DUAL PURPOSE ORGANIC ANIMAL AGRICULTURE

We pride ourselves in sourcing dual purpose animals. This means the animal has been raised for more than just one purpose. Our cows live long healthy lives as organic pasture raised dairy cows and at the end of their lives provide organic beef for our community. One cow provides and average of over 80,000 pounds of food during her lifetime, including milk, cream, butter, cheese, ice cream, and beef, as opposed to their counterpart the beef animal that provides only about 600 pounds of beef during in total. Our cows live longer lives than their beef cattle counterparts. A Mindful Meats dairy cow lives an average of 6 years while a beef animal is generally allowed to live until 2 years of age. 

Grass Grazed Cows

Mindful Meats cows live long full lives out on pasture their entire lives. They are never transferred to a finishing lot or feed yard. They graze pastures when they are green and during the off season they are supplemented with farm grown silage (fermented grass), alfalfa, and hay. The milking cows are given a snack of mixed grain when they come into the barn for milkings. The milking cows need the extra calories from the mixed grain to lactate as producing milk is very calorie intensive. All of the pastures the cows graze are certified organic. All of the additional supplemental feed is certified organic and DNA tested for GMOs. 

Breeds

The most common breeds we have are Holsteins and Jerseys. Holsteins are known for their copious production of milk, and Jerseys are known for their butterfat. We often get a cross between the two. There are also a number of farmers raising heritage breeds such as Montebeliarde, Danish Reds, Swiss Brown, Aryshire. Each breed is unique. 

Humane Handling Through To The End

Our cows live on literally million-dollar view properties on multi-generational family farms in the rolling hills of California with access to fresh clean pasture and feed. They are handled humanely throughout their life and are deeply loved and cared for by the farmers. The day their number is called and they are sent in to the harvest facility a Mindful Meats team member is there on the ground to pick the cow out and look each cow in the eye and say “thank you” as they load onto the trailer. It is a core part of our company to give gratitude and respect to the animals. To read a little more about that final day click here.