(L to R) Owner/Rancher Leonard Vanderberg, with Curt Schmidt, also a rancher.

Owner Leonard Vanderberg still works the ranch exclusively with his wife, and four children. Their commitment goes far beyond the usual exclusion of antibiotics, hormones, and chemicals in their feed that is the trademarked conversation of most natural and organic ranchers. The lifestyle of the animals is just as important as the feed they receive. The total combined effort of their knowledge and experience with livestock has contributed to their production of the finest tasting natural meat you could ever hope to taste.

Almond hulls ready to be added in to feed.

There are never more than 200 cattle on the ranch at any given time. They are then grouped together according to size, instead of age, so as to avoid pecking order disputes among the animals, which causes stress. Stress affects the taste of the meat!

The grass fed plains that feed the animals are grown from unfertilized soil and fresh water that flows down from the Sierra Nevada mountains. There are no recycled elements or products of any kind used in the raising of these cattle.

Feed is brought in from local farmers who grow their crops free of pesticides specifically for the Vanderberg Ranch. The steers are fed twice daily with a combination of corn, barley, grass and naturally occurring minerals such as salt. This is a slow growth feed process that requires more time to get the steers up to weight, but the time and effort produce the most flavorful results.

Large commercial operations harvest entire herds and spray the carcasses with chlorinated water to bleach the fat and prevent shrinkage. Our steers are individually assessed and harvested at their peak, then chilled naturally. All of this takes more time, effort and money, but the results are worth it.

But that is just the tip of the nutritional iceberg.

Nice, healthy flaked Corn Product

A lot of the nutrition comes from corn, but from different parts of the corn. The hard outer shell of the corn is good, digestive feed. It is flattened, then steam rolled, and cut into nice, big nutritional flakes. The large flakes give the cattle something to chew on, making the meal more enjoyable, and therefore, more nutritious. Corn gluten, which yields a whopping 19% of the protein that the animal consumes, is part of the grain kernel itself. Added into to the feed, this is the highest individual form of nutritional content that the cattle receive! The TDN, or Total Digestive Nutrients, is 60% , which means that 60% of all the protein that is consumed by the animal is actually used by the body, and is digestible.

Final Feed Product in Hand

Add to this almond hulls, oats, rice bran, soybean meal, mineral, and cotton lint (a by product of the cotton seed which is very digestible) , and you have a complete feeding system for the cattle on the Vanderberg Ranch. This not only contributes to the nutritious well being of the animals, but you can begin to understand why this beef tastes so superior to other forms of beef that have been branded as either Natural or Organic.

Feed is bagged in large, sterilized, containers for animal safety.

All feed is then bagged, to avoid contamination.

As the seasons turn, the feed is fine tuned in order to get the best performance out of the animal.

Leonard Vanderberg , a rancher who brings superior commitment to the care and feeding of his cattle, says, “There are many ways to feed an animal, and many ways to cut corners, but when it is all said and done, there are no shortcuts when it comes to taste.”

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