Cattle need two things in abundance during the summer: water and shade.  All of our cattle are given a small strip of woods in their pastures to ensure plenty of shade, and the water must always be kept as clean and cool as possible.  A lacatating mother cow can sometimes drink 20 gallons of water a day during the summer, and often times the entire herd will go to get a drink at the same time.  This requires big water tanks and high water flow to fill them back up!

 

Cool season grasses don't grow as fast in the heat of summer, so pasture managment can be very important.  This is the best time of year to take advantage of geopraphical features for grazing.  Our farm has one paddock that is situated on a steep North-facing hill.  Since it faces North it does not get the most direct energy of the sun hitting it, and the grass there will grow more vigourously in the heat.  If we run into drought conditions there is also a low-lying area that always retains moisture in its soil and is a good "emergency graze".  Often towards August the cattle will start getting a little hay every day to supplement their grazing.

 

While we always try to keep pesticide use to a minimum, flies can be a big nuisance to the cattle this time-of-year and we always give our cattle a rub-bag filled with insecticide powder to help keep the flies to a minimum.  Flies are a vector for disease and cause the cattle much discomfort if left unchecked.  Additionally some weeds will break through a thin pasture if grass growth slows.  Usually we try and spot-spray just the weeds rather than spraying the entire field with herbicide.

 

On the human side of things, summer is the best time of year for cookouts, and there is nothing better to cook on the grill than some of our Beltie burgers or steaks!  The steers we choose to butcher will usually get butchered starting in early summer, so that they have had a few months of fresh pasture grass in their system.  Belted Galloways grow slow, so while store-bought beef from a grain-fed confinement lot may only be 16-18 months old when it gets butchered ours are always at least 2 years old if not 2.5.  Our cattle get exercise going around grazing and don't get "finished" on grain, so their meat is both flavorful and healthy.  A truly old animal would make for tough steaks and roasts, but our roasts are so tender that they fall apart with just a plastic fork!  Groff's butcher shop in Elizabethtown do a fantastic job butchering and packaging beef for us, and it comes to you labeled and frozen.  They also dry-age the beef, letting it hang for 14-21 days in a refrigerator to make for super tender steak!