Down on This Farm, It’s All Grass-Fed

Vehicles started rolling up the long Tussock Sedge Farm driveway from Souderton Road before 6 p.m.

Singles, couples, families with kids of all ages tumbled from their cars and trucks to ogle the small herd of Red Angus who were grazing with their calves in a field next to the big barn.

A welcome breeze blew away most of the oppressive heat as the sun dipped toward the horizon.

Gradually, the long tables behind the barn filled up with platters, bowls, casseroles, baskets and trays of homemade foods of all kinds.

Tussock Sedge grass-fed sirloin tip steaks on the grill were destined to become samples for the hungry crowd.

A line snaked around the yard as people armed with plates and utensils waited their chance to dig in.

It was shaping up to be a great evening at Tussock Sedge, the farm of Henry and Charlotte Rosenberger. The cattle farm near Blooming Glen was hosting the Bucks County Foodshed Alliance’s first summer farm tour of the season. With a record 80 people of all ages gathering to share a pot luck meal and hear from the Rosenbergers about their farming operations, it was a blessing that the rain that had threatened held off.

The Foodshed Alliance began arranging such visits to small area farms to give consumers interested in local foods an opportunity to see where their food comes from and discuss with the producers how they grow the products they sell. The evenings, held the first Wednesday of the summer months, begin with a pot luck meal at 6:30pm followed by the farmer-led tour starting around 7:30.

"This is our first time,” said one woman about the event Wednesday. Recently retired and looking for activities to occupy her newly found free time, she said she’d envisioned long tables lined up outdoors, filled with great food. She wasn’t disappointed.

Many people brought folding chairs or picnic blankets, and others sat at Rosenbergers’ picnic tables. Kids walked along the barn's stone retaining wall or raced each other among the trees at the edge of the nearby field.

The cows pretty much ignored everyone, including those who were shooting photos of the calves alongside their mothers and the 2,740-pound bull that dwarfed the 1,600-pound members of his harem.

Tussock Sedge Farm

The Rosenbergers’ operations are of particular interest because the farm is substantial — nearly 500 acres and some 300 head of Red Angus beef cattle — and because Henry and Charlotte have moved from conventional farming methods to techniques that are substantially more environmentally responsible.

Actually, Tussock Sedge, purchased in 1991, is just the first of five farms the Rosenbergers have bought over the years as neighboring farmers decided to sell for various reasons. Ardent conservationists, the couple has preserved 440 acres of the total to protect the land from development.

At the start, “I did everything I thought a farmer should do,” said Henry, including renting additional acreage to make his farm as large as possible. At one point, he farmed 1,000 acres and had two employees.

“And I lost about $100,000 a year.”

Time to make some big changes. Henry began reading about new ways of farming and new reasons for using the new ways.

Five years ago, he eliminated all herbicides, toxins, sprays and commercial fertilizers. Today, for fertilizer, he spreads some cow manure directly on the fields and mixes more of it with leaves and hay to yield rich black compost that also goes on the fields.

Henry no longer finishes his beef cows with corn. When he did, “the vet bills kept piling up at calving.” The corn went right to the fetus and created a very large calf that made birthing difficult and dangerous, he said.

Now, he grows or buys hay for feeding in winter, and the cows graze in the fields on nutritious grasses during the warm months. All the cows are “healthier walking around in their natural habitat. They don’t like to stay in the same pen all the time.”

They also have an innate ability, which most human beings would envy, to choose a healthy diet: “Cows can walk into that field and inherently take the grass with the highest values first.” Maybe that’s why grass-finished beef has more of the good omega-3 fats — making their meat healthier for our bodies, too.

Doing what comes naturally

Henry stopped relying on artificial insemination to build his herds, since it was expensive and gave mixed the results. Now, he and Charlotte let nature take its course, with a little help from carefully selected breeding stock.

Henry is bringing a Rotokawa Red Devon bull from New Zealand, with plans to breed the Red Devon with his Red Angus.

“You get more hybrid vigor with a cross," he said. "The Devon is an old English breed that’s been feeding the English beef for 3,000 years.”

Besides the small herd of “replacement dames” grazing nearby, the Rosenbers have two more herds with calves and a third with 40 finishing cows. They raise, finish and send for butchering about 100 beef cattle a year.

How long does it take to “finish” a grass-fed and -finished cow?

As long as it takes, Henry said. He judges readiness based on tail fat, roundness and weight - ideally about 1,200 to 1,300 pounds. “Grass-fed beef that isn’t properly finished is tough.”

“That’s because the fat goes on last,” said Charlotte.

Speaking of fat, consumers may notice that the fat of grass-fed meat is more yellow than white. To that, Henry says, “green grass makes yellow butter, and it makes yellow fat.”

This year, Tussock Sedge is offering a beef share program, with two options of $270 or $658, as well as smaller packages of a 12 pound assortment of cuts for $90 and a 47 to 48 pound assortment for $329.