What Can Organic Livestock Eat? The Feed and Pasture Rules

1What you must never feed

Section 205.237(b) is a hard prohibition list. An organic producer must not:

• Use animal drugs, including hormones, to promote growth
• Provide supplements or additives beyond what's "needed for adequate nutrition and health maintenance for the species at its specific stage of life"
• Feed plastic pellets for roughage
• Feed formulas containing urea or manure
• Feed mammalian or poultry slaughter by-products to mammals or poultry
• Violate the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act with any feed or additive
• Provide feed or forage "to which any antibiotic including ionophores has been added"
• Keep ruminants off pasture during the grazing season (except for the specific conditions in §205.239(b) and (c))

2The pasture rule: 30% DMI over a 120-day-minimum grazing season

For ruminants, feed and pasture are one requirement. During the grazing season, §205.237(c) requires producers to:

• Provide not more than an average of 70 percent of a ruminant's dry matter demand from dry matter fed — the flip side of requiring real grazing. Averaged over the entire grazing season, per type and class of animal.
• Graze ruminants "throughout the entire grazing season for the geographical region, which shall be not less than 120 days per calendar year" — the season may be discontinuous due to weather or climate, but must total at least 120 days.
• Provide pasture sufficient to supply "an average of not less than 30 percent of their dry matter intake from grazing throughout the grazing season."

The rule has two named exceptions: animals lawfully denied pasture under §205.239(b)–(c) still owe 30% DMI from grazing for the periods they are on pasture, and breeding bulls are exempt entirely — but a bull kept under that exemption can never be sold as organic slaughter stock.

3The documentation burden is explicit

Unusually, this section spells out its own recordkeeping (§205.237(d)). Ruminant producers must:

1. Describe the total feed ration for each type and class of animal — feed produced on-farm, feed purchased, the percentage of each feed type including pasture, and all supplements and additives
2. Document the amount of each type of feed actually fed to each type and class
3. Document ration changes through the year as grazing conditions shift
4. Provide the method for calculating dry matter demand and dry matter intake

4How to document this on your farm

The feed section is where livestock inspections are won or lost, because it demands a running log, not a one-time plan: what was fed, to whom, in what proportion, and how the DMI math was done. OrganicAssistant captures feed purchases and feeding activities as dated records the moment they happen, so the actually-fed log and ration-change history that §205.237(d) requires accumulate through the season instead of being rebuilt before inspection. Your OSP's feed plan then describes the ration those records substantiate.

5The bottom line

Organic livestock eat organic: a 100% organic agricultural ration, with only National List-allowed additives on top. Ruminants must genuinely graze — at least 30% of dry matter intake from pasture over a grazing season of 120+ days — and you must be able to show the math. The prohibition list (growth hormones, slaughter by-products, urea, manure, antibiotics including ionophores) has no exceptions.

This explainer summarizes federal regulation in plain language; it is not legal advice or a compliance determination. Your certifier makes the final call on your operation. Reviewed against the eCFR text of 7 CFR § 205.237 current as of 2026-07-25.