Beef

We raise wholesome grass-fed Angus beef.  No additional hormones and no antibiotics. 

Our goal is to have a happy herd who will have beautiful healthy calves.  Our beef herd has lived on our farm their entire life.  As their caretakers we are responsible for their every need.   We provide great nutritious grasses and keep their stress to a minimum.

We know exactly what the animals eat.  We have 17 permanent pastures, which contain a mixture of grasses, such as orchard grass, timothy, fescue, alfalfa clover, rye grass and other native grasses.  This combination of grasses has allowed us to effectively utilize a rotational grazing system.  The herd is moved through a series of paddocks.  They are allowed to stay in a pasture until they eat the grass to a height of 3-6 inches.  Then they are moved to another paddock.  We also have annual pastures that are seeded every year with different kinds of forages.  We have tried radishes, turnips, sorgham sudan and other annual grazing plants.

At the beginning of winter, they are moved to an area we call the sacrifice paddock.  We sacrifice the grass in this area so that the grazing fields are not reduced to mud during the winter.  This paddock is where they stay all winter.  The paddock will end up being nothing but dirt by the time spring comes and contains shelter and water for them during the cold winter months.   We provide balage as feed for them during the time they are in the sacrifice paddock.  The balage is made during the summer from our hay fields.  The balage can contain many different grasses.  The grass is baled while it has moisture and formed into round bales.  These bales are then wrapped in white plastic and allowed to ferment.


We have most of our cows calving in the spring.  The calves stay with their moms until fall.  The calves are weaned from their cow by moving the cows to one paddock and the calves to a paddock along side.  It is less stressful to both cow and calf if they can see each other.

We select the calves that we want to add to our beef group from this weaned group.  They are then added to our finishing herd after the weaning is complete.  Any that we do not keep we sell as feeders to other farms.


Over the years, we have selected our bulls to be gentle and calm, creating the friendly and gentle herd we have now.   In the last 10 years, we have had a Black Angus bull, a Red Angus bull, another Black Angus bull and the newest is also Black Angus.  We have been working on improving our herd genetics.

 

 

 

 

Mr 33  taking time out to sunbathe