They look like shaggy Texas long horns, but these are Highland cattle from northern Scotland, being bred here in the United States. One of the challenges of raising these animals on a farm is trying to duplicate the conditions of their home environment. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.
John McMahon is with Cabbage Hill Farm in Mount Kisco, New York, where highland cattle and other rare breeds of animals are being raised.
“We feed them hay during the winter and during the summer, we graze them on grass. We practice what’s called management intensive grazing. You try to duplicate how nature works. Animals used to flood across the plains. They would go through, they would pulverize everything in their path. Eating everything, pounding seed into the ground and leaving manure and urine. And then as they moved through, they wouldn’t come back for another year. Now when you put an animal on to the field and leave it there, they’re continuously eating, they’re continually destroying. What we try to do is mimic nature by rotating them quickly. They stay in each pen for twenty-four hours. They survive out here on their own. They are naturally hardy; they’re excellent mothers. They give birth on their own, without our assistance. The beef is extremely lean and we’ve had the meat tested by the Culinary Institute and it has less fat and less cholesterol than skinned chicken. It’s extremely healthy.”
Pulse of the Planet is presented by the American Museum of Natural History. Additional funding for this series has been provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.