Welcome to the Grazing Grass Podcast Episode 108
let me just tell you, you're never done learning. We aren't done learning.
You're listening to the Grazing Grass Podcast, sharing information and stories of grass based livestock production utilizing regenerative practices. I'm your host, Cal Hardage.
You're growing more than grass. You're growing a healthier ecosystem to help your cattle thrive in their environment. You're growing your livelihood by increasing your carrying capacity and reducing your operating costs. You're growing stronger communities and a legacy to last generations. The grazing management decisions you make today. impact everything from the soil beneath your feet to the community all around you.
That's why the Noble Research Institute created their Essentials of Regenerative Grazing course to teach ranchers like you easy to follow techniques to quickly assess your forage production and infrastructure capacity. In order to begin grazing more efficiently. Together, they can help you grow not only a healthier operation, but a legacy that lasts. Learn more on their website at noble. org slash grazing. It's n o b l e dot org forward slash grazing.
On today's episode we have Elizabeth Stuart of Crossing Creeks Farm. We talk about her journey, her family's journey, into what they're doing now with beef as well as other species. I think it's a really interesting episode I've talked before about gateway animals. Well, beef cattle were her gateway animals. An interesting journey as to why they got started in it, and then how they're proceeding, and some things they're doing to diversify. their farm. Really good listen today.
Before we talk to Elizabeth, on the podcast next week, we have Charles Rola from the Noble Research Institute to share about his journey and things that the Noble Research Institute are, are doing. It's a great episode coming up. Uh, 10 seconds about my farm. Actually, we're going to talk about the podcast a little bit more today. I feel like lately all I've done is talk Let's talk about the podcast, but we are growing and we're trying some new things so it's taking a little bit more time.
Um, I will talk about the farm for just a moment. We are dry. We are needing rain and I hate to say that because every farmer does, but I know every time it rains or we have a forecast and um, we miss it. Grandpa always says we can't afford to miss rain. He has something else he says about rain and um, what we need each week on the land here, but. I won't say it on the podcast. Back to the podcast.
You'll notice towards the end, I mentioned we have a bonus segment today for today's episode, and that'll be available over for Grazing Grass Insiders. And if you're interested in that, you can get there by going to the website and clicking on Support and Grazing Grass Insiders. Also, if you're part of the Grazing Grass community, I'll post a link in there for it as well. Enough about the podcast, my farm. Let's talk to Elizabeth.
elizabeth, we want to welcome you to the Grazing Grass podcast. I'm excited you're here today.
Thank you so much for having us. We're excited to be here.
To get started, Elizabeth, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your operation?
Sure. So we are a multi generational farm, although we're not a We don't have a long heritage. We're new, still. We have about 150 acres that we farm together as a family. My parents, so it's my parents, and my husband and I, and our two sons that actually started the farm We technically started about 15 years ago before we actually owned our property. We've owned our farm just over a decade now, about 11 years and with a passion to actually feed ourselves.
We were on a health journey for ourselves and feeling like we needed to better feed ourselves with better quality meat. And so that led us into farming. Just, oh, we'll just do it ourselves.
Oh,
That's not always the right thing to think or say, but that's where we went with. And it's been quite the journey ever since.
Now, to get into that passion to feed your old selves, did you all go through a health scare, or how did you come to that conclusion that you needed to
It actually was my parents. They were, I'd say at the time, goodness, they were probably in their mid fifties and were beginning to just look around and ask the question, Why were, why was everyone in their age range, aging prescriptions and just dug into that and weren't necessarily against prescriptions. Just for like why am I feeling so bad? That actually went. Vegetarian first, because that was what was told was healthy.
So they went vegetarian and within a year for them felt sicker, felt worse and was like, okay, clearly we need meat. What's wrong with meat? And really discovered that it was the quality of meat and in that. Was led somewhere to grass fed beef
Oh,
and so at the time for this area people weren't shipping meats then a whole lot We didn't know of anyone in the area doing it The way that we were wanting it to be done And so my husband and I had just recently gotten married and my parents approached us with this hey we I was like, I'm not sure if you really want to go get land and are wondering if you're interested in basically being the labor And
Oh, yes. Yes.
to sum that up really quick, how that conversation went and I had just graduated. I actually have a degree in agricultural business. Which did not necessarily prepare me for what I'm doing. But it did give me some experience. And so I had grown up in ag, but had never owned our own land. I had more experience with horses and things like that. But, and so did my husband. So we both were out of the horse industry.
And so anyways, it really just came from, it actually came from beef and needing a source of really good beef for ourselves and couldn't find it at the time locally, the way that we were wanting it, and so we decided to do it ourselves, that's where it came from.
Yep, which is a great way when I talk to so many people in the grass fed movement, and, or regenative movement, and we talk about what led them here, So often that health, being healthy is the reason, whether it's a health scare or questioning what they're doing, so they, for whatever reasons, that's how they get into it, which is a very interesting path, I think. Oh
And it just rolled into, and then Once we were actually creating a decent product, family and friends figured it out and then they wanted in and then it was like, Oh, we really had originally, we really didn't have a tent to sell on the scale that we're, we are selling. And then once it was beef, it was now we want a better source of pork because gosh, we really like bacon. And. And then we wanted a better source of chicken and turkey and eggs. And so that's how it rolled.
So a lot of times when we think about people that get into this farming movement, I like to joke rabbits are a gateway animal. Sometimes it's another animal, but Ural's gateway animal was actually grass fed beef. Yes.
or the rabbit, start with the garden if you really want to. We don't recommend that you start with the biggest undertaking that you could possibly do. The infrastructure is in so much higher and in need and I think only because my husband and I are out of the horse industry, so We're more accustomed to large animals. We're actually more comfortable with the larger animals. That's more of our, that's more of our niche. We, that's what we like.
Our sons actually we actually consider them the poultry farmers, since they've grown up with chickens and turkeys, and they raise most of our poultry. They have more of a natural So for them, they do large animal too, but my husband and I truly just the large animals.
Oh, yes. So let's jump back to when you all got the land and got started. Because it sounds like you got the land with the plan of doing grass fed beef.
Yeah, we did.
What did you all do to get that set up and get going?
Yeah, so we actually, my, my dad bought our, original South Poles, as we do registered South Poles After doing a lot of research and just finding something that was going to be the most efficient on grass, we felt and be heat tolerant for where we are in middle Tennessee, we felt that was the best breed to move forward with. And so he actually bought them before we even had our own land. So we leased land from a family friend that's actually like an hour and a half away from where we landed.
But leased from him for several years. So we got started before we actually had our own property. But when we did buy the property, there was miles and miles of barbed wire fence that had to come down and there was no existing homes here. There was an, Old shed that had to come down as it wasn't safe. There was a barn that we, the lean twos were caving in.
And so there was a lot of infrastructure that there wasn't a lot of infrastructure here, but what was here had to be taken down or remodeled to suit us for a time. And then we needed to build a house at least for my husband and I, because we were, We needed to be on property to really fully put in the infrastructure that was needed and bring the cattle here and know that they were being safe and watched after and moved every single day. Yes, lots of work on the ground, literally, to do it.
Before we talk about that infrastructure and how you went with that, When you all purchased the farm, did you all have a farm name at that time, or were you still early enough you didn't have a farm name?
We didn't, we thought we had something that we might have wanted to, but once we got on the land and really realized, it didn't even have a driveway. We had to enter through our neighbor's property. They were. Lovely and kind enough. And we actually bought the land from their daughter and a long story. And last year we were actually able to purchase the, that 30 acres that our neighbor had owned. She passed and she wanted it. She wanted us to have it.
Cause she was very passionate about farming and her children, her grandchildren were very Gracious, just anyways we had to go in through our fields through her driveway, through her fields, because there's a, there's several, there's two creeks on the property and you couldn't get, you physically could not get up to the property when the water was up.
Oh, yes.
So the farm name came after we built the driveway and you literally have to cross the two creeks before they merge into one on our property. And we just felt like that was fitting to honor those creeks because they're so important to the area.
I always think a history or why someone chose a farm name is always an interesting journey. And I'd read some of that on Ural's blog, so I thought that's a great, or website, that's a great story how you came up with the name of your farm.
Yes, thank you.
Now when you got there you, you basically purchased vacant land because you had, you purchased land but then you had to tear down or modify everything that was there. So basically you're building from the ground up. So when you started that journey, how did you all decide you were going to do fencing, doing watering?
Yeah,
the plan?
think because we had been leasing from a family friend, and even though we didn't fully redo his land, we did help him in the process of having our cattle there and wanting to do intensive rotational grazing. even on his land which his is an existing generational a little more conventional cattle work and but he wanted to learn, he wanted to learn how to do the regenerative intensive grazing.
So we even though we weren't there every day, he was helping us with the day to day, because it was such a long drive. We had an idea already of the few years from there of what fencing we wanted to use how we wanted watering set up. So there's, I've lost count. I've lost count, but there's over 7, 000 feet of water line on the property under the ground. So we have quite the watering infrastructure. We have several wells on the property, one well in particular goes to all the livestock.
And so we have water hookups in all of our paddocks so that we can move them, quick disconnect. It's like a manhole in the pasture, go to the next one, quick disconnect. And so that really does help us be more efficient. And then our fencing is electrified, but we wanted it electrified from top to bottom for predator control and everything like that. And so it is, it's, we have perimeter fences set up that way.
But then everything can be put into slices as my husband needs it to be so he can go, Oh, look, we have, we're in deep, thick spring grass and they don't need as much, each day. But if we're running into something that's a drier part of the season, he can give them more space. So we have the ability to.
Still customize each area, each daily rotation area, but we really did focus on a great perimeter fence and efficient watering system because we knew that would eat up our time and also really probably at some point require us to hire an additional hand and that wasn't something that we were We thought we could afford to do and we still don't do.
And we were able to work with our local soil conservation group because we, because of the creeks, actually, we're on this water, we're in this watershed. And they had a project going that was trying to get farmers to not allow the cattle into the creeks to help with erosion and protect the creeks. And so we got together with them and they said, Hey, we'll help you in laying this out and helping you fund.
Some of this and so that we can get this set up correctly because these creeks are so valuable and important to us. So it was a neat program and we got to learn a lot through them and vice versa. I think on Doing intensive rotational grazing. Yeah.
Very good. So you all were able to work with the conservation district and lay out and plan your water lines. So was it through a equip program such that they did some cost sharing with you?
They did. Yes, they did help us on the cost share with that program. It's doesn't seem to be in existence anymore. But because we've reached out to them or have just been a conversation with them, but yeah, it was a. It was a great, it worked out great for us and it definitely helped for a big starting farm and when
oh yeah.
are, I don't know, monies I think may be always a little slim for farmers, but it's so much infrastructure required to do it and to do it efficiently and do it well. We have put a lot of, we understood that efficiency in our day to day work was going to be worth any upfront cost because in the beginning, both my father and my husband were still working off the farm about an hour from us in Nashville in commercial
Oh
So we were trying to start a farm, get our feet wet, understand exactly what we were doing set the whole thing up. And they were both still off farm 40 hours a week working. And so we had a big priority and efficiency in our day to day handling of the animals and, just the little things of okay I have to carry, three, five gallon buckets of water to refill the chicken coop every day. There's time in that. And for us, anything to help cut that time down was important.
Yeah, if you have the opportunity to front load some of those things so that you can be more efficient in the future, it's really important thing to do.
Yeah. It's important.
Yeah. I think for us on the farm we get busy and we're like, oh, we got to rush and do this. And this is a conversation dad and I have quite often. Dad's more let's just get it where it'll work and we'll go with it. I'm like, let's just do it right so we don't have to come back to it.
We tend to all be type A's around here. And so
oh
we like it all done. And sometimes that hurts us a little bit. Cause it's can we just, Hey, this is good enough. Let's just go. But it definitely. Was worth the weight and the investment. Yeah. I think at the time it felt like everything was going slow or not happening quick enough, but to do it all right on the upfront, I think has really helped us now that both of my husband and my dad were able to leave their off farm jobs. My dad retired, but my husband was able to leave and farm full time.
That is, that efficiency is what allows us to diversify ourselves into other businesses, other incomes on the farm. That's really what the value of that is for us.
Oh yes, yeah. Before we move on to some of your other enterprises, you talked about your perimeter fence and you have it all electrified. So do you go with high tensile? How many strands?
There's a, there's some woven wire and there is high tensile.
yeah.
where we have added on paddocks down the road if we decided to turn, different little places into some lots as we've grown and continue to need more grass. Yeah, we've done a little bit of both with it, but mainly The high tensile.
yes. Now you had cattle and you brought in your south post that you'd already started on that journey, but at some point you expanded into other species. Talk about that decision to, to start stacking enterprises.
Yeah as we did begin to sell beef, it was apparent that our customers were happy with the quality. They really loved it. I love the flavor of it. And they wanted more and as we looked at, okay, I think there's a point in every kind of farm journey where you decide, okay, am I just a homestead that sells a little bit off the farm? And I feed myself or am I a farm and this is a business and I'm moving forward that way. I can almost remember that moment for us of that decision.
Because it wasn't what we initially went into it for. I think at that point, we were so far in deep money wise. It was like, yeah, we might as well just. Let's just keep at this thing. And so when we really stepped forward and with confidence, and yes, we are farmers and yes, we are going to produce and feed our community. It was a how else can we feed them? What is going to benefit them? What do we need? Again, we were looking for what meats we wanted to consume.
Oh yeah.
And so it made more sense to be a place where they didn't have to go here to go get beef and here to go get pork and here to go get chicken and here to go get their Thanksgiving turkeys. They could come in one place. And that's ultimately what helped us to make the decision to, to build our store on the farm. So yeah,
So you looked at meats they were wanting, that you all liked to enjoy, and one of those choices was pork.
yes.
So was pork your second species you added to the farm, or did you all look at that and say, oh, we're doing pork, we're doing poultry, we're doing turkeys all at one time.
No we actually had a few laying hens for a while, just for ourselves. And I think that really what was like, okay we have some experience with poultry now. Let's build on that. We actually did meat birds, went into meat birds before we went into pork. We had a really high demand for chicken. We were wanting chicken there at the time. Again, there was no one locally doing pasture raised chicken. We weren't eating it from the store anymore. And we're like it'd be nice to have it in our diet again.
And so we went in that direction first before we added pork pigs. And did meat, we'd already had laying hens. We expand our laying hens and then went into meat birds and did a few turkeys as well, one year, played around with that and pork was actually the last thing to add. And the reason was because we were committed for what we were wanting and what our customers were wanting. We were committed to feeding organic feed.
Without sowing corn that was our niche and that's what we were doing and we just thought oh my gosh You cannot feed a pig
Oh
At that price like you can't and we're gonna have to charge a lot for this fork And we had again, they were asking us, please do this business and I said, okay, fine We will do it, but you have to understand that it's not it's going to be An expensive pork. I think we did I, we did a small number. We did a small batch of three or four pigs, probably four years ago. And all of the meat sold within three or four weeks. It was just. It was just. gone. It was just gone.
And they tried it and they loved it and they raved about it. And we're like, Oh my gosh, when are you going to have more? So we were like, okay we'll give this a try. Our concern was our pastures because our pastures were really designated to our cattle. And so pigs can be hard on the pasture. We don't have enough extra land or wooded space that is, we have some wooded space, but it's wraps.
In the creeks, and so it'll flood and it's not usually predictable of when it'll flood and so it'd be really hard for us to keep electric fences down there and everything that like they're going to have to go into our pasture rotation. It took a little while for us to figure out how we can do it and rotate them enough. That they aren't tearing up the pastures.
We haven't been perfect at it and we do have some spots where previous pigs have gone a little too far, a little too deep, because if we're running cattle in there to have these big divots and chants, a hoof, a broken leg on a cow, we just weren't sure if that was going to work and, be worth it. And it was, and we did it and we doing it. We move them, they get moved every two days. So not every single day, but every two days and they're really easy.
People are always like, Oh my gosh, that's gotta be so much work to move your pigs every two days. And we're like, they're really smart. They're easy to train. They get it. They like the fresh grass, they will eat it. And they'll go after it and they're excited to move to a fresh piece of land and just like the cows are.
And so yeah, we, All right, we have increased our number since but pigs were the last thing to, to add one because of the price to feed them at organic, no soy, no corn and to consideration of our pastures concern of the quality of our holding the quality of our pastures, but they were actually the last thing to, to
When, so you're grazing the same pastures, pigs may be on them now, and then when the next rotation, it may be cattle coming through. They're sharing land base.
They are. Yeah, I would say that of our 150 that we have, we really have about. 70 to 80 that are designated into our intense rotational grazing system. It sounds oh, you have 150. That's great. But I, it really is probably just over half or more that that really is designated to them. But yeah, they're all the meat birds, chicken, laying hens, turkeys, pigs, cows. They're all on the same Rotation of lots,
Oh
but they may be several days away from each other or behind, just depending on what each is needing and in the season,
Oh yes. With your pigs, are you bringing in feeders, or are you all farrowing sows as well?
we are currently just bringing in feeders. We did have breeding stock here for a while. But there again, what we found was, is that we just did not have a place to designate to them and they are really hard breeders are really hard on the
Oh yeah.
and they want to make, big holes and wallows. And they really want to, they don't love moving as frequently. Especially if you're getting near farrowing and, she wants to make a nest and she wants to bed
Oh yes.
And so we just felt like until we have access to more land, we needed to let that part of it go. And. We are blessed in that we are able to find piglets feeders from people who are, doing a pasture raised and without soy and all those sorts of things. And so currently we're just bringing in, the feeders
As you look at the pig enterprise, is it seasonal in that you get A few feeders in this year, May or whenever, and you keep them till they're old enough to be processed, and then you're waiting until next year to do another set.
for us. No. So poultry is definitely seasonal for us. Pork. No, we're able to do pork year round, which is what is actually very valuable to us especially with our store in that we, we can get them finished out in about five to six months. And we can bring two groups in typically what we do is two groups a year. So once one has gone to butcher, we usually have another. Feeder group lined up to come in and finish them out. So we always have pigs here year round now.
Oh, yeah.
But that also helps us because a lot of times we'll line up a group to be finished in that January, February mark, which helps us restock something in our store when we don't have anything because, or. We usually have some, a good bit of stock in the store then, but we don't have poultry restocking then because we don't do meat birds and turkeys in the winter
Yeah.
for all those reasons. So yeah, it is actually a year round for us with pork.
Now with your store, are you having all your beef and pork marketed through your store, or are you selling halves and wholes
Currently everything, yeah, currently everything is sold directly through our store. We don't do halfs or wholes. We don't actually have enough inventory to even offer that. And what we tell people is it wouldn't really save you money. We need to make the same amount. It took us the two years to get that beef to finish. It would, it's the same thing, but currently everything is sold Get sold through the store and we're very blessed.
We have an amazing customer base and you're so loyal and good to us and kind to us and very supportive of us. And we sell out pretty quickly when we restock things we try to keep some inventory enough inventory, try to produce as much as we can in the season that it'll roll over into the winter for our store. So that the reason we started that and we didn't go with the halves and the holes and. The quarters was that we wanted to be able to feed everyone.
That was our passion was not everyone had access to a deep freeze. So people live in apartments or condominiums or whatever. And we wanted to be able to serve everyone. We'd like to get to the point where we can produce more and can offer those halves and quarters to those that do have a deep freeze and want to stock up. But currently we're. maxed out on our land.
Oh, yes. I want to dive more into that direct to consumer or to your store and the way you're storing the meat and stuff. But before we get there, I'd like to just touch real quick on your poultry. So you're doing meat chickens, do you have a preferred pen you're using? Are they contained? Do you have livestock, guardian dogs? Those are some of the questions I'm thinking about the pasture poultry and how's that work for you?
yeah, it is Ashford poultry is again, not my husband and I's favorite thing. Cause they do require more. They require more infrastructure. They're not as hardy. They're a little more finicky. They're more susceptible to predators. There's really more involved with them. They actually need a more complex feed. We do our own custom rations and work with a local female to create those. And so they need more input.
Even though the pig may eat more, The pig doesn't need as much nutritional balance as the chicken actually does. And so the chicken feed actually costs us more than the pig feed. And so yeah, there's a lot of things that, a lot of more variables in, in pasture poultry. There was a year where we thought, this is it. We're not doing this again. We are not doing any more meat birds.
And what we found was when we were doing Cornish cross which is just this kind of the go to breed and for us, we hated raising them. We did not enjoy it. They are nasty. They're just, they don't seem natural at all. And so right before we were like, okay, this is it. This may be our last season. Our boys didn't enjoy it. It was miserable for the whole family. On a whim, we thought, okay, let's try one more breed option. And let's go from there.
And so we switched to what our hatchery calls Rainbow Rangers, which is just Cornish Cross and Freedom Rangers together. And so we knew we couldn't do a straight heritage. We'd played around with some heritage in the past, and we knew that the grow out time was just too long. And the average consumer, they're looking for the white meat. That's just part of it. That's what they know. It's what's familiar to them.
They're already making a jump from moving from the grocery store to buying directly with a farm. And so to make it look completely weird and completely different, it just wasn't, we knew that marketing wise, that wasn't going to work. We tried this breed of mix of Cornish Cross and Freedom Ranger, and they were great. We love them. We haven't gone back since. We enjoy them more. Are they? Act like a Langham, they have brains power to them.
They take a couple more weeks to grow out, but for us, that was a win. That was okay. We were willing to take that exchange for having something that we actually enjoyed as a family. So we use the mobile. The mobile chicken house coops is who we use for our meat bird and our laying hen coops. Now we were able to upgrade those a few years ago. And that has been life changing. It is a huge, it is a huge investment on the upfront. They are not cheap, but they last forever.
And your efficiency goes through the roof. And that was another issue for us with the meat birds was they were requiring so much of our time every day that we were like, this is miserable. We just cannot keep them. You had to check on them three or four times a day to refill waters and feeders, especially in the dead of summer. And, it, there's more loss on that end. It's pretty rare to lose a pig or even a cow, but it's nothing to go out there and, 20 Cornish Cross decided to drown themselves.
In their own water, it was a very much a, oh my gosh. It was definitely the number one thing. We were our was requested from our customer base and it was the number one thing we hated growing the most. And so we just got to the point of we are either never doing this again, or we have to fix the breed and we have to fix our efficiency. And thankfully that's what ended up working out for us. But we still have a limit as to what we can.
And with our time, with my time and my husband's time and our boy's time, we know how many we can raise every year and that's just the current limit. It's not enough. We sell out our customer base once more, but we've just said this is all we can do.
Oh, yeah
right now, but yeah infrastructure with them is huge. And then I think you asked about predators.
Yes,
we actually never had livestock guardian dogs ever. Until this January last year we had an amazing, horrible. Influx of skunks
oh, yes.
nothing that we've ever experienced before on the farm. And we figured out that's due to development near us. We've had So much development happening around us in the last year or two that they've lost a place to go and they found us and we have this Free buffet,
oh,
yeah yeah, all you can eat chicken, skunks are the worst because they aren't really scavengers when they find a food source, they will stick to the food source until they've depleted it. And We had to start taking them out because it was such a problem. And we still couldn't keep up with them. They are multiplying quicker than we could. Eliminate them. So we just got two Livestock Guardian dogs this year. They're still babies. They're about eight months old, but they're huge. They're massive.
Oh,
but they're doing their job. They got their first skunk a couple months ago. They just didn't fully get the memo and they thought they should play with it while it's alive.
Oh,
They thought he came to play and didn't eliminate him, but yeah. So we currently have Livestock Guardian dogs.
Oh, yeah, and it takes them a little while to figure out their job and to grow into it Yeah, so so that would be a great asset as you move forward One thing with the Rainbow Rangers that you're using. Did you notice a taste difference between Rainbow Raid Rangers and the Cornish cross?
Yes, it improved greatly. We actually found improvement and our customers noticed the improvement of it. They forage more and they forage more than the Cornish Cross will. The Cornish Cross aren't really bred for that. And so adding in that heritage to it, they actually understood foraging. And so we have way more yellow content on, we get that nice yellow fat content that you look for on your grass fed beef. We get that on the chicken now. And so the flavor.
So we didn't change feeds, we Same, same setup, still rotating. They, or they get moved in their coops two to three times a day to fresh grass. And so nothing else changed, but the breed and huge improvement flavor. Then the Cornish cross, at least for me. We thought, and that's what our customer says. They always, it's so funny when we get people in and they're like, it's not watery or spongy. And I'm like, Oh, chicken shouldn't be. That's not normal.
So yeah they love the flavor and the texture of it actually.
Wonderful. A few years ago, I've mentioned this in past episodes, but a few years ago, I tried one batch of pastured poultry, and I did corny scruffs. And we got them, I got them processed and the goal was we were going to try them before we even tried to marketing. We just grew a small set to see how they'd go, see if the wife liked them. And she's I don't like it. It doesn't, She didn't enjoy it, so we have not grown any more. But, I do think there's a market there in some ways.
I worry about the price point, but even if I just grew for myself, I would be happy doing that but not if my wife says no, I don't like this meat. So I'm encouraged by hearing that, so maybe I need to take another look at that. That may be something I try in the future.
Yeah, we have loved love that breed. In fact, we just get it mixed males and females. Um, and in 10 weeks we were able to get some that are well over five pounds, that five to seven pound mark. We typically keep whole ones in the three and a half to four and a half pound range, because that's what our customer base tends to like more. They're a little more intimidated by a five. Five and a half pound whole chicken. So those bigger birds are usually what goes to cut ups.
So we do offer a bonus skinless chicken breasts, thighs, wings, those sorts of things. We can't keep our, the chicken breast in stock. And they're expensive because they're expensive for us to produce. But yet people are tickled to get them and pay for them. And they just, they've made that a priority and they're In their budget, which we appreciate that that, that's where they've chosen to spend their money. But yeah, it's definitely eat birds, man. So love and hate relationship there.
Oh, yes. Now one thing you all made a commitment to from the get go was using organic feeds without soy and corn. Have you had any trouble sourcing that feed? Or any issues with that?
Originally we were having to bring it in from Virginia. That was the only person doing it was out that way. And so for a long time, we had to have it shipped in during the pandemic. Shipping got so outrageous that we were like, this is just not obtainable anymore. So we began to look at other options and we're able to find a feed mill, not too terribly far from us a couple of hours that delivered, but also did custom ration mixes. And so I knew what I wanted.
And so I worked with a nutritionist to develop exactly what we wanted and that's been huge for us. We are blessed that we do have some resources in the area for. Custom feed mills and to be able to get it organic and without soy or corn. The feed mill we're currently using is complete. It's a fully organic feed mill. They won't bring anything that's not organic in. So that's all they do. And then they'll do custom rations without the corn and the soy.
As long as you work with a nutritionist to get the ration correct. And so that's what we've done. And I've been very blessed to have. Any option at all, but I know for others in other parts of the country it's just not an option for them by any means. And I can. I can imagine that being difficult.
Oh, yes. And with that, is, are you finding that organic feed without corn or soy a big selling point to your consumers?
It is, it, first of all, it was what we personally were wanting just for our own health journey. And then our customer base has, most of them have educated themselves and they are either we have a lot of young families that are really educating themselves, and they are, they, I think they are tired of seeing people being sick, and so they've educated themselves, and so for them that's important.
Others, we have other people who have educated themselves because they are sick, or they've, or in remission, or they are, whatever it may be they're trying to heal their bodies, and so that's where It's important to them, but we've also served several people who have soy allergies or corn allergies and they cannot consume eggs, beef, chicken, pork, turkey. We've served several that It's been life changing for them or for their children.
We see a lot of children that have food allergies and a lot of times they think their child is allergic to eggs. And that's not the case for everyone, but for a lot of them, their child or themselves aren't actually allergic to the egg. They can have our eggs and then they find out it's really a soy or a corn allergy, and it is getting transmitted.
It is transferring into the egg and the meat and it's been really neat to hear their testimonies and just as they've walked through our store doors of how life changing it's been for them to be able to feed their family that,
very good. One other thing before we get to the overgrazing section. You're selling through your farm store, you're selling cuts. How do you, it's not really a how question. Maybe it is. I'm just curious about your freezer storage for your farm store. How much do you have and how that works for you? Is that something you grew into? I don't even know where I'm going with the question. I'm just rambling
I think I gotcha. Because it definitely is a challenge and no, we don't have enough freezer space. I don't think you can ever have enough freezer space. And it is a challenge. One of the things that helps us overcome that is our beef is we we have our beef butchered. We have, a couple going every month. So Instead of taking the whole lot for the year end, we take the whole lot for the year end. And then I have to store all of that. We're doing just a couple every month or whatever it is.
So it, a lot of times it's turning over, it's turning over pretty quickly. For the most part, we typically can sell out of what we have before we restock the next, or we're pretty, pretty windled down. So we have a huge, like five door glass freezer in our store, which is an amazing blessing.
We have currently, we wish we had gotten it sooner, but we have I think we've had it for about three or four years now, a freezer trailer that is very helpful for us getting to and from, getting stuff back from the butcher, but also we can use it as our overflow. And then there are just a ton of deep freezers all over the property.
Oh,
We would love a walk in freezer. But at the same time, we were just having this conversation earlier this year. We're not sure that the investment in it and then paying for the electric of it really makes sense.
Oh,
So thankfully, we're able to sell our inventory and keep it pretty rolled over where we get a little tight on our storage is at the end of the season. October, November, we're taking in the last batches of everything, the last. Poultry, the turkeys and actually beef because our beef butcher shuts down December, January, and February for deer season. And so we have to take a lot more in, in those months. And so we're usually a little over full and putting stuff in freezers wherever we can.
But for the most part, we've been able to just sell as we harvest Yeah, there's freezers everywhere.
Oh, yeah. Wonderful, Elizabeth. You all have a lot going on there and that kind of feeds into our overgrazing section. So it's time we move into our overgrazing sections where we take a deeper dive or a look at something about your operation. And today we're going to talk a little bit about diversity in your business. So I'll let you start that conversation.
Okay. Thank you. Yes, diversification in our business has been huge. Farming is expensive and farming is very challenging to actually make a profit that can fully sustain even. One family household. That is the reality of it for most of us, I think and so therefore we knew from the get go that we were going to need to diversify. You see this.
If you really, you see this with, Joel Salatin, Greg Judy they're making extra income through YouTube or writing books or speaking, all those things, right? That's not a bad thing. That's great. They found their thing to help add value to their family and to their business and to their farm to keep the farm going and be more profitable. So those are not an option for us to go out and not everybody can be a speaker or a book writer. You know that's pretty flooded area there.
We didn't really plan some of our businesses. They just happened but one that has been incredibly beneficial for us and actually helped us get our, my husband home full time was our RV sites. And so we have a handful of really premium RV sites. It also opens us up to agritourism, which we think is really important for our state. As well as for our farm and, but we wanted to show agritourism on a different level.
In this area, agritourism traditionally has really just been that pumpkin patch kind of thing that seasonal pumpkin patch, which are great. We, we love those. Those are amazing. But we really were passionate about. One, we built our farm store so that the consumer was actually coming to the farm. Love farmer's markets. That's a great resource for a lot of farms. But for us, we didn't want you to just take our word at the booth at the farmer's market.
We wanted you to actually have an opportunity to come out to the farm. Let your children see a chicken. Let your child see a cow poop. They think that's hilarious, but they've never seen an animal poop sometimes, it's just those sort of things. And once we opened our store, we it was nerve wracking to open our farm to the public, but at the same times, once we did it, it was really refreshing to see. The consumer have a chance to see the farm up close.
And so once we got that passion from our store, we began to have this passion for hosting and people actually spending the night here and again, it felt awkward at first but once we've gotten into it, it feels very natural and we love having people here. So they're coming from all over.
Some of them are staying with this extended time periods, like we do monthly for some people and then some of them are just nightly or here for a week or here for a. Family vacation or coming to the area for family or for an event or something like that. And it's different because they're actually getting to stay on a working farm. And so they're actually getting to see us run around and move cattle and, move the chickens and gather the eggs and all those things.
And so that was, it became very a passion for us that then actually turned into something that carried a profit. So it has. It's more passive income. It has much less overhead and less daily management. So it's something that we can add into the farm because the farm is so time consuming.
Oh, yeah.
So it's an income that actually works with the farm. And back then remote jobs were not working remotely were, was not. Nearly as popular as it is now. And if that's an option for people, we're like, Hey, keep that remote job as long as you can work at home from the farm, take your lunch break, go move the animals, come back and do that. Enjoy that flexibility and that extra income for as long as you can. Because you need it on the farm.
So the Arvin sites were really what launched us into hosting and lodging. And then we added on a campsite with some cabins that's open 3 season, and then we're currently in the next week or 2, finishing our first Airbnb house On the additional property that we've, Purchased. And so because we have a lot of people that want to stay with us year round, and maybe they don't own an RV. And so this will be a, an option for them as well for us to do. So it definitely adds value to a farming operation.
your guests are looking for where they want to go, do you find it being on a working farm is a major part of that attraction for them?
I think for some, it's also really interesting is that some have an idea or stigmatism of what a farm is in their head. And so They're thinking it's going to be smelly. It's going to be dirty. It's going to be stinky. And we're definitely not that. We take a lot of pride in keeping it clean and picked up and lovely and comfortable for them. And so it's nice to see that be broken off of people. It's this is what a should look like. It should be gross. It should be dirty. It should be stinky.
And Most of the time they don't even know because the way we. run our poultry that, there's anywhere from five to 600 meepers here to, chickens here at a time. And it doesn't smell, they're used to, to a chicken house smelling. And It's been really interesting to see that kind of. Break off.
But yeah, we have people that seek out and then those that there's even groups that seek us out to stay with us because we're regenerative and they want to learn more about that or they want to, they're interested in, they're interested in homesteading or they're interested in starting their own farm. And so they've come and stayed with us because of that interest. Okay.
Very good. I find that lodging on the farm very interesting. I think about it even here. They recently announced a theme park coming in, what, 30 miles from me? Which I think it could be a potential. I'm not sure everyone else in my family agrees with me, but I do think that's an interesting aspect. Maybe we need to explore more.
Yeah, it's a really deep concept. You have to enjoy hosting. You have to enjoy that. And we were nervous if we would or not, but the nice thing about a camp spot in the RV spots, or even an Airbnb house is that you can shut it down at any time you want. You can take a pause if you need to we don't, we go year round. But it is nice to know in the back of your head. I can, if I just hate this. I can stop this, I can stop.
So we usually advise people who are interested in adding that to their farm, especially the Arby's is to not make any investment in it. On the front end. So just start with we actually are part of Harvest Host which is a program that you don't actually make money. The guest doesn't pay you for their nightly stay. They get 1 night for free with their membership with Harvest Host. But they're supposed to come buy some of your farm products, but it's a great way without any overhead.
To start and you can, they're just boondocking. So they're not getting any hookups. So they can come in, they can come in without any hookups. You can park them in a level. Nicely mowed grass area or gravel area, and you can experience it and see if you like it before you decide to add in those hookups, the electric, the water, the sewer, if you're going to do gravel, or if you're going to do concrete or whatever, you can start and experience it before you make that decision.
investment into it and onto your property. So I usually advise people to, to start with that and make sure you like hosting on your property.
Elizabeth, I hadn't even heard of that. That is an excellent idea for someone looking at this thinking, Maybe, will it work here? Will it not? To tip their toes into the water and see how it goes before they spend any money
Yes. Always, save your money, save the money before you wait. Farming is too expensive. You're always got money to spend. So when you're adding anything value added, we highly recommend you dip your toes into it some way. Without putting any money into it. Just your time, just a little bit of your time and try it out, because if you don't like it, you've made an investment in something that you're just, it's not gonna be useful for you and pay itself back.
Wonderful advice there and really enjoyed that about your diversification of your business plan there. And for our Grazing Grass Insiders we will have bonus content. We're going to talk more about your on farm kitchen or commercial kitchen you have available for the bonus segment. But it's now time for us to move to our famous four questions. Same four questions we ask of all of our guests. Elizabeth, our first question is what is your favorite grazing grass related book or resource?
In the beginning, we read them all, I think, and I highly recommend, even if they're 20, 30 years old that you pull out all of the books. Of course we read through all of Joel Salatin's books, like everyone does. We do the Greg Judy videos. We've looked at his stuff. We did some in person, any in person workshops we could. And back then there weren't as many as there is now. And of course, YouTube is now available for everyone and everything. But we did read through.
Those I think one of my favorite that actually is not necessarily on grazing and it's very not really heard of, but Pat Colby was a genius in her day, I think, and it's hard to get her books, but she has a natural approach, healing, like health books for cattle and every animal you can think of, actually, she has a horse one, she has a farm one but so much of what she has in there, she's actually already passed away. But so much of what she has in there is. It's my go to actually.
If we have any kind of animal problem, we try to do things without prescriptions, without antibiotics, without medications. And so she's, that's my go to book. And usually it's quite interesting. You can find the problem and it's usually 90 percent of the time directly linked to a mineral deficiency. And so I really highly recommend her books for any farmer that's raising livestock.
Excellent suggestion there. I'm not familiar with it. I do think I've seen that title or variation of that title somewhere, but that brings me to another question before we go to our second Famous Four question. How are you managing feeding minerals to your cattle? Do you have a certain type you like to use or are you doing free choice? How are you doing your mineral
We try to keep it pretty simple. In fact. I, we've more and more through the years, we've actually leaned. Pat Colby has a salt lick recipe in her book. It's a basic, she calls it a basic lick. It is our go to now. And because I'm very just I like common sense. If it makes sense, let's just do it. And so I think sometimes we over complicate it. And one thing that we've always done from the get go that has not changed is offer kelp. We always offer kelp.
So we use just the mineral feeder, like the round ones with the big rubber lid on the top. My husband puts, he builds skids for them and hooks a chain to them. So they're fully movable in all of our, they go with the cows. Except for our cattle it's kelp and that is because that's an iodine source and actually legumes will pull iodine out of the body. And so a lot of times. Your problems will just be from, they need to be replenished with iodine. So we always have kelp access to them.
They always have that access. And then we use dolomite, which is a calcium magnesium combo from limestone. And that is going to ward off mastitis. So they have calcium, they have the proper calcium and magnesium balance. My status isn't an issue. And then actually copper sulfate. So it's not dangerous when it's copper sulfate. But it is dangerous when it's other types of copper.
So we use that and we use a sulfur dust and we just mix those here ourselves based on kind of the rations that she's, she gives in that, in one, in her cattle book but we've really had great success and balance with that and try to keep it simple. Try to not overdo. It can be easy to get wound into that. And of course they have access to a salt. We use Redmond's. We like Redmond's cattle salt. And they get some DE, some Dimateous Earth. And yeah that's pretty much it.
But yeah, we really like Pat's recommendation in her books.
Oh, very good. Very good. Our second question. What is your favorite tool for the farm?
So this is going to sound probably a little silly, but honest to goodness, I don't think goodness gracious, there's so many, it's really hard to pick. I suppose It really is. because you're like, Oh, we couldn't do this today without this or this. Obviously our reels are, your reels are always necessary to cut those big lots into smaller chunks for the animals.
Also. What's silly is our ATVs, like we have a couple of them and they are what we can Pull the mineral feeders up and because we're moving our waters up every day So water and mineral feeders, but also it's how we use our move all of those meat burr coupes as well. So And then we love those coupes too. So there's a lot There's
There
a lot. It's hard to pick one for sure. But yeah, they're all really Probably good.
I can see the value in everything you mentioned. I was recently on the Working Cows podcast. Of course, by the time this one comes out, that's going to be a month and a half ago. But, he asked me that. And I'm like I really hate to answer this because I'm like a real polywire. I really need those things, it's just interesting always. Elizabeth, our third question is, What would you tell someone just getting started?
I would say start small, but aim big.
I like that advice.
know that you can get big and you can diversify, but start small. It's hard to start with a little overhead as you can and upfront costs as you can, but try the best you can. But yeah, I would say start small, but aim big. You can do it, but you really have got to master. Your skills, you are learning those farming skills and you need to read every book and every YouTube and all the workshops that you can. And let me just tell you, you're never done learning. We aren't done learning.
We figure we're not done until the day we die. We will never be a master farmer. I don't think it exists because this thing is always changing and it's always throwing you a new challenge. So you gotta love challenges for sure. And be resilient. But start small, aim big.
Excellent advice there, and I love that. Start small, aim big. Very good. And lastly, Elizabeth. Where can others find out more about you?
Yeah, absolutely. So our website is a great place to learn the most about us. That's crossingcreeks. com. There's a lot of information there, website, but also the blog. And you can find our social media links there too. We are on Instagram and Facebook as well. And we do carry a small YouTube channel. We, we put videos there that are linked into our email newsletter for those that aren't on social media can still see.
Our different operations, what we're doing, what we're adding and our email newsletter is really the place to be. Everyone loves those. And those are a weekly email newsletter. You can sign up on our website.
Very good. We will make sure we put those links in our show notes. And Elizabeth we appreciate you coming on and sharing with us today.
Thank you so much for having us.
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