What about the steers with nipples? The same question is often asked about men, and the serious answer for both humans and cattle has to do with in utero development of many mammals. The more interesting tangent for this topic comes from a supremely surreal scene in a local electronics superstore on a recent foray to town.  Flashing simultaneously across five hundred square feet of flat panel screens was a cartoon of talking farm animals. Nothing unusual – a little Orwellian, but we’re used to that by now. Before long, two flirting bovine, from their voices clearly intended to be a male and a female, had decided to take their conversation to a couple of beach chairs. Smitten, they laid on their backs, crossed hooves behind their heads, and with their legs spread…both had identical, milk-full udders… Such an anatomical irregularity would have been confusing for a seasoned rancher. We wonder if the kids even noticed.

These are the ah-ha moments when we remember that many people rarely get to see the underside of a cow. For as well-designed as they are for using extensive grasslands, all cows are not the same – and they represent one of only a handful of species who’ve been domesticated over the last ten thousand years. As a prolific writer on planet-scale development of human civilization, Jared Diamond suggested that the number of wild animals that could qualify for our productive use was limited by factors of disposition, breeding abilities, and social structure. Fourteen species have made the cut. (Those wanting to dig deeper should check out a great article in Nature that Diamond wrote about these issues.)

The wild ancestor of the domestic cow – the aurochs – roamed through Eurasia and North Africa until they became extinct in the 17th century. By that time the aurochs had long since been bred into Bos taurus and Bos indicus, the two species of cattle we see today that are each generally suited for the particular place they’re raised. The cow’s usefulness as a source of milk, meat, and draft power (along with a host of lesser products used in everything from cosmetics to glue to piano keys) – along with the comparative ease with which they could be tamed by humans – made them a logical choice for domestication.

And domesticated we have! Some rough numbers help to put things in perspective. These days there are roughly 94 million cattle in the United States – less than 10% of the more than one billion found around the world. Since only a small fraction of farmers in this country use them for draft power, a cattle census is typically split into two types of production, beef or dairy. Perhaps 10 million American cattle are found on dairy farms, with the rest being raised specifically for meat – as we do at Marin Sun Farms, where one mature beef cows at 1150 lbs will yields about 650 lbs of useable beef and bones.

As successful as Marin Sun Farms has been in producing and selling 100% grass fed and grass finished beef, our cattle remain a tiny fraction of the American marketplace. 30 million animals might move through conventional (i.e. grain-fed or corn-fed) feedlots in America in a given year.  Bringing these animals to a final slaughter weight is not cheap, but usually takes only a few months in a feedlot to fatten a 1-year-old steer on corn or other concentrated grains.  When cattle are finished on feedlot grain, they can gain weight rapidly at any time of the year and can be ready to harvest at any time of the year and according to the demands of the marketplace.

To get to a finished and flavorful product, a Marin Sun Farms cow spends a whole lot more time growing up before it’s ready for market – usually a total of 24-30 months.  For a grass-finished cattle producer, sheer time is one of the most expensive parts of being in business. When cattle are finished on grass, they are very much at the mercy of the seasons: put in the simplest of terms, if the grass isn’t green, the cattle probably aren’t fattening very fast. The old phrase geography is destiny could be the most apropos for ranchers and farmers in a settled society. Nomadic pastoralists worldwide have made wonderful adaptations to their environments and the variability of nature by moving their herds and flocks long distances in search of green grass. Wherever we go, there we are – subject to the weather, the quality of the soil, the tastes of potential customers, the distances we need to move our animals and meat. In the Bay Area, we are grateful for a happy combination of all – and are continuously trying to improve our production system for delicious meat.