What’s It Like to Work on a Cattle Ranch?
In the second episode of our Faces of Farming series, we talk to Dr. Tera Barnhardt, coordinator of animal health and welfare for Cattle Empire, about the care and technology that goes into the beef you feed your family.
Monica Reinagel, MS, LD/N, CNS
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What’s It Like to Work on a Cattle Ranch?
Welcome to the second installment in our Faces of Farming series, an idea that grew out of the desire that many of us have to know more about where our food comes from. Few of us have the opportunity to visit a working ranch, farm, or field and see for ourselves what goes on there on a day-to-day basis. What does it take to get our food from the field to our table, and who are the people that are doing this vital work?
Each week, I’m talking to someone from a different part of the agricultural community about what drives them, their hopes and fears for the future of farming, how their industry is working to improve conditions for animals and workers, protect the environment, increase sustainability, and so on.
Last week, we talked to vegetable grower Dale Huss, who manages hundreds of fields for Ocean Mist, a company that grows over a dozen types of conventional and organic vegetables and delivers millions of pounds of fresh produce to grocery stores all over the country each week.
This week, we’re talking to Dr. Tera Barnhardt, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, proud daughter of the sunflower state (Kansas), and coordinator of animal health and welfare for a company called Cattle Empire in Kansas
I’ve talked in past podcasts about the various issues and concerns related to beef and red meat, in general. There have been some high-profile studies over the years linking red meat to increased risk of disease. This has led many to consider eliminating red meat from their diet.
However, as I have pointed out, the health risks associated with red meat consumption are only seen in those eating two or three servings of red meat per day. Those who are only eating two or three servings per week, on the other hand, tend to have the same risks as those who never eat red meat. Meanwhile, lean beef is a superior source of certain nutrients including protein, iron and B12.
Other studies have demonstrated that when red meat is consumed in the context of a healthy diet, it can actually improve heart health. When you consider that red meat is often higher in heart-healthy monounsaturated fats than chicken or turkey, that doesn’t seem surprising.
But health and nutrition are not the only concerns. Some people choose not to consume meat for moral, ethical, or religious reasons. Others want to be assured that animals that we raise for food are treated humanely. Like you, I have heard some very disturbing stories about poor treatment of livestock. But I’ve also visited a fair number of feed yards and cattle ranches and I have to tell you that the reality that I have observed is much different than what I’ve seen portrayed in some of these sources.
And that’s part of what I hope to accomplish with this series: to give you an opportunity to virtually visit some of the places where your food is produced and talk to the people that are engaged in that work on a daily basis. They may live far from us and have lives that are very different from ours but these are our neighbors. More importantly, without these neighbors, there would be no food on our plates!
Tera (Rooney) Barnhardt grew up on a family farm and ranch in southwest Kansas and has always been a proud resident of the Sunflower State. Dr. Barnhardt earned her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Kansas State University in 2014 and during her tenure as a Wildcat, completed a Master’s degree under Dr. Dan Thomson. Her graduate research involved implementing an industry‐oriented beef quality assurance and animal welfare assessment in 56 Kansas feedyards. It is through that research project that she first worked with the Cattle Empire team. Dr. Barnhardt now serves as the coordinator of Animal Health and Welfare for Cattle Empire. Dr. Barnhardt and her husband, Sheldon, own a residential construction business and an upland game hunting service. They have their hearts and hands full with their son, Archie, and daughter, Jolee.
To hear my full interview with Tera, use the audio player embedded in this article.
What’s It Like to Run a Cattle Feed Yard?
Nutrition Diva: Tell us a little bit about Cattle Empire. How many cows are there and what’s happening while they’re with you?
Tera Barnhardt: Cattle Empire is one of the larger family-owned cattle feeding operations in the United States. It’s very exciting to be a part of a family that feeds other families. The Brown family owns Cattle Empire. They’re a part of the management team here and are here every day. They employ a lot of people who have always been involved in agriculture. The cattle are brought off of the grass or some sort of pasture setting and brought to a cattle feed yard, and then they’re brought into our feed yard, where they are put on a feed that includes hay, corn, and vitamins and minerals that are essential to raise healthy beef. We actually just finish the cattle out. They’re with us for a very short period of their lives.
ND: So, they’re not born there. They come there towards the end of their life.
TB: That’s a really good point to make. Cattle are not born at the feed yard. They’re born out at pasture at multiple ranches. We bring cattle into our feed yard from across the United States. Cattle are born out on the ranches, they’re raised up by the cows—the moms—and then when they’re weaned, they are usually put into a different pasture setting and kept on grass until they gain a little bit more weight, get their immune systems set up for success, and then eventually head to the feed yard. So we have cattle with us for about four months on average and that is the only time period that they are at this feed yard.
ND: Before we recorded today’s podcast, you were actually out in the feedlot. Draw us a little picture, what were you looking at?
TB: We got in some new cattle and they came to us from Arkansas, so they traveled quite a ways to get up here. I like to think of what I was doing as a welcoming committee. They’re coming to stay with us for a while. We unload them off the truck and I lead them to a pen that allows them to get hay and water. It has cornstalk bales on the floor of the pen, so they’re able to lay down on something comfortable because from Arkansas to Kansas is a long way to travel on a truck.
Immediately, I want to get them comfortable, get them used to their surroundings, and while I’m on foot out there, I can lead them to the things they need, which are very similar to what humans need—comfort and food and water right away. They will be resting this afternoon and I’ll check on them again later, just to make sure that everything’s going well. I might get them up to exercise because we want cattle, not unlike humans, to get up and stretch after a long period of activity followed by rest. The thought process is just good animal husbandry. That’s a big part of my job: working with the employees to make sure they provide these things for the cattle, because it really sets up their immune systems for success.
My goal as a veterinarian at a feedlot is to make sure the cattles’ immune systems can handle any challenges, and that’s a majority of my day—making sure that the animals are taken care of. And a big part of that starts when they first arrive at the feed yard.
ND: You’ve been in this business for a while now, but you also grew up watching this happen on your family ranch. What has changed about this process over the last, say, 20 years, or as far back as you can remember? Are we still doing it the way we’ve always done it, or have there been some changes in how we think about and manage this process?
TB: Growing up in the beef industry, I’ve seen a lot of big things not change. Agriculturalists are dedicated to taking good care of their animals. We’re good stewards of the land, we’re good stewards of the animals that are trusted in our care. And that’s very much driven by our consumers. We have a huge responsibility to produce a safe and nutritious product. And we’re very proud of the beef that we put on your table, but we want you to know, at the end of the day, we’re putting it on our tables, too.
There are some major concepts that won’t ever change. They will never go out of style. Taking good care of the animals that are trusted in your care doesn’t change or become a new, groundbreaking idea or innovation. There are some really neat things that we’ve been able to do over the years as people have studied animal behavior. You may have heard of Temple Grandin or Bud Williams—people who have dedicated their lives to studying how animals interact with humans and how we can continually get better. That being said, we can’t always do things the way our grandfather taught us how to do, right? Any sustainable business with success in its future can’t continue to do things the way we’ve always done it. So there are things that have helped us get more efficient and there are things that have helped us be better stewards of our resources, and that just helps us continue to carry these businesses on and carry them on to the next generation, either in our families or in other agricultural families.
ND: The majority of consumers will never have a chance to actually come to a feed yard. What might they be really surprised to see if they had a chance to visit your operation? What would they never expect to see, or what do you see the people who visit your yard being surprised by?
TB: We really push our technology to the limit at a feed yard, and I think people would be very surprised to see that. But that should give you a lot of confidence in the beef that you’re serving to your family, because there is so much technology behind it. Every animal is tracked in our computer system. We know when it was treated if it was sick, and when its last meal was—we can track down anything for all the animals on the feed yard. And so, that sort of integration of people raising the beef that you’re going to eat, putting in so much effort to make sure that the technology is there, is to protect this huge job that we have. We need to make sure that we’re doing this correctly and we take that very seriously, and we rely very heavily on technology to make that happen.
ND: So Tera, obviously, this is not an easy way to make a living. It’s a lot of work. And as you say, it’s the same amount of work whether it’s raining, or snowing, or a holiday, or you woke up with a cold—what keeps you in this profession? Surely, there must be easier ways to apply your education and your training.
TB: I’d be lying if I said there weren’t days where I think, gosh, there’s got to be an easier way to be a vet. There are many ways to apply my education and knowledge and the things I have been fortunate enough to learn in my lifetime. What keeps me in the beef industry is that my family raised me in a way that allowed me to grow up knowing that I could be what I wanted to be. I told myself at a young age that I would not let them down. And every day when I hit the road, I’m excited about what I’m about to do. I cannot think of a more exciting thing. I know that I’m feeding people. That’s a noble profession and a noble industry to be a part of, because the population is growing and we hear those challenges. The consumer is changing, and we want to meet those needs and meet those changes with transparency. We want to talk to our consumers because they’re the only reason we’re still in business. Something as simple as recording a podcast on a Monday morning with a nutritionist is exciting to me because that just links me to the end user of our product and says, ‘hey there is a veterinarian in Kansas who could not care any more about the food that you’re serving to your family because she serves it to her family.’ So, if your listeners have questions, if you have questions, we’re happy to answer those and be transparent because I hit the road every day to do my job with that much excitement. And that keeps me going, because you’re exactly right, it’s not an easy way to make a living. There’s a lot of risk involved—we can have snow storms, we can have markets that can really hurt us. Think of all the political things that can affect the cattle market and change how we can make a profit. With those kinds of things, it’s a very risky business, but it’s one that my family has always been involved in and it’s one I always found very noble. I’m excited to maybe pass that on to my kids.
ND: Well Tera, I want to thank you for taking some time—some valuable time—out of your day to talk with us today, and I also want to thank the listeners for listening. I’m going to be back next week with the next installment of Faces of Farming. We’re going to be talking to Greg France, who grows strawberries, and plenty of them, with his wife in California. You’ll find the rest of our Faces of Farming series as well as the entire archive of Nutrition Diva podcasts on our website at nutritiondiva.quickanddirtytips.com, and you can find me on the Nutrition Diva Facebook Page and at nutritionovereasy.com. Have a great week, everyone.
Image © The Beef Checkoff
About the Author
Monica Reinagel is a board-certified licensed nutritionist, author, and the creator of one of iTunes’ most highly ranked health and fitness podcasts. Her advice is regularly featured on the TODAY show, Dr. Oz, NPR, and in the nation’s leading newspapers, magazines, and websites. Do you have a nutrition question? Call the Nutrition Diva listener line at 443-961-6206. Your question could be featured on the show.