Regenerative Ranching

Why We Do Things Differently:

Fox Spring Ranch is focused on the environment because it is how we make a living. Due to the nature of this work, we are acutely aware of changes in our immediate surroundings and have a vested interest in helping to prevent negative changes to the greater environment and its climate. After all, a degraded environment is worse for the animals, and therefore worse for our business!

If you speak to many activists who are concerned with climate change they will often tell you that the beef industry is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. This is true, in fact, 14.5% of total human-caused greenhouse gas emissions worldwide are attributed to the beef cattle and dairy industry. What is often not talked about is what cumulative emissions go into that number, how they can be avoided, and why large ruminant grazers are important to grass ecosystems.

Where You Source Your Beef Matters:

Just buying domestic over foreign beef cuts the emission percentage substantially. In the U.S., cows and other ruminants make up just 4% of emissions, and beef cattle only 2% directly. Buying your beef locally cuts the impact even further. When you go to the grocery store it isn't obvious where that beef was raised, slaughtered, and how far it had to travel to reach the shelf. When you purchase directly from a rancher, you know exactly where it came from and how far it had to travel to make it to your table.

Buying beef that was raised in the appropriate ecosystem is important also. Part of the reason for the high emissions in the global beef industry is due to deforestation for livestock development. Large sections of the Amazon rainforest are clearcut and burned to create grazing space for cattle, for instance. Fox Spring Ranch is located near Pierce, in McIntosh County, Oklahoma in the central forest–grasslands transition ecoregion of the United States. A forest-grasslands transition zone is an ideal location to raise large ruminants such as cattle. Before cattle were imported and this region was settled, large herds of bison (genetically similar enough to cattle that they can interbreed) regularly grazed through this area. We endeavor to save our hardwoods and keep the rich diversity of our land intact. Trees provide shelter from cold winds, shade from the summer sun, and ideal conditions for cool-season grasses to flourish under that our cattle can eat.

How Your Beef Was Managed Matters:

The practice of raising livestock has gone through many iterations over the millennia, and how you choose to do it can have dramatic impacts on your land, both positive and negative.

A good way to think about how grazing fits into a grassland ecosystem is to think about the bison mentioned previously, which used to migrate in huge numbers across the landscape. They are ruminant grazers, just like cattle, fermenting and digesting low nutrient grass for sustenance. These bison stay in a tight herd, continually on the move. Staying close together helps mitigate the risk of predators, but it creates a scarcity of resources. There is only so much available grass in one spot for a large herd tightly grouped and so they stay on the move. As they pass over, they eat, deposit manure, trample down inedible weeds, and move on giving the grass time to recuperate before the herd returns. Grass has evolved to thrive under these conditions.

When we first purchased our ranch, there were no cross fences. The cattle here previously had free range over the entire property. Why is that bad? Well, while many ranches across the U.S. are set up this way, it is not the ideal way to manage your land because it causes a breakdown in the natural system. Cattle are just like toddlers, given the chance they will eat candy until they are forced to eat something different. The candy in this instance is palatable grasses - the stuff you want to see growing in your field. Wolves no longer roam our region and coyote numbers do not pose a significant enough threat to recreate the conditions of eras past. Given a defined space, time, and no incentive to let an area of grass rest, the cattle will eat enough of the candy that it starts to disappear.

Simplified, grass has three main stages after being cut or grazed. First, grass pulls nutrients from its roots to regrow above the surface. After sufficient top growth, it begins a period of quick growth using photosynthesis to replenish and expand its root stores. Finally, it starts to slow as it reaches maturity. In this final stage, the grass becomes less nutrient-dense as it goes into dormancy. By letting your cattle continually graze they seek out the best grasses, taking them to stage one. As soon as there is enough regrowth they take another bite, setting it back again. This causes a depletion in the carbohydrates stored in the grass roots and allows non-desirable plant life to outcompete it.

To avoid this problem we have installed miles of electric fencing, subdividing our ranch into many smaller pastures. Currently, we are up to 6 separate pastures and our ultimate goal is 12. Keeping the herd together and moving them between the pastures, the electric fence allows us to mimic the conditions experienced in nature for our grass. This is called Rotational Grazing. Wildlife is able to freely move under or over these fences while the cows are restricted in what grass they have access to. We are able to graze an area right before the grass goes into dormancy, but allow it adequate time to invest in its root stores and regrow. Because the cattle are space limited, they are much less picky about which grasses they are consuming. Since implementing this, we have seen a resurgence in grass diversity. Native species like Yellow Indian Grass and Big Bluestem have started to reappear, while the total amount of grass grown in a season has also increased. This means healthier soils, plants that can pull more CO2 from the atmosphere into their roots, better forage potential for wildlife, and the ability to grow more beef.

Here is the herd approaching behind an electric fence to be let into a new pasture:

This system works great for areas that are ready to graze, but for land with issues like the overgrowth of invasive species, it is only one-half of the solution. If improperly managed, or left dormant for long periods, areas in our region can become choked off by plants like Multiflora Rose, Eastern Red Cedar, and thorned climbing vines, which kill off both grasses and trees alike. The answer to this, instead of herbicides, is goats.

Goats only derive 15% of their diet from grass. The remainder comes from foraging forbs and leaves of woody plants. By using a multispecies approach to rotational grazing, both animals can benefit each other. Goats voraciously eat the bark from cedar trees, and the leaves from multiflora rose, and the weeds in the pasture competing with grass for resources. This opens up areas for new grass to grow and keeps old-growth oak and pecan trees from dying.

Goats foraging on dense overgrowth:

Additionally, parasites like worms that can infect cows die in a goat's stomach, while the same is true for goat parasites in a cow's stomach. By maintaining the two herds on the same property the total parasite load is lowered, creating healthier animals that need less treatment.

All of these things combined help us to lower our footprint, benefit our land, and produce beef that is environmentally conscious.

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Each month we'll be putting up a new post related to sustainable ranching practices, humane animal care, projects at the ranch, information on the industry as a whole, and what all we have available. See you next time!

-Bradly