Although raising quality beef starts with good grass and clean water, it does involve good stock. We got our start by buying two heifers from what was an Oregon State University range herd. Those two were the first to come onto this land in many generations as it had been a sheep ranch before we bought it. It still is but just it raises both.
To get those first two bred, we leased a bull for enough months to get the job done and from then on, it was a matter of not keeping too many animals for the land.
Last year we were able to lease 50 adjoining acres and the cattle now range farther but it still requires supplemental feed in the winter. We do not raise our own hay and only did it the first year or two we were on this land. Now it's better to have someone else own the expensive equipment and buy the hay. They are fed big round bales which can only be loaded and fed out by tractors-- big tractors. By the end of August there are two barns full of them.
To be honest we are not in this for a big profit or really any profit. We are in it to share our land with cattle and sheep while we live an agrarian lifestyle. Since we reached retirement age, we also aim to not lose money on what we do. If you know many small ranchers you know that can be tough-- especially if you care about the quality of the life your animals lead.
When we keep a cow for breeding, when she has had calf after calf for us, year after year, we let her live out her life here rather than selling her to an auction where her years would have been rewarded by terror and death. If we get an animal old enough that it simply cannot live a good life, we give it a merciful death on the place. Sometimes we give the hamburger to others but sometimes we have concern it might not be healthy enough and we bury the loyal animal on the land where she was born. It's not profitable but it feels moral. And we have a choice as we are not a corporate farm. We are a family operation-- us and the herds.
For those who are familiar with cattle in large corporate operations, this isn't how ours live. Corporate farms, for convenience and economics, separate the animals into breeding ages and periods. They send to auctions animals that no longer are productive. It's how they have to do it to make money.
Our cattle live in an actual herd of diverse ages where they look out for each other, where they know and protect those in their herd. It's a family in a real sort. If one of them is shipped off, even for a year or two, and returns, the herd greets them. For the ones you see below who got out of the fence, when they were brought back, they had formed their own little herd but they were quickly melted back into the bigger herd-- maybe with a little chastisement. Cows can really chastise if you've ever lived near cattle. If a strange animal is brought in, the herd investigates and makes them prove themselves. It's how a herd is.
Our goal here is to provide a good life for our animals, treat them well but keep them where they belong, which can sometimes be a struggle (yes cattle do want to go over the hill), and then provide quality grass-fed beef for families in our area.
