Hey y’all! Hope everyone is enjoying the nice summer weather! The days aren’t too terribly hot here yet; however, I know it’s coming! This morning we are scraping pens on the JRJ Ranch. During the winter season we have to feed a lot of hay since snow is on the ground a large percentage of the time and the cattle aren’t able to graze. As a result, a lot a hay wastage accumulates with manure from the cows and the pens must be scraped come late spring/summer. By scraping the pens,grass is able to come back up in those places where it might have died before.
The pen scrapings are very helpful to farmers. Since the scrapings are composed mostly of manure, it is a great natural fertilizer for crops. The manure is scooped up with a big tractor and placed in a spreader truck that they use to haul it to the fields and spread over the crop.
Scraping pens is only one of the steps a rancher takes to help take care of and preserve the environment that we have been blessed with. To check out other steps that are taken and visit ranches from around the United States on a virtual tour go to http://explorebeef.org.
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