About
happy beef is the product of Tableland born and bred cattle, processed locally in Malanda. Our great tasting, pasture fed beef is available to our community in the true spirit of ‘paddock to plate’.
Our Farm
Is located on the Atherton Tablelands in a picturesque area close to the Lake Eacham crater lake. It was purchased in 2004 and a lengthy rehabilitation of severely degraded pasturelands commenced and is ongoing. Slashing, lime, microbial preps, seaweed compost teas and extensive grass, herbage and legume sowing has significantly improved our pastures & biodiversity ~ also enhanced by approximately 5 ha of rainforest tree planting. Whilst we still have significant populations of weeds we celebrate these as contributing to fertility!
“ I regard weeds as an absolute essential in a health landscape…. We cannot do without them. Weeds are the only hope we have of making Australia fertile again.” Pg 69 Beyond the Brink by Peter Andrews.
We have recently commenced biodynamic certification with NASAA and are now in precertification.
How We Started
Our awareness of the importance of nutrition was emphasised by personal health issues which resolved once sugar & refined & processed foods were removed from our diet. Further investigation into chemical agriculture ~ now labelled conventional ~ completed our personal conversion to natural farming using biodynamic ~ organic methods.
Our Priorities
We are at the beginning of a journey to produce consistent, high quality, tender, pasture fed beef. This just doesn’t happen by describing your product as such. It needs careful management, quality pasture and the right genetics.
The animal must always be gaining weight, and never in drought, for the quality of the meat to be high. This is why we will only use animals born and raised on the Tablelands.
We are currently improving our genetics through the use of bulls that have been selected for production on grass, early maturity (important for the development of flavour) and tenderness.
Our aim over the next 5 years is the continued improvement in our pastures through further tree plantings and increasing the variety and quantity of grasses, herbages and legumes.
To further enhance the quality of our pasture we have recently switched to a rationed grazing system as espoused by Andre Voisin. The concept is based on the time spent in a grazing segment and interval before regrazing. They are never in a segment longer than 6 days as this is when the very palatable regrowth starts to occurs. If this is regrazed the grass is considerably weakened and less able to compete for nutrients. The grazing interval varies depending on the time of the year (how long it takes the grass to regrow).