our NO BARN pledge

No Barn is our pledge that our animals are 100 % Grass Fed, Pasture Raised, and Pasture Finished. Our animals will not be confined to a barn, shed, or feed lot.  They are out in the pasture on grass. Our animals are born, raised, and finished on live growing forage and grasses.

Whole Life on the Same Farm

In addition to our commitment that our animals eat the way nature intended, we would like them to live a life as nature intended, therefore limiting the transport of animals.  It is common in today’s conventional beef production model for animals to be loaded on trailers and transported for hours for multiple stages of their lives. Each transportation event stresses the animals by removing them from their natural environment and home. Stress opens animals to sickness.  Our goal is to keep our animals in their natural environment their whole lives. This is why we choose a birth to harvest production model. Animals are born and raised on our farm under our management and not subjected to the stressful transportation of the different stages of the conventional beef production cycle. Our Animals make one trip with other members of their herd for processing, which is located about an hour from the farm.

Pasture Raised & Pasture Finished

Research has found that beef finished on live growing, bio-diverse or multi species forage is more nutrient dense or more nutritious than beef finished on harvested monocultures or single species such as haylage and other forms of silage.  Grass-fed does not necessarily mean the animals were finished on live growing forage.

Not all Grass Fed beef is Pasture Finished. Not all Pasture Finished is Grass Fed.  Baled hay, haylage, sorghum, corn, barley, wheat, rye, and oats, (depending on the stage of maturity) are all forms of grass, therefore animals fed or finished on these types of forage could be considered “grass fed”. Many grassfed beef production protocols allow animals to be supplemented with stored grass and a percentage of grain throughout the finishing stage. Animals that are confined and fed hay or silage for finishing can also be considered “grass fed”. It all depends on the approved practices of the operation.

Seasonal Production

We believe the natural way is the best way. Our “Pasture Finished” protocol requires the animals to fatten on pasture eating live growing forage during the growing season. These forages are grown without the use of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, (which are commonly used in conventional grass-fed forage production  whether it be live growing or stored hay or silage.

Finishing on live growing grasses and forage limits our farm’s finishing process to specific times in a year, it’s best for the animals, the environment and produces a more nutrient dense product for you. It is common in the conventional grass-fed system for animals to be fed harvested grass and forage during the finishing stage in order to market non-seasonal finished animals year-round.

 

Natural Systems Lead to Resiliency

Our production model keeps us in sync with nature and helps create a viable and local food system production model. Eliminating the multiple production stages keeps the product local by removing it from the fragile, large scale, centralized just in time production model.

Keeping animals in sync with nature and limiting stressful events improves animal health and reduces or eliminates the need for medications and treatments that are otherwise required to keep animals surviving in a conventional production system.

Our animals graze on live growing bio-diverse forage during the growing season. Our Regenerative practices and animal and land management enable us to produce beef WITHOUT the use of chemicals such as herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, and insecticides. This ensures that our animals, land, and environment remain clean and healthy, providing you with a high-quality product.

While modern society may limit the freedom of animals, we strive to create an environment where they can thrive and eat as nature intended. By respecting nature’s intensions for the life of our animals, they in turn care for us.