1. How do you teach a cow?
First, we have to know something about the plant we want the cow to eat. If it is nutritious, it will taste good to the cow. If it contains less tasty chemicals, we find supplements that will reduce the effect of the chemicals. Next we start with young healthy animals because young animals are more likely to try new things, and healthy animals are better able to deal with any chemicals a plant contains. We get them used to trying lots of new foods by giving them good experiences with nutritious foods they've never seen before. We know they're ready to try a weed when they rush to the fence to see what we are bringing them that day. Then we cut the weeds, put them in familiar serving tubs, and add a familiar flavor. The flavor encourages them to test it out. They will eat just a little the first day, and by day three, they are cleaning their plates. Then we take them to pasture. That's sometimes the harder part because the animals have to learn HOW to bite off and eat the plant. (For a more complete description download ".")
2. How long does it take to train a cow?
This is only the second time anyone has tried to do this. What we found in 2006 is that we can train a cow to eat a new weed in 5 days. Based on research about how animals learn to eat, this might be the fastest we can teach them.
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3. How much does it cost to train my cows?
1 black tub per cow - $10.00
Five gallons of molasses - $10.00
8 bags of assorted feeds - $100.00
1 pump weed sprayer for the molasses - $20.00
Being able to control weeds without the expense and hassle of spraying them - PRICELESS!
4. Don't the spines and prickles on the plant hurt the cow?
Apparently not. It seems that their noses, tongues and bodies are not as sensitive as ours to these kinds of things, or they are better protected than ours. Cows seem to not be bothered by the spines and prickles when they put their heads down into a patch of weeds to get at the grass, though I would have avoided the same patch because I could feel the spines through my heavy jeans. They also seem very relaxed when biting off and chewing a spiny stem. We have checked the cows' bodies and mouths and have found no sores or cuts.
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5. Why don't you use goats?
We chose to work with cows because:
- Like goats, they have to learn what to eat.
- Unlike goats, they are not escape artists, so they require less fencing and less human attention. This makes them less expensive to manage.
- Cows can eat almost anything a goat can eat,
- There is a stronger market for beef than for goat meat so more people raise them. Though the number of people eating goat meat in the U.S. is increasing, the marketing and distribution structures are not as developed.
- It's easier to train a cow to eat a weed than it is to get a rancher to convert to goats.
6. Can I just spray my fields with molasses?
Before you turn your fields into a sticky mess spraying molasses on them to get the cows to eat weeds, consider this:
Our experiment called "Is Molasses the Silver Bullet?" found that cows who did not have the four days of training to get them over their fear of trying new things ate very few weeds. In fact, the control group ate only 2 oz. of distaff while trained cows ate 81 oz.
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7. If the plants have toxins won't the cows be poisoned?
It's highly unlikely that a cow will be poisoned. All plants have toxins, but very few have such high levels of toxins that they are poisonous. Since animals have no food safety labels, they use their internal feedback mechanisms to decide how much of a food to eat. They start by eating small amounts of something new and depending on what they experience they increase or decrease the amount they eat.
You can poison a cow by starving it on to plants, or putting it in a field where it has nothing but one plant to eat. But, if you let the animal slowly increase and decrease what it eats and mix a variety of plants, your animals will be safe.
8. Will the cows be able to eradicate the weeds?
There are several different answers to this question depending on how you manage your animals and on how you define a weed. Choose from the following:
- If you continue to graze in your usual manner, cows may not be able to do any more than simply prevent further spread of the plant.
- If you modify how and when you graze, and if you repeatedly graze the weed during the same grazing season, you can eradicate it over time.
- The need for eradication depends on your management goals. Questions you might ask yourself include:
- If a "weed" becomes a forage, how would you then choose to manage it? Would you want to take advantage of it as a source of protein during seasons where it is the only green, growing thing?
- How does this plant fit within my other goals for my property such as water quality and wildlife habitat protection, productivity and sustainability?
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9. What are the long-term effects on the animals?
To date we are not aware of any negative effects on the animals who have eaten the target weeds in this program or as part of the pilot project at Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site. Since all plants contain toxins, and since animals have evolved to deal with a wide variety of toxins, it seems unlikely that any long term effects will be found.
There are plants that have toxins that could cause long-term effects on livestock. We do not recommend including those kinds of plants in a training and grazing program.
10. Well, it may work there, but why do you think it would work at MY place?
The steps we use to train animals are based on universal principles about how animals choose what to eat, and about information based on plants and the chemicals they contain. So, we know that your animals will learn in the same way that animals learn everywhere and we know that if you have a nutritious plant, it can become forage for your animals.
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