water Department agreed to do lab tests.

All sought an answer to this question:  How many pounds of nitrogen, phosphorus and organic matter can be kept out of the river by implementing a solution, and what is the most cost-effective way of doing so?  All were interested creating a pilot project to serve as a model for other water quality efforts.

Wider Implications for the Watershed

By itself, the Sylvan Dale effort will have a negligible effect on overall nutrient loads in the Big Thompson River.  But there are hundreds of small livestock and horse properties in the watershed that collectively have a considerable impact.  Large-scale animal feeding operations are required by law to mitigate their runoff and environmental effects.  Similar rules for small family operations would likely put them out of business.  The CCEx hopes to implement a voluntary marketplace whereby communities, organizations, and individuals who benefit from cleaner water will provide resources for land stewards who seek to provide it.  If this is done on a wide scale, the improvement in water quality could be significant.  All would benefit:  water users, city dwellers and family farms and ranches.

(Note:  This article was originally published in CSU’s Center for Collaborative Conservation Newsletter, Spring, 2012.)

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Troubled Teen Cattle Drive

By David Jessup

The Yearling Cattle are the troubled ones

There’s no such thing as a routine cattle drive.  Just ask the group of Sylvan Dale Ranch “adventure riders” who helped move sixty yearlings from their winter pasture back to the main ranch on Saturday, April 14, 2012.

Seven of us saddled up at 9 am, the spring sun warming our faces, the deep blue Colorado sky and crisp air thrilling our senses.   We figured we’d be back by noon.  We figured wrong.

As we rode toward the winter pasture, we took note of the problem areas we’d encounter on the way back:  several driveways, a home with an inviting lawn, a stretch of county road with occasional cars, a highway crossing, and a steep, red-rock ridge to cross.  The yearlings had made this trek in the opposite direction six months ago with their mamas.  Now they would be on their own. Read more

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Local Author Laura Pritchett’s new book, “Great Colorado Bear Stories”

One of our favorite local authors, Laura Pritchett, will be appearing at Loveland’s Anthology Book Store to discuss her new book, Great Colorado Bear Stories, on Thursday, May 17 at 6:30 PM.  We hope to see you there.  Anthology Book Store is located at 422 East 4th Street  Loveland, CO 80537 (970) 667-0118.  We’re big fans of Laura’s writing, especially Hell’s Bottom, Colorado, reviewed elsewhere in this blog.

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Omega 6/Omega 3 Ratio – What’s that got to do with the health of beef?

By David Jessup

What makes grass-fed meat healthier is not the amount of Omega 3 (good fat), but the ratio between Omega 6 (bad fat) and Omega 3.  In a phone interview, Dr. Susan Duckett of Clemson University told me that according to the 1994 Lyon Diet Heart Study, lowering the Omega 6 / Omega 3 fat ratio below 2:1 resulted in a 76 percent decrease in human mortality from heart disease.  Read more

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You-docs Roizen and Oz on Grass-fed Beef

By David Jessup

While industrial grain-fed beef can increase the risk of heart disease, grass-fed beef does not.  Here are some quotes I found from “You docs” Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz in their Daily Blog:

  •  “Look for the grass-fed beef that’s making its way onto supermarket shelves. It contains up to one-third less saturated fat than grain-fed beef and has some heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids, too.”  (May 28, 2009)
  • “Like grass-fed beef, wild game meat tends to have more heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids (that’s the good stuff found in fatty fish)” (December 26, 2009).
  • “Go for grass-fed.  It has one-third less saturated fat than regular beef and some good-for-you omega-3s.” (June 14, 2010)

David J

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Git Along Little Microbes

   By David Jessup

(A version of this article was published in the Stockman Grass Farmer, June, 2011)

Beef cattle belch out tons of methane.  Some studies claim cows account for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.  And it turns out that grass-fed cows belch more than their grain-fed cousins, a fact that gladdens the hearts of feedlot owners seeking a patch of moral high ground on which to plant a green flag. 

 Now along comes Bill McKibben to snatch the flag back for the grass-feeders.  (“The Only Way to Have a Cow,” by Bill McKibben, Orion Magazine, March/April 2010.)    Read more

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