THE HERD
Our cows have it as good as can be! For 9-10 months out of the year they are moving daily to a fresh paddock full of fresh greens, fresh air, and direct sunlight. By imitating herbivores in nature we manage a healthy herd that has no need for vaccines, antibiotics, or pharmaceuticals of any kind. Wellness is nature’s default, and when herbivores are mobbing, mowing, and moving they get optimum nutrition from fresh greens which are all they need, excluding our only import which is salt blocks.
During the winter months we split the herd into three classes (by size and age), and are still able to move the cow group around the pastures as long as the ground isn’t too wet. We bring the cows hay when needed and continue to let them put their fertilizer directly on the fields where the chickens will spread it around evenly about 6 weeks later. Our calf and yearling groups go to the hayshed where they have dry, deep bedding and free choice of hay we made from our fields. They also get outside paddocks to enjoy direct sunlight, and we rotate the calves and yearlings in paddocks centered around our sacrifice areas to minimize disturbance in the cold and wet months. When the weather is nasty you’ll find them under the roof on dry wood chips and straw that we bring in to catch all of the goodies they drop out of their back ends. This bedding pack builds up and the ground level rises, so we have their feeders on pulleys to raise the feeders as well.
In the beginning of spring when the cows go back to daily moves around the farm, we use pigs and/or a tractor to aerate the bedding pack. After the bedding pack (that is saturated with manure) composts, this living material is what we feed to the fields. Centered around daily moves most of the year, this entire process significantly improves the pastures.
Healthy grasslands are biodiverse in flora and fauna; it is fascinating to witness the plethora of plant species, worms, insects, birds, reptiles, and mammals that enjoy the pastures alongside our farm animals. Our local wildlife benefits, the animals get the nutrition of the grassland, the fields get the animals’ nutrients, the soil builds over time, and we get the bonus of the healthiest and most nutrient dense wagyu beef in the universe.
All of our operations go with the flow of the seasons. We let our bulls breed the cows mid-summer so they calve in the spring. We harvest in the fall when the number of available greens and re-growth is declining. Wagyu (compared to most other breeds) need a longer life to grow to optimum size for harvest. This extra time is also what lets them put on marbling to get the excellent quality “grass-fed and finished” we see on the table. So our steers are harvested in the fall at 28-30 months. Sometimes we’ll have a few smaller ones that we hold over for a spring harvest, but the majority of our beef are sold by the quarter, half, or whole in the fall.
THE EGGMOBILE
We raise egg-laying breeds of chickens for their benefit to the pasture. Their role in the circle of regeneration is to clean up behind the herbivores just like their counterparts in nature. It just so happens that we get eggs in return, and not just any eggs, the best eggs you can get! Overall, our eggers are the happiest, most mobile, and hardest working chickens in the universe.
Chicken manure is excellent food for the earth. Our chickens free-range a new paddock each day and roost in the eggmobile over slatted floors each night, so our flock puts 100% of its waste to good use in the fields. During the day they are guarded by at least one dog. The girls run around finding any kind of forage they like, one in particular being cow pies. Layers will scratch through a cow pie until the pie is completely spread out. Usually they do so for the fly larvae that grow inside the pies, though certain times of year they are searching for the earthworms feeding on older pies. Herbivore manure also contains beneficial digestive enzymes for a chicken’s gut microbiome.Nature has many examples of mutualism that we can imitate. The oxpecker on the zebra, the egret on the rhino and buffalo, the cowbird on the bison, and now the chicken behind the cow. We see blackbirds, cowbirds, and starlings follow the cows as well, all of which keep the insect infestations in check. Because our layers get all the greens they want, all the worms and bugs and insects they want, organic grain and crushed oyster shells, they, in turn, provide us with eggs that are as good as they get. Our flock averages a couple hundred girls in one big eggmobile and covers each paddock and pasture multiple times each year.
Overall, the soil gets better fed both from the chicken excrement and the even spreading of cow pies, the greens benefit both from the soil improving and the increased available photosynthetic surface area, the herbivores benefit from the improved soil and the improved greens, and the chickens benefit in following the cows on another successful rotation of soil building, green growing, cow feeding circle of land regeneration. Imitating nature yields us healthy cows, healthy pastures, and healthy chickens who lay healthy eggs.
THE FLOCK
We raise katahdins which are a hair sheep that shed their winter coat on their own. They are well-trained to their daily moves with sheep nets, and there are times (when all the lambs are big enough) that they free-range with the beef herd. They go in and out of the single strand of hot wire that contains the cows, but the sheep stay close to the herd for safety in numbers. The effect is a more even mow where plant species that the cows desire less get eaten by the sheep, leaving no particular plants with an advantage to outcompete the rest of the forages.
When they are mobbing through the pasture solo they prefer shorter greens or the top halves of taller greens. Depending on the year we can graze them all year ‘round, only feeding hay when we hayshed them in the nastiest of weather or when there’s a bunch of snow on the ground. Our only imports for them are salt, mineral salt, and some milk replacer when we have to adopt a bottle baby.
Katahdins are known for their exceptional flavor which is mild and not gamey. Their tenderness and marbling are great, and their fat is mild and delicious as well. We typically lamb in early spring to have harvests late fall to early winter. Lamb is available by the half or whole, and at times we have cuts on hand as well.
FRESH THANKSGIVING TURKEYS
Once they come out of the brooder our turkeys go straight to the pasture. They have a big rolling shelter and are kept safe from predators with electronets and solar-charged predator eyes (young turkey heads seem to be an owl delicacy). We move them daily to new paddocks to keep them on top of fresh greens and out of their own excrement.
Turkeys love to forage. They don’t like just grain; turkeys also want a steady supply of fresh greens, worms and bugs. And they eat a lot of rocks! The amount of pea-sized rocks (grit) a flock will consume in a few months is incredible. They benefit the fields with a large amount of goodies dropped in their paddocks, and are another piece in our regenerative puzzle.
It is evident that they enjoy pasture life when they flap and run around, and the steady supply of fresh forage is what keeps them so juicy (not to mention healthy) on the table. We harvest them just before Thanksgiving so you can enjoy them fresh. How will you cook yours this Thanksgiving: smoked, deep fried, baked, roasted, spatchcocked, or parted out?
THE CHICKENS
We raise Cornish cross chickens for meat during the warmer months of the growing season. They spend about 3 weeks in the brooder on deep bedding and then are moved to pasture where they are moved daily until they are harvested at about 8 weeks old. They get plenty of excellent forage in the field and we bring them organic grain as well. Averaging 4-6 pounds on the table, they are juicy and flavorful—definitely as good as chicken can get!