The Ruminant: Audio Candy for Farmers, Gardeners and Food Lovers - Shifting the workload to your livestock

Episode Date: June 4, 2015

Meg Grzeskiewicz is the owner of Rhinestone Cattle Company in NY State. A grass-fed animal producer who concentrates on breeding, Meg advocates a no-nonsense approach to breeding and managment that, over the long term, can produce a healthy, profitable, self-sufficient herd. In our conversation, we talk about the breeding and management rules she employs with her herd, and about the benefits of mob grazing. You can find out more about Meg's farming, speaking, writing, and consulting work at her website.

As the farmer, your job is to replace natural selection because on a farm, you are creating a lot of conditions for animals that they would not encounter in nature. You're kind of taking natural selection out of the equation. So the purpose of culling is to imitate natural selection. That's Meg Groskowicz. Meg grazes pasture-fed beef cattle in New York State and is a passionate advocate for holistic pasture and livestock management using a mob grazing approach. She recently joined me on the phone to talk about how to breed and manage your herd to be healthy and profitable. This episode features our

conversation, so let's get to it. Hi everyone. Honestly, it's all I can do to get these interviews out during the busy farm season, so once again I'll forego a long introduction to the episode. Thanks to those of you who have been writing and phoning. I've replied to some of you, and we'll get back to the rest of you as soon as I can. I really appreciate the phone calls and the emails, so thanks. Editor at theruminant.ca if you want to write, and if you want to leave me a voicemail, 310-734-8426. All right, here's my interview with Meg. I think you're going to like it. My name is Meg Griskevich. I am the owner of Rhinestone Cattle Company in western New York State. I am a 100% grass-fed animal producer, and I'm a cow-calf custom grazer. I don't actually

raise meat, so I concentrate on raising cows, breeding them, and raising calves. So in the future, my goal is to be selling seed stock and grass-fed breeding animals. I have a degree from 2012 at West Virginia University, a bachelor's in livestock science and a minor in agricultural business. I have worked everywhere from Montana to Texas to Missouri. And in Missouri, I am a former intern of Greg Judy, the expert mob grazer down there. Meg Rescavage, thanks a lot for coming on the Room in a Podcast. Thank you for having me. Very excited. Meg, I caught one of your presentations at Permaculture Voices, too. The name of the

presentation was Shifting the Workload to Your Livestock. And I'm not a livestock person, but I was just, I was blown away by your obvious knowledge and your enthusiasm and just some of the no-nonsense messaging in the talk. So that's what I was hoping to talk to you about today. Yes, definitely. That is probably the core of everything that I do is what I talked about in that presentation. That really is my passion is how to breed the very best feedstock okay so um what's interesting or so where i think we should we should start off is to actually talk about more conventional ranching uh so that we have uh something to to provide a contrast to so um you talk about you talk about your approach being almost completely opposite from the approach of commodity cattle ranching.

Can you explain what you mean by that? Well, I kind of got the idea for this presentation from the first farm that I ever worked at. It was just a little family farm back in my hometown. But this farm was just notorious for having animals that needed attention 24-7. We had cows that couldn't breed a calf by themselves without having to be hand-milked and treated for everything and just watched and doctored and chased around all the time. I thought this was ridiculous.

The poor farmer and his wife were always just running themselves ragged, breaking their backs and spending all their money. These animals were definitely calling the shots, not them. I think it's a little bit less of a problem on very large-scale commercial cattle operations, but I still see it all the time. People just go out of their way to hold up animals that can't hold themselves up. So that's where my entire talk is based from, how to switch your operation from being something where animals call the shots

to somewhere where you call the shots. I can't tell you how many times I've heard dairy farmers, especially in this area, say, oh, I can't go outside or I can't do this, I can't do that, I can't come, I can't take a vacation, sorry, I can't make it, I've got to go to the cows or I've got to do this, I've got to do that. Now, myself, that's not my goal as a farmer. I still want to be able to have a life. I don't want to be tied to my operation all the time. Okay, so with your system, one of your goals is a better work-life balance.

I have to imagine, too, it's just higher profitability. I mean, it's tough. It's not easy to make a go in livestock production. Oh, definitely not, especially as a new farmer. And when you are holding up animals that can't hold themselves up, that just spending money comes with the territory and you will go broke doing that okay so the best example would be having to feed grain to an animal that can't survive on just grass right so i was going to say like could you give a couple of examples of how people let their animals kind of i don't know

i forget your wording push them around or or control them rather than the other way around? Yes, how do you end up with your animals calling the shots? Well, the number one problem on the farm that I started out on was attachment. The old farmer and his wife practically made pets out of the cows, which is fine if you want to have a pet, but you need to separate that expensive hobby from a commercial farm. So getting attached to your animals will really cloud your judgment when it comes to deciding what you should and shouldn't do.

Because you'll tend to want to make excuses and be like, oh, you know, she needs a little help. Or she looks a little thin right now. Let's give her a little grain. Or I'll bring her in because, you know, it's going to get cold out tonight. Or I've got to milk that daughter out just a little bit. The teeth are getting a little big and swollen. It's just little stuff like that.

I mean, that comes from not being able to say goodbye to an animal that you should cull. Right. So just the biggest. So I think that makes sense because what you end up doing is, is I think what you're arguing is you end up encouraging weak animals to be, to, to, to subsist or to, to exist within, within your breeding line. Oh, yes. And that is why this is so dangerous. It's because if you fail to get rid of the weak ones,

all you're going to end up with is weak ones. Right. It's simple evolution. Okay. So, but I just want to clarify something. So you're saying that you're warning against getting too emotionally attached to your animals. Is that the same thing as saying, like, you don't really have any kind of affection for animals? I would not say that, no.

I mean, you have to walk a fine line as a livestock producer between, I mean, you have to have empathy for your animals and care about them and be devoted to them, but you can't get attached to them to the way that you would to a pet to the point where you can't say goodbye when there's one that needs to go to the sale barn. Right, and I guess you're definitely against kind of coddling them or spoiling them then. you would to a pet to the point where you can't say goodbye when there's one that needs to go to the sale barn. Right. And I guess you're definitely against kind of coddling them or spoiling them then.

Yeah, don't spoil them. Okay. Because actually what I'm dealing with right now is one of these pet cows that the old farmer and his wife own. I'm now custom grazing and we couldn't get this cow on a trailer. We fought her for hours. She would run through us whenever we tried to do anything. She just, she has gotten so used to humans that she has no flight zone and no respect for humans left. And an 1800 pound animal like her can just, she does what she wants.

Right. So what I'm having with her now is how do I handle her? Right. Okay. So Meg, you, that was one of your first early experiences. Where were you or what were you exposed to that started to make you, um, you know, figure out this better system? Well, probably the number one formative thing was working for Greg Judy in Missouri. And Greg is the, probably the leading mob grazing grass-fed beef guy in the nation. I mean, probably the leading mob grazing grass-fed beast guy in the nation. I mean, he taught me a system of livestock production that is profitable and can be run by either one or very few people on a large scale. And the only way to do that is to make your animals all fit into one group.

Choose your management practices for the group and stick to that. So if there is any animal that makes you step outside the rules that you set for the group, that animal has got to that. So if there is any animal that makes you step outside the rules that you set for the group, that animal has got to go. Okay, so maybe that's a good segue. Can you talk about some of the rules you really believe people should be setting in order to run a profitable herd that is also going to allow you to have better work-life balance? Well, I definitely am a bit radical when it comes to livestock production. I believe that a cow has a rumen, and so it should not ever be fed grain. I don't think there is any place for grain in the cattle business. Now, probably a lot of people would disagree with me about that,

but that is my number one rule is that cattle are fed hay, grass, or pasture, and they get a mineral supplement. That's about all they get. And so my animals need to be able to survive and stay healthy and stay in good body condition on that and nothing else. So that's my number one rule. My number two rule would be no preventative health treatments at all. And if something gets sick, obviously I have a duty as a livestock producer to get it as healthy as I can and relieve its suffering. But I don't give any preventative dewormers, vaccinations, antibiotics,

feed grade, anything like that to my animals. So my animals have to rely on their genetics to resist disease. And also management plays into that a little too. If you manage your grazing properly and you keep your animals moving, you really won't need any kind of preventative treatments. Those preventative treatments were created to cover up bad management. So those are probably my two big rules. So, okay, I'm going to follow up on that second rule, no preventative treatments, then. I guess that doing that, you're kind of taking the long

view because it just, it takes longer to weed out what you consider to be bad genetics that are contributing to some of the health problems that your animals have. Yes, and this is another experience I'm having right now. I'm working in a consulting role for a grass-fed beef company that's based out of New York City. And the owner of the company and I really kind of play off of each other very well because he's a Wall Street kind of guy, a businessman, so he's just focused on quick turnover and profit. Whereas I look at things from a cattle management, from an ecosystem point of view,

and so I see things as a holistic system. I want to kind of take the long route a lot of times and make sure that we get our genetics sorted out, whereas he wants to get the maximum number of pounds per market in the quickest way possible. And so, yes, I mean, going at things from an ecosystem holistic view and weeding out everything genetic wise and stopping covering up bad genetics it is definitely the long way around a lot of people get impatient with it okay so what i'm interested in knowing is i i have to

assume that when you're out farming because you do i just want to clarify because you do a bit of consulting and speaking but you do you do you currently have your own herd? Yes, I do. I'd have no credibility if I didn't. Right. Well, I'm not going to expect people to listen to me if I don't. Well, Meg, there's plenty of speakers who do expect people to listen to them, even though they're not doing much farming anymore.

Isn't that true? Mm-hmm. Anyway. Well, I mean, there's a lot of people who have many other credentials but yeah anyway that's a topic another episode anyway make um when you're i have to assume that at least in the early uh stages of of establishing a herd or or even still though when you're with your herd um i have to assume you do a lot of observation yes definitely and it's a lot of observation. Yes, definitely. And it's a lot of, when you're first starting out, it is a lot of substituting labor and time for money and inputs.

So if you can't afford something, you've got to do it yourself. If you can't afford somebody to put up your fence, you have to build your own fence. And so you're going to buy in, probably, your first herd of animals, and you're going to get some good and get some bad. So it's just going to be, especially the first year, making observations and keeping records to figure out what some good and get some bad. So it's just going to be, especially the first year, making observations and keeping records to figure out what you should and shouldn't keep.

Well, could you tell me... I'm such a firm believer in hard culling. Okay, well, that's what I'm getting at. I want to talk about the hard culling. I mean, I love how you just use very plain language. I really admire that. I mean, what you're talking about is weeding out the weaklings so that you, over time, build up a super healthy herd that also behaves itself,

which is pretty crucial, I would think, when you're engaged in rotational grazing with electric fences. Oh, yes. Especially if you're trying to do this by yourself on a very small number of hours per day and still having a life. Okay. What you are doing here, as the farmer, your job is to replace natural selection. Because on a farm, you are creating a lot of conditions for animals that they would not encounter in nature. You're kind of taking natural selection out of the equation. So the purpose of culling is to imitate natural selection.

Okay, so can you take me through some of the observations that you might make that would lead you to culling an animal? Like, I know there's stuff to do with their body shape, their behavior, all kinds of stuff that you talked about in your presentation. Could you pick a few of them? Could you take me through them? Mm-hmm. Yes. Well, I'll start back with that one cow that has become such a pet

that we can't even do anything with her anymore. The rules of livestock handling, as they apply to every other animal, don't work on her anymore. Like I said, she has no flight zone. So that's an animal that I would be able to get rid of in a heartbeat. The owners won't let me do it at this point, but any animal that gives me trouble in any way, shape, or form is getting sent off to auction. So if there's one that, say, you're working them through a chute, you're processing them,

and they keep jumping over the chute, or they're really nasty, and they're flighty and causing a lot of trouble. Temperament is a big thing. So either you're talking about too flighty or not flighty enough, production is probably the number one thing on most people's list. If I have a cow that fails to give me a healthy live calf for any reason, she is going. Even if the calf is four months old and, let's say, it runs out on the road, jumps over the fence and gets hit, that cow is still going, even though it's really not her fault.

The reason for that is economics, because I just lost the income for that calf. Now I've got to make up that income somewhere. So production, like I said, if her calf gets sick and dies, then that's a production issue, too. And so she would have to go, and the calf would have to go in that case. So we've talked about temperament and production. I would have to say the weather conditions and climate is also important. It's not really an animal factor, but if you're getting a drought, you really need to get rid of animals. Don't just start buying feed and trying to grit your teeth and make it through it.

It's not ever a good idea, according to Greg Judy. So then we have production, climate, and temperament. Those are probably the big three. Production would be the number one on most people's list. Anything that violates any one of my rules in any way. What about how a cow behaves with her calf? What kind of behavior, in terms of those early days or weeks might send a cow to be culled?

Oh, yes. That's a big one. Well, first of all, if she needs any assistance in giving birth, if she can't give birth to a healthy live calf by herself, and this applies to heifers, too. A lot of people give heifers a free pass because it's their first time. I don't believe in that. I mean, do deer get a second chance if they can't have their first baby by themselves? No, they don't.

So she has to have a healthy live calf on the ground all by herself. She has to raise that calf. She has to lick it up, make it get up, give it colostrum and let it nurse. And she has to biologically give enough milk, not too much, not too little, in order for that calf to be healthy, in order for that calf to get a full stomach but not get scours. And when I go tag that calf, she has to be attentive. She has to walk up and move.

But if she tries to make any aggressive move toward me, she's definitely gone. I'm starting to feel sorry for your cows, you know. My cow has to be protective but not threatening. Right. I'm starting to feel sorry for them. There's a lot of ways they can uh get on your bad side oh yes being on my farm being a cow is a tall order um sorry i'm also dealing with a cold here so i'm i'm having trouble with my lungs here um meg you've talked about the need to have these rules and then you have to call call call the animals that are not conforming to the rules.

I'm just curious, and perhaps this is a bad question because I'm not in the business, but how do you make the best out of that economically? If you're going to cull an animal, is it a no-brainer what you would do with it? Or do you have any advice for making some money off the animals that you're culling on a regular basis? Well, I used to think, you know, making some money off the animals that you're culling on a regular basis? Well, I used to think, you know what, that same day that she gives you trouble, you ought to put her on a truck and send her to the closest sale, whatever's going on that day. Just get her off your farm as soon as possible. But I realized that may not necessarily be the best economic way to go a lot of the time. Let's say that she is third trimester pregnant and you don't like the way her udder's starting to look.

Maybe you should wait, let her have that calf, third trimester pregnant and you don't like the way her udder is starting to look maybe you should wait let her have that calf and then breed her back and then sell it as a three-in-one like a bred pair or maybe you should wait until you wean that calf off of her and then sell her before she has her next calf or something like that and watch the auction prices and kind of think of what stage of her production is she worth the most and how long can i wait before the winter feed costs are going to make her cost more than she's worth? And so, yeah,

like you should, you should stop and think about economics before you call something. So you've, you yourself, if it's a time intensive thing. Right. Right. So,

so, so, so you, but you started to be a little more thoughtful about the timing of it to try and maximize your returns then. Yeah. Okay. If it is a time issue, like if there's an animal that's sick or something, then you might need to get it out of there right away.

But if you can wait, definitely stop and examine what would be the best time in the production cycle to sell it. What is the greatest difference between what she's worth and what she costs? And then sell them at that point. Right. See if you can add value however possible. Like, say you have a thin cow that's just not keeping weight on. What if you did flock her up in the barn for a week or two, feed her a little grain, get her fat, and then sell her? The fat cow sells at the auction for a lot more than a skinny cow.

Okay. Good. I'm glad I asked you about it. Okay. All right. How about when you're going to bring in new breeding stock? Could you talk about some good approaches to evaluating breeding stock? Okay, well, when you are buying breeding stock, I cannot stress this enough.

Do not cheap out and buy cheap livestock. This is the number one place to spend your money because this is the thing above and beyond anything else that will give you the return. And you can spend your money on fence or shelter or water or whatever, but spending your money on the animals, the animals are actually what you're selling for money here. So get the very best feedstock you can possibly get.

If you do that, you're going to save yourself a lot of years of hard culling and sorting through the bed trying to get to the good. So what I look for in a really good grass-fed cow is first of all frame size. You don't want monster giant animals because they eat twice as much and they will not give you a bigger calf. The reason for that is maintenance energy requirements. So a big animal has much more maintenance energy needs than a small one. So if you feed a big cow and a small cow the same amount, that big cow is going to give less of it to her calf than the small cow will. So frame size is definitely my biggest thing. I like my cows about 1,000 to 1,200 pounds.

And they're smaller than that, and they do tend to start having calving problems, and any bigger than that is not necessary. And second, they need to maintain good body condition, probably BCS of six or seven all year round on just grass on my farm. Grass, hay, and mineral. That's about it. And a smaller cow will have a much better time, much easier time doing that than a big cow.

Structural correctness is important to me, especially udders, and they need to have a good set of legs to get around on. And the udder needs to be not too big, not too small. And I've had a lot of udder problems I've dealt with. And that's really a big deal when it comes to raising a good calf and with cow longevity in the herd. And I want to talk a little bit about Gerald Fry. I talked about him a lot at TV2 during my presentation.

He is a cowman from Arkansas who has done absolutely groundbreaking work on animal selection. Definitely look into his work. I'm trying to remember the name of his book. Reproduction and Animal Health by Charles Walters and Gerald Fry. It's an excellent book. It gives lots of details on animal selection. Also another good book would be Herd Bowl Fertility by James Drayton. He was one of the guys that Gerald has taken a lot of inspiration from.

He's written a huge and very detailed book about bull selection. That would be a lot of stuff to talk about right now. I could go on about that forever. In those books, those guys talk about how you can tell from hair quality and texture and hair growth patterns and external signs you can see on an animal

what their efficiency is going to be and what their longevity will be and just how generally useful in a low-input program they will be. Because you just,

I mean, we're talking about buying new stock. Like, are there particularly, are there breeds that you particularly like for rotational grazing of pasture-raised beef cattle?

Well, you definitely, when your body sees sex, definitely need to get specific grass-fed animals. Because you can't just go out there and buy any animal, not feed it any concentrates or grains or supplements or preventative health treatments and expect it to be okay. There's very few animals out there that are actually up to the job of doing all the things that I say should be done, like all the things that are my rules. So I don't really have a breed preference so far, but within each breed, there are probably animals that are suited for it and not. Up here in New York for the grass-fed beef company that I work with, they've had a lot of success using an Angus and Devon cross.

So that's one. And Greg Judy raises a composite animal called a South Pole, P-O-L-L. They are a cross between Hereford, Red Angus, Centipole, and Barzona, so two tropical breeds, and Angus and Hereford. I plan on getting some of those. What I actually want to do is possibly be a registered softball breeder, since there are no registered breeders in the Northeast. So, I mean, breed does not matter quite as much as type,

but there are, we definitely do seek out a grass-fed breeder, someone who has proven animals. So, Meg, can we also talk a little bit about um well I guess two things one is one is what kind of for for your for the the approach that you're advocating um not just all of these rules um but but also just the particular type of mob grazing that you advocate we're not going to talk a ton about mob grazing in this conversation but I'm just wondering can you talk about the scale that this is appropriate for um a good number of my listeners are probably smaller scale farmers, and I'm just wondering, you know, if someone's considering really embracing your approach and

your systems, what's the minimum scale that they would need, you think, to do this correctly, both in terms of operation and profitability? Well, you can go anywhere from one animal up to a couple thousand. I mean, this is one of those things that's applicable to any herd size. I am in the Northeast. I'm in New York. So I have about 135 open acres right now and 40 head. So I am a moderately sized operation in New York, but I've heard of people doing this mob grazing with two cows. Your paddocks are really, really, heard of people doing this, mob grazing with two cows. Your paddocks are really, really, really small, but you can do it with two cows.

And this also works on large western ranches with hundreds of animals. And it's even being done by a guy named Ian Mitchell Ennis in South Africa. He has thousands of animals and thousands of acres. So in any size operation, this is something you can do. The daily management and the finer points are a little different as your scale changes, but the concept is the same. Okay, well let's talk about your operation. What scale or how much land are you dealing with for your mob grazing and how many animals?

Like I said, I have 135 open acres right now and I have 40 adult cows, all of which will be calving. So this is kind of a sticky point, the whole how many acres do you need for one animal thing, because it is so dependent on so many different factors. In the region, grass species, climate, temperature, precipitation, the type of animal you have, the speed to production that those animals are in. There's so many variables. But Greg down there in Missouri, Greg Judy,

is running about two acres for one head under a well-improved, well-running mom grazing operation. Whereas I am nowhere near that right now. I'm just starting out, and a lot of my land is still pretty marginal. It's my first year on those properties. Okay, so you're working on marginal land, but once you split up your acreage and your mob grazing, so I mean, allow me to try and explain mob grazing and you can tell me if I've got it right. Essentially, it's just this notion that you take a given grazing area, you divide it into a number of paddocks so that the animals ever only spend a few days in

each paddock just like buffalo would uh you you max out the amount of animals so they just mow it right down and then they don't return for about three months um so you're they're they're really tight in each paddock um just do i have that about right correct somewhat incorrect all right well then that was a terrible idea can Can you explain exactly how it works? Okay, well, I mean, my grazing is based on the way that the buffalo used to graze on the Great Plains, which was all grouped together in one tight herd. So they would eat in one spot, and then they would not come back to that spot for months. So that part is correct.

But you definitely don't want to take off too much top growth from the grass. You don't want to mow it down right to the bell course. And the proper way to do it is to leave about 50% of the grass that is on the ground because you want to leave enough behind that the animals can walk on it and trample it. And so then that dies and becomes litter and it becomes organic matter. And that's really what builds your soil. And that's why mott grazing is so great for your soil. The density at which you stock your animals into each paddock will change based on season and weather and, like I said, animal stage of production, grass species, grass fertility and health, and there's tons of factors here too. But they don't have to be

packed shoulder to shoulder all the time. I move my cattle once a day. So I just define mob grazing as being a system of production that mimics the bison action. Okay, perfect. So great. And you've established that you can't speak specifically because every farm is different. But on your land, you're moving them once a day. Roughly how big is each spot they're on and how many animals are in there? Well, I have my 40 adults and and those are all going to be calving

this fall, so they're going to become pairs. But right now, most of them are singles and they probably get about two or three acres a day. It would be bigger or smaller based on how marginal or how good that part of the grass is.

And where's the best place? I'm grateful people really hate to give numbers oh no i i know somebody out there is going to accept that as absolute fact no well shame on them if they do you've you've you've made it very clear you you have to do your homework and it really depends on a whole bunch of different conditions that's that's that's very clear um you got it you better if you're going to do this system, you better, um, you better have a good attitude about, about fencing. And I imagine that means really being thoughtful about learning about, uh, uh, how to use these

fences in a way that isn't going to drive you nuts, making those moves every day. Uh, can you, can you, where, where, where, what are some good resources for people to, to, to, to, to, to learn how to do it properly? And if you are thinking about starting doing mob grazing, the whole thing is based on temporary electric fence. It's a single-strand fence that you put up. Yeah, it's kind of like a geared reel, so you can roll it up and roll it out,

and you step in plastic posts. And so once you get the right materials and you get really good at using them, it's a breeze. It's really quick, and it's not labor-intensive at all. A lot of people get scared because, oh my gosh, you're moving cows every day. That must be so much work. It's really not. But I mean, definitely find someone who is doing this and go learn from them.

Go to a pasture walk or go to a field day. Or Greg Judy, the one who taught me, he always does private farm tours. And so all you'd have to do is contact somebody like him or somebody like me and say, hey, I want to come visit and just see what you're doing. So we're always happy to help. So definitely go and actually see it in person on someone's farm that is doing it. A lot of stuff makes sense when you do that that doesn't make sense if you just read about it. Well, you know, I thought maybe we could just finish on, I mean, I know that you've been outspreading your gospel,

and I know you must come up against resistance and objections and criticism. I'm going to start by one obvious one and get you to comment on it, but then maybe you could tell me what you're hearing, what the most common objections are to your system. But, I mean, I can't be the only one who is putting up his head and saying that there must be people whose reaction is, well, that sounds really ruthless, that your approach to culling your animal sounds really ruthless. Well, let me start by saying that I am kind of a chicken, so I have not gone and spoken to groups about this that I really think I'm going to get a lot of resistance from. So I don't walk into the Texas Feedlot Convention and start talking about how you shouldn't

be feeding grain. So, I mean, the people that I talk with are mostly holistic, organic, grass-fed producers. And so a lot of this stuff is not new to them. But probably the number one thing that I deal with is paradigms and people being really stuck in their ways, especially my old farmer friends. They say, oh, well, I can't call her because, you know, she's a good cow. She gave me a calf last year. I mean, people are really set in their ways and have done things the same way

for the longest time. And people who are really stuck on maximum. This system, the whole holistic, organic, kind of biodynamic system of raising animals focuses on optimum, not maximum. And people who are stuck on maximum might say, well, you know, I mean, if you don't feed them grain, you don't give them supplements or any of that, you know, you might not be getting the biggest calf you can possibly get out of those cows. Well, then that doesn't matter to me.

Because my probably regular smarting is going to be a lot better if it's not putting all the inputs in. And so I say that the two problems that I run into are people who are really set in their ways and people who are just stuck on maximum production. Because to both of those groups, I mean, this is pretty revolutionary and may not make a whole lot of sense. Meg, do you want to just mention anything else you're doing you'd like to promote that you didn't mention in your opening bio?

Anything else you're doing you'd like to promote that you didn't mention in your opening bio? Well, I did just have an article come out in Acres USA in the June 2015 issue talking about this shifting the workload philosophy. And there's also a sidebar article in there about the economic differences between small and large cows. So if you're interested in this philosophy and you want to know more about what we're talking about, then just go look that up, AcresUSA. Meg Gretzkiewicz, thank you so much for coming on the Room and a Podcast. I just found this so interesting. Thank you for having me.

I'm really glad to be on here. If anyone would like to learn more or contact me with any questions, my website is rhinestonecattlecode.com. So that's it. I hope you liked it. And hey, I had a couple people write to me to talk about fanny packs and they suggested a few places to buy them online, so I updated my blog post

on fanny packs at theroon.ca if you want to check those links out. And just for fun, I switched out the normal outro song sung by my wife Vanessa and I'm going to sub in a different one. The regular song will be back next week. Take care. Like a cake I need time to bake I'm not cooked to

I'm not cooked to Flundering on I'm leaving no stone unturned Looking for gold I'm looking for answers I'm sure are there They must be there Cause won't there be time to learn to unwind To learn to be fine with his hand

Won't there be time to learn to be mindful Learn to be kind to myself Perfecting my bit, oh wait till you hear it You'll fall on your knees it's been 20 years now it's bound to be near now just wait and see wait for me Cause won't there be time to learn to unwind To learn to be fine with his hand Won't there be time to learn to be mindful Learn to be kind to myself Myself Learn to be kind to myself

Myself Carrying on, I'm gonna be happy soon Happy soon. Just like a cake I need time to bake. I'm not cooked to. I'm not cooked to.