Description

The B Bar Big Timber operation is located 15 miles north of Big Timber in Sweet Grass County in south central Montana. The land is in very open country with rolling hills and very few trees. We are higher in elevation than the city of Big Timber which can cause our winter low temperatures to be up to 10 degrees colder than Big Timber. The ranch is in the rain shadow of the Crazy Mountains which are about 10 miles west of the ranch. This rain shadow effect reduces precipitation on the ranch and also reduces the wind that blows down the Yellowstone Valley.

The ranch operates on about 7,000 acres that include nearly 1,000 irrigated acres. The water for irrigation comes from Sweet Grass Creek and is stored in two off stream reservoirs that were built in the early 1900’s by the Sweet Grass Canal & Reservoir Company. The reservoirs are filled during periods of high water and in all but the very driest years, irrigation water is abundant.

The irrigated land is used primarily to raise forage crops and pasture for the cattle. Our most common crop is a forage mix that includes several species of grass and legumes that can be grazed and hayed. Other crops are grown in rotation with the pasture mix and include alfalfa, peas, hay barley and other small grains. Rangelands, both native and improved, comprise the remainder of the ranch. Productivity varies widely from bare arid hillsides to lush sub-irrigated wetlands below the more than 15 miles of irrigation canals that cross the property.

In the late 1980’s we looked for a management direction that better fit the beliefs and values of the owners rather than conventional, chemically intensive agriculture. In 1990 organic management of the ranch was adopted. The ranch has been managed organically since that time and we were first certified by the Organic Crop Improvement Association in 1993. Organic certification was switched to the Montana Department of Agriculture Organic Program in 2005. That was the same year that we were able to begin marketing our grass fed and finished White Park Beef. It has been such a part of our operation for so many years that we sometimes forget to mention that we administer no hormones or antibiotics to any animals that we sell under our label and we do not use any synthetic fertilizers or herbicides on the ranch.

During the 1980’s and through the 1990’s our cattle operations looked a lot like most cattle operations in Montana. We ran predominantly Angus commercial cows and by leasing some other ranches for summer grazing we were able to run over 1,000 cows. During this time we started our conservation herd of White Park cattle with 15 cows and 1 bull. The conservation herd grew very slowly at first but then began to pick up steam. Late in 2003 we evaluated the operation and decided to sell the commercial Angus herd to focus our efforts on the White Park conservation herd. White Park cattle have been finished on grass for centuries in Britain and that was the model we chose to follow. We emphasized our grazing and hired a neighbor to put up some hay for us and discovered that we and the cattle enjoyed this old fashioned production model. By 2005 it was clear that this style of ranching was a good fit and in September we had an auction and sold nearly all of our fleet of tractors, semi trucks and trailers, pickups, and large farm equipment.

The ranch is staffed by two full time employees. We began training in low stress stockmanship with Bud Williams in the early 1990’s. While the low stress approach was begun for the benefit of the cattle, we have found that the benefits to people using this approach to cattle are enormous.

Our White Park cowherd is now approaching 400 head and because of our conservation breeding program we use many more bulls than regular commercial breeders. We breed the cows in late summer with multiple sire breeding groups and determine the paternity of the calves through DNA typing. We have been keeping all of our steer calves for the beef program and manage them separately from the cows to be certain that we have high quality steers ready to harvest all year. We gather the two to three year old steers and select 4 to 8 animals every other week for harvest at Big Timber Meats. We trailer the steers to town the night before harvest so they have a chance to settle down from their short 15 mile ride from the ranch. Our organic cattle are always the first to be processed at the plant in the morning.

We began marketing our White Park Beef under our own label in 2005 with natural product and transitioned to certified organic as rapidly as possible. We have found that selling fresh beef weekly all year around is far more challenging than loading feeder cattle on trucks in the fall. We recognized early on that relationships would help define our beef program and we got just plain lucky when we sat down one day with folks from Helena’s Real Food Market and Deli and Big Timber Meats. Over the course of a long lunch we reached agreement on delivery schedules, cutting instructions, and pricing. After lunch we shook hands and forged ahead. The model we created that day has worked ever since and has grown to include the Community Coop in Bozeman, the Third Street Market in Whitefish, the Good Earth Market in Billings, and 2J’s Fresh Market in Great Falls. In addition to these retailers, we also have a few institutional and restaurant customers as well as selling beef directly to consumers across Montana. While selling truck loads of cattle is a much simpler model, the satisfaction of getting to know many of the consumers who consume our beef in their homes makes all the effort worthwhile.