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Imagine spending your days grazing under a blue sky on lush, organically grown, native grasses and plant material. The McClelland cows do just that. Outside the confines of a more traditional dairy, they are healthy, happy and more productive. Because the McClelland cows are eating organic pasture with no GMO’s, pesticides, or commercial fertilizers, it’s believed that their milk has a variety of beneficial qualities including higher levels of antioxidants and beneficial fatty acids. The McClellands want to provide their family and their customers with the highest quality milk and milk products possible and believe that there is a link between what they feed their farm animals and what the cows produce. It is this quest for a top quality product that drives their operation today as it has for generations. A family farm like the McClelland’s has a built in motivation to preserve the environment in and around it. The cows provide fertilizer for the native grasses on which they graze and they eliminate the need to harvest feed. This land is a legacy to the generations of McClellands yet to come, and this method of dairying is a sure bet to maintain that legacy.
Health Benefits to people
Health Benefits to Cows
Health Benefits to the Environment
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We are what we eat. It's obvious that if we choose to eat food produced with less chemicals and additives, we will ingest fewer chemicals and additives. But this is only one of the ways pasture fed cows provide health benefits to people. Grazing dairy cows produce milk containing higher levels of CLA's, antioxidants and beneficial fatty acids that boost our immune systems and fight cancer and aging.
The bodies of cows and other ruminants are naturally suited to grazing on pasture grass. It's what they are most suited and comfortable doing. Their systems use the roughage to produce acid neutralizing saliva that helps in digestion. The overall health and well being of pasture fed cows can only be helped by living out in the fresh air, leisurely eating naturally grown grasses in whatever amount and at whatever pace suits them. The life enjoyed by grass fed cows limits the stress put on their systems and allows them to produce high quality organic milk throughout their lifespan. This is something that cannot be said about traditional dairy situations.
Grazing cows eliminate the need for fuel burning machinery to harvest their feed. As they graze, the cows are simultaneously harvesting and fertilizing the land. The land used is not treated with chemicals and other unnatural elements, but rather left in the form that nature intended. Grasses also do their part in environmental preservation by drawing carbon dioxide from the air and storing it as carbon in their vast root systems. 