You may be turning to organic and regenerative sources of meat because of concerns about what you are eating and how the animals were treated during their lives. This is also the basis for how we practice farming at Deck Family Farm. We are proud of these methods and aim to be fully transparent with our customers.
Herd health is checked 2 times per year by OSU veterinarians. We are very conservative in what is administered to animals and can afford to be conservative given our organic & rotation-grazing practices. These practices keep the animal's metabolic and immunologic systems balanced and functioning naturally.
So here is a rundown of our general health-care practices for our animals.
There are no prophylactic antibiotics and no mRNA vaccines.
Newborn beef:
Vitamins A and D - Calves can sometimes become deficient in first 6 months so we preempt that risk with these vitamins.
Selenium mineral supplement - Selenium is a mineral found in soil. Without it the animal will not develop muscles properly. Willamette Valley soil is “young” meaning it was only recently deposited by volcanic activity and is therefore lacking in naturally occurring selenium, requiring selenium supplementation. This is only required in a few places in the US. After that initial dose at birth, all cattle are provided free choice selenium and other minerals.
Beef:
Antibiotics - if the animal has pneumonia and is in danger of dying or if they have uterine prolapse, antibiotics will be administered. We do not sell that animal as meat. When any animal is treated in this way they are sold at auction as a live animal. he practice of giving prophylactic antibiotics in feed or water is not practiced by our farm.
Wormer medicine - If the animal looks thin and has worm infection they will be treated. This is rare at our farm (less than 1% of our cows) because we rotate our cows using high-intensity rotational grazing.
Dairy:
Same as beef treatments plus:
Brucellosis screening: Dairy cows are tested for brucellosis which involves a small injection titre test
Tuberculosis screening: Dairy cows are tested for TB which involves a small injection titre test
Chicken:
No treatments at all
Pigs (sows and piglets):
Vaccines - Our farm vaccinates to prevent against leptospirosis, parvovirus and erysipelas
We apply de-wormer at 6-weeks and pre-breeding. We minimize normal de-worming practices by breeding with the goal of creating parasite resistant animals.
Lamb:
We apply de-wormer at 6-months and pre-breeding. We minimize normal de-worming practices by breeding with the goal of creating parasite resistant animals.