Animal Welfare

On the a7 Ranche, we are committed to the highest standards of animal welfare:

Happy and healthy living conditions

This is achieved by simply allowing the cattle to do what is instinctive and natural to them. They live full-time (not just “access to”) in the fresh air and sunshine instead of being cooped up in buildings. They graze high-quality grass, instead of being fed, feedlot style, with grain and chemicals to make it digestible. This means our cattle have the chance to socialize, exercise and eat food that is natural to their digestive systems. It’s a pretty good life for a cow. We take pride in having an exceptionally healthy herd. Rarely, when an animal does require antibiotic treatment (usually less than one per cent of our herd), it is marked as treated and removed from our beef direct program and sold off into the conventional system instead.

Cow whispering!

Every year, our cowboys are trained in low stress livestock handling techniques. This means using body language and subtle positioning (e.g. flight zones) to communicate with the cow to move or handle her. No electric prods, shouting or chasing. Instead we strive for slow, quiet cattle moves from field to field that keep mother cow and calf together and relaxed.

Local, humane slaughter

Our direct beef sales cattle are slaughtered at Foothills Custom Meats, a tiny local processor (slaughterhouse) in High River. Foothills is only 40 minutes from the ranch, which minimizes transport time and stress on our cattle. We bring our cows in small groups, never singles, because they are herd animals, and they are slaughtered within two hours of arrival (no standing in the hot sun). Ironically, one of the only reasons we are not certified organic is that Foothills is not yet certified organic. To organically certify our beef would require longer transport to a vastly bigger organic-accredited processor. We choose not to do that because going to a small local processor is much kinder to our cows.