The Care and Raising of Our Cattle

All our cattle are born, raised and finished on pastures located on our family farms. As we strive to provide all our herds with green pastures 365 days a year, we stock the fields with warm and cool season grasses and clover. All our pastures are soil tested to ensure that we are providing the proper nutrients for plant growth and development, resulting in beautifully lush accommodations much of the year.  During the times when our pastures aren’t actively growing, due to periods of drought and dormancy in winter, our cattle are provided high quality hay that Hill View Farms produces within just a few miles of our pastures.  

Cattle are ruminant animals that have four chambered stomachs that require a great deal of fiber for their digestive systems to function properly. This comes primarily from what they graze and the hay that they consume. While forages make up the primary source of nourishment for our cattle, there are times when our herd needs additional nutrition which may not be in sufficient supply from grass and hay alone. At these times our cattle are supplemented with all natural highly nutritional support to provide additional energy and protein.  We have carefully selected the ingredients to make up this feed supplement.  Our feed is primarily made from the grains grown by Hill View Farms. These grains come from the same fields as the crops produced for the family’s certified seed business, which provide clean, non-GMO seed to farmers for planting organic crops.  All our seed fields are inspected by the Virginia Crop Improvement Association to guarantee purity and quality. By using only these grains in the feed mixture, you can be assured that this feed is all natural. The primary ingredients used in our feed are oats and barley. These grains provide a balanced protein source that is rich in fiber and healthy fats as well as healthy carbohydrates. University research has shown that adding these grains to the cattle’s diet benefits their digestion in several ways: 

Barley helps with the growth of beneficial bacteria in the digestive tract and promotes healthy muscle growth when fed at moderate levels in a forage-based diet. 

Oats are one of the most easily digestible grain. This grain is recommended as the primary ingredient given to calves as they transition from nursing and receiving their mother’s milk. Oats also enhance natural weight gain and increased fertility. 

The main reason oats and barley aren’t used as primary ingredients in most cattle feed is cost. Oats are one of the more expensive feed ingredient options, particularly in our area due to the lack of production and yield of the crop produced per acre. But isn’t that usually the case? Best and cheap don’t usually go together.  

Both grains are found to be high essential amino acids, lysine and vitamins.  

The only other ingredient we add is salt and minerals. The feed we produced is tested in a lab by a certified nutritionist ensure our cattle have a balanced and healthy diet. 

These cattle are never fed any corn even though most of all livestock are “fattened” on this grain.  There are several reasons we don’t feed this grain. Most of the corn grown in this country is genetically modified. Feeding corn to ruminating animals like cattle, causes digestive disturbances due to the high carbohydrate and low fiber content of the grain. Corn fed cattle are more susceptible to infection, particularly from E. Coli. Corn is the cheapest food source to add weight to beef animals quickly, but we have found makes for a lower quality feed source due its unbalanced nutritional profile. We learned about the undesirable nature of using corn as a feed supplement when we were developing our breeding stock. Corn will add fat but is lacking when it comes to building muscle fibers. 

Would a high-performance athlete thrive on a low-grade cheap diet (corn)? Of course not! 

We provide this all natural feed at key times in the growth and development of cattle.  We introduce this feed to our calves as they prepare to be weaned to make for an easier transition from their mother’s milk. It reduces stress and continues to encourage natural muscle development and growth. We provide this feed at breeding time to boost their nutrition which naturally elevates reproductive potential. We also give this feed to finish our cattle during their last weeks of development to enhance the quality and flavor of the beef at processing.  

Our cattle never receive any antibiotics in their feed, and we do not use any hormone enhancers in the production of our animals. We just don’t need to.  

These cattle reach physical maturity between 18 and 22 months of age by means of a healthy diet and carefully selected genetics.