Goal

Our goal is to humanely raise genetically important animals that provide healthy, tender and good tasting beef. We believe that this can be achieved by emphasizing the resources of the ranch and minimizing outside inputs.

Concerns and Beliefs

We are concerned that many of the current chemically based solutions to agricultural problems may be creating future problems that are greater than those we are addressing in the present.

We believe that preserving the broadest possible range of genetic material in our domestic animals and plants provides the best insurance for future generations to have sufficient tools to adapt agriculture to new realities that are beyond our imagination.

We also believe that the current concentration of agricultural power in huge transnational corporations is not healthy for the consumers, farmers, ranchers and environment of our nation and many other nations around the globe.

PRACTICES

Herd History — Our pedigreed purebred beef comes from calves born to cows known to us, either here at the ranch or from cooperating Ancient White Park breeders whose practices are similar to if not identical to ours. We know the history of the animals that produce our beef from start to finish. All of our animals are individually identified at birth to allow us to track each animal throughout its life.

Feed — Cows and calves are grazed on pasture for as much of the year as possible. This includes native range, irrigated pasture, dormant hayfields and crop aftermath from our organic farming operations.During the winter when pasture is not available the herd is fed certified organic hay raised on the ranch and occasionally hay we buy from other certified organic farmers. We quit feeding grain to cattle several years ago and have no desire to grain feed our animals. We have determined that the cattle benefit from providing salt on some pastures so in some instances we provide them with Redmond salt from Utah that is approved for use in organic systems.  

Humane Treatment — We strive to provide a low stress environment for our animals by handling them carefully and skillfully. All of the ranch crew has been trained in low stress stockmanship and we practice it diligently daily. Our facilities are designed and maintained to be safe and efficient for the animals.

Land — Our crop and pasture lands at the Big Timber operation are managed organically and were first certified in 1993. No synthetic fertilizer has been applied since 1989 when herbicide use was discontinued. We manage our pastures with attention paid to the energy reserves of the plants so they can rejuvenate when rested.

Artificial Growth promotants and hormones — We use no hormones or other synthetics either through implants or feed additives to increase growth rates. We also do not administer hormones to synchronize estrus in our cows and heifers or improve breeding rates.

Antibiotics — We refuse to use subtherapeutic levels of antibiotics. Low-level (subtherepeutic) antibiotics are routinely administered in some commercial feedlots to enhance feed efficiency and reduce sickness rates. We prefer to keep our animals healthy with good feed, exercise and stress reduction. On the rare occasions that a sick animal can be helped by antibiotic treatment we provide that treatment believing it would be inhumane to withhold treatment to maintain a natural or organic certification. Antibiotic treatments are recorded and treated animals become ineligible for our beef program.

Insecticides — We occasionally use herbal based products to help control lice. All products that we use are OMRI approved for use in organic systems.

Processing — All of our beef animals are processed one at a time by family-owned small-scale local facilities. A USDA or Montana state inspector evaluates each animal individually. We are very pleased that none of the facilities that do our processing have irradiation capabilities.

Breeding — Our herd is managed to maintain maximum genetic diversity for the preservation of the breed and to emphasize the production of tender, tasty beef. While we have the capability to artificially inseminate our cows and have nearly 10,000 units of frozen semen in storage to preserve the breed, we prefer to select bulls for natural mating.

Culling — We have developed a system to record problems with animals in our herd such as infertility, unsoundness and disposition that allows us to remove unsuitable animals while making certain that genetically significant individual animals produce offspring that will maintain as broad a gene pool as possible for future generations.