This photo of Dixie, a second calf heifer, was taken in March of 2012.  She’s just weaned her first calf, and is pregnant with her second.  From a nutritional perspective, this cow is coming into the most physically demanding time of her life.  At three-years-old, she’s still growing, she’s pregnant, it’s cold, (she’s using extra calories to keep warm), and she’s only eating hay.  Physically demanding?  She looks like she needs to go to the gym.  If you fed her grain, she’d explode.

This poor thing, on the other hand, is coming off winter looking pretty rough.  She’s going to have a hard time raising a decent calf.  Would someone please give this girl a Twinkie?  And no.  She is not our cow.

                    The difference between beef producers and beef consumers is that consumers think no cattle need grain, and most beef producers think all cattle need grain.

This photograph came from somewhere in New England, in a news article on grassfed beef.    News reports are often accompanied by poorly selected stock photos, but this is not the case here.  This creature was standing right behind the owner, who was the subject of the news article.

I’m not even going to guess the gender of this animal, and even if you’re not a “cow” person, you’d probably think it’s on the this side.  The really thin side.

And if you’re one of those people who thinks that cattle just need sunny days and green grass think again.