Welcome to the Grazing Grass Podcast Episode 91.
build yourself the mindset to go and start tackling it because failure is the only way forward. Don't be afraid of failure, just embrace it
You're listening to the Grazing Grass Podcast, helping grass farmers learn from grass farmers, and every episode features a grass farmer and their operation. I'm your host, Cal Hardage. On today's show we have Jordan Meyer, and he comes from a conventional dairying background, and moving towards grass fed, Everything. Okay, maybe he doesn't have everything, but he's got lots of different species, uh, pigs, goats.
He's running grass fed dairy, so you'll want to catch the episode to find out what all he's doing. And especially how he is doing conventional dairying and doing some grass fed dairying. He has an interesting solution with out of the box thinking there. Very good episode, I think you'll enjoy it. First, let's do 10 seconds about my farm. And actually today we're going to talk about the podcast just a little.
First off, if you've not joined us at the Grazing Grass Community on Facebook, I encourage you to go there and join us. Just request to join and make sure you answer those questions. Secondly, if you're a grass farmer and you want to share about your story, go to grazinggrass. com and click on Be Our Guest and fill out the form. We're looking for grass farmers to share about their journey and their operation. Whether you have decades of experience or just getting started or somewhere in between.
We'd love to hear from you. If you go to grazinggrass. com and click on be our guest. Also, the Noble Research Institute has their spring courses open or courses open for the first part of the year. You want to go check those out and get signed up for that. Enough about the podcast. Let's talk to Jordan. Jordan, we want to welcome you to the Grazing Grass podcast. We're excited you're here today.
for having me on Cal. Appreciate it.
Jordan, to get started, tell us a little bit about yourself and your operation.
So I'm Jordan Meyer. I farm in Southeast Minnesota in Caledonia. I grew up on our family farm where we have a dairy farm and actually grew up with hogs as well, farrow to finish. I always had a passion for farming my whole entire life. I wasn't the kind of kid that wanted to be the fireman or the police officer. I wanted to be a farmer.
And, yeah, I got out of high school and continued working on the family dairy there and ended up buying my uncle's share out two years ago now, and we milk 160 cows on the family dairy. And then my wife and I started Wholesome Family Farms. Back in 2018, that's a whole journey in itself. I should jump back and back in 2015, just four years out of high school. Uh, my brother and I, we were able to get our hands on a farm and start renting it from an old bachelor.
And we decided to go the organic route and do some organic row crops and stuff. And got into soil health a lot, started listening to YouTube videos and seeing other people do cover crops and the whole nine yards and kind of was getting into organic no till a little bit. And, and then we started doing some cereal rye on some of the ground there on that farm and tried doing the no till organic soybeans and stuff. And the more we progressed down that path.
The more we started seeing perennials show up, like grasses, we had orchard grass and white clover and red clover and Timothy and the whole nine yards, it just all showed up. And I'm like, well, this isn't going to work for an organic no till situation. And this was right after we were really diving in deep with our grazing. And that's when we decided to make the turn and just let the land speak for itself. And we decided to turn the whole farm into grazing there.
And. Um, the farm is a 500 acre farm, 300 acres of it at that time was completely clear cut and logged. And we had the cropland doing this turning over into perennials all on its own. And we grazed some failed soybean stands that we had that was organic. The next year it just blew up into a perfect perennial system that with tons and tons of diversity and we were, we were set and running, running. It was pretty cool to see.
We have some awesome YouTube videos and stuff that shows that farm on our Wholesome Family Farms YouTube page. But yeah, it's been a really exciting journey.
Very good. Yeah, it does sound very exciting. Now you mentioned you clear cut that land. Did you seed that clear cut area in anything or did that come back from the seed bed?
That the clear cut area came back from the seed bed, but the clear cut area that's mostly multi floor rose and a bunch of other invasive woody species that just erupted after you took the canopy off. So that woods, it was never logged for I don't even know how many years my landlord's entire life and he's 85 years old. But, uh, once they took all the trees out, there was maybe a tree every 60, 70 to 100 yards.
And it's just bare and I've seen a huge opportunity to bring in a goat herd and that's where the goats took off from there and where we were able to utilize that resource there for that. So, I should also say what we have for our enterprises too, I suppose, huh?
Yeah, go ahead and share because there's quite a list.
uh, after diving into the whole soil health. bandwagon. We, we went for it all and we did, uh, grass fed beef, grass fed raw milk, pastured pork, pastured poultry, then we got the goats and, yeah, it's, it's been a, quite the journey. Between that and the dairy, it's, it keeps a guy pretty busy.
I, I grew up on dairy and dairied for a while, so I understand how busy that dairy keeps you. Now, we were a little bit smaller. I think at the most we may have milked 110, 120 head, but typically we stayed down in that 60 or 70 head range. And sometimes we got a little bit less than that just because of our land area and the way we were doing it here. How big is your barn you milk in?
So we have a 10 by 10 parallel parlor that we milk in, so that makes it kind of nice.
So 10 by 10. You all should be able to push about what 80 head through there in an hour. So milking takes you about 2 hours slightly
And then just a little bit of cleanup and works out pretty slick.
Yeah. Oh, very good. We had a, um, double 4 herringbone. Of course, when we got out, parallels were just coming in or that parabone a little bit later. Um, so we had a double 4 herringbone. which when we got very many numbers, we were spending all kinds of hours in the dairy barn. So, so that's really nice to have a big enough barn that you can spend a couple hours milking and get out of there, do some other stuff. And of course, then you got to
Yep, yep, for sure. Sometimes that return later is kind of a good thing. Then it's kind of the slow down space after the crazy rush of making it to all the different farms during the day.
I'm sure it would be. So when you got that, land you leased in 2015 and you tried to do some more organic, cropping, that's when you got beef cattle in?
So we started going down the soil health route and there was actually a soil health summit in North Dakota. And that's really what turned us on to really going down the rabbit hole of regenerative agriculture. There was a lot of awesome speakers there. Gabe Brown and, uh, who else was there? Christine Nichols and. Just lots of other really, really good speakers and it just lit a fire under us and we've never looked back since.
And that, that's one of the huge benefits about going to a conference, it just gets you energized and ready to go when you go home. And that's not even considering the networking that pays dividends on our, on down the road. So yeah, excellent. What did you choose to do with your beef cattle when you got them?
So right away we started out with cows that we bought in and we calved them out and we started doing the direct marketing with the grass fed beef and all of that. But then we ended up getting more acres when we went out of the organic row crop production. So then we decided to dabble with the stocker business where we buy them in, in the spring and then sell them in the fall. So that was pretty nice. We were able to, you know, fill in the gaps. We could stock the farm to the right capacity.
And then in the fall, we were able to sell them about September time. Then we had about a whole nother month of growing season left after they were gone. And then we'd have stockpile left over for our cow calf herd and we're able to graze well into the winter every single year and up in Minnesota where we're really nice to be able to do that.
Still have the cow calf, but then you're doing stockers
Well, that's a funny story too. We run, we've been really running numbers and looking at the cow calf enterprise, we actually let that go and we're focusing more on the stocker enterprise. Um, and we do a little bit of custom grazing as well.
So, yeah, we're still able to fill in the gaps and now, right the way we're doing it now, we have our big goat herd, so we graze all of our grass during the growing season, and then in the fall and winter now, we're actually still grazing our goats and should be able to graze well into January, actually, on the grass and then the wood edges and stuff with them too, so.
Oh, yes. Yeah. So you found the, the Stalker Enterprise was more profitable than the cow calf?
Yep. So when you run, you know, I guess like the ranching for profit way, you know, they segregate every enterprise out throughout the cow, enter cow, calf enterprise, you know, so when you look at the way that you have a cow, she's got her input costs throughout the year, so much in hay, so much in labor, you get that calf, and then you raise that all up to approximately weaning age. And then what you get for that calf, you know, by the time you deduct all of the income.
The expenses off of that, you know, you're really not making a whole lot compared to what you can on the stock or enterprise.
Now Before you purchased your first stockers, did you all, did you have a history of doing stockers or was
that was very new and very scary.
Well, I'll be honest right there. We have done, we did stockers one year and we kinda did it.
And I say kinda, um, dad went to sell, he bought a, a few head, we, we actually wintered them, which I'm not quite sure why we wanted to winter some, but anyway, that's what we did, and then we sold them, and I don't think we kept great numbers on those, that's something I need to revisit, but for me, always, I think, I've got the cow calf, I need to bring in some stockers when the growing season's here, but to be honest, it's, I look at that, and I don't know a lot about the stalker, uh,
stalker industry. So tell us a little bit about that first journey with stalkers and going through that.
Well, a young buck like me, you know, we got our loan at the bank and I was talking with my buyer. I didn't really have time to go sit in a sale barn all day and buy them. So I had somebody buy them for
Oh yeah.
like, yeah, I bought a 44 head and paid a dollar 78 for them. And I'm just like, Oh boy, like that's enough. You know, cause at that time that was a really high price and I'm like, wow, I wasn't really expecting that, but it actually turned out really good for us and we did about two pounds a day gain on them and we made good money and it just kept me going with it. Year after year. So, um, and then by doing that, you know, we kind of see what the buyers are there are all looking for.
And then, you know, the cattle are coming off of grass, which is another huge thing because the people that are taking these cattle and put them in the feed yard. You know, our job as grass managers is to grow frame on them animals and not pack them with so much fat. So when they're able to grow more frame, they can put more weight on them in the feedlot and then they can get just exponential gains on them too, you know, putting four pounds plus on them per day and they just explode and it's.
Profitable for us on our end and then it makes them more profitable too. And every time you're sitting in the ring, when all the buyers are there waiting for our group of cattle to come in, they're all sitting on their phones and getting ready to call all their people, you know, cause they're cattle buyers that are there too. Yeah, you can tell when grass cattle are coming in the ring because everybody gets excited. So it's pretty cool.
Oh yeah. Now, when are you typically buying your stocker calves?
we've learned a little bit on that too. Our one cattle buyer, he's the one year he said, oh, we got to get them bought early. We better start buying in January. I'm like, ah, let's let's push it back till at least February, you know, but when I did that then I had a lot of hay expense in them and I'm like, Oh, well, the added fertility that I'll get from the land and, you know, maybe I'll only gain a half to a one pound of gain per day, just feeding them hay.
And by the time I subtracted all of my hay feeding expenses and then everything that wasn't near as good as just waiting right until grass to get them. Even if you have to pay just a little bit more for the cattle, it makes way more sense just to wait till grass is ready to go, because you can have more problems with health issues with them and getting them acclimated and stress and, you know, it's just grass is medicine for them, cattle, and when they can hit that right away,
Oh, yeah.
you're hitting the ground running.
So about what size are you buying, bringing them in and what size are you shipping
typically we like to buy them in at right around 600 pounds and then ship them out. Right around eight to 900 pounds area. That seems to be where the cattle buyers like it the best. That's what we found anyway.
Oh, very good. Do you have a particular type you like to go In that you, you want black steers
Yeah, that is, that's another thing too. That's a big one. Yeah. The, the black steers, that's, we run all steers and black ones. They sell the best. Although reds, reds do pretty good too, though. Like I wouldn't be afraid to try a group of reds. My first year I did it, they were all red cattle too. And I think they gained the best and they looked the slickest and everything. But yeah, if you can get good genetic grass animals that are. We'll do good on grass.
Yeah, the black ones, they sell the best. Everybody wants black. So, guess you gotta do what they Want.
Well, I'd mentioned earlier that we, we tried stockers one year. We'd bought a few. And, um, so we focused on black heifers because we have not done stockers before. In fact, that's the only time we, we even played with it and we, we didn't do a great job then, but we bought black heifers and we thought that gives us a couple of exit
mm hmm.
Price is right. We can sell them when they get bigger. If we don't think that pencil's in, we can breed them and then go a different route with them. And when it got time, we ended up selling them, but we had one we held on to. There was a little black heifer that had both her ears chewed off. When my dad bought her, dad went to her and bought her and she's got a little bit of white on the underneath, just, just a touch. But dad paid, I want to say 20 cents a pound for her. It was something.
So, so when we got ready to sell them, we really didn't want to send her through with the others. If, if they would have. Overshadowed her that'd been great, but we were afraid they're gonna pull her out knock her terrible. So we held on to her Well, she got bred, you know as happens So I bought her from my dad as a bred heifer and um that cow She is one of my best cows. I don't know what she's bred.
She she's she's calm enough I'd like for her to be a little bit calmer, but um, she breeds back every year. She's ugly But she raises a wonderful calf. I'd take a whole herd like her. It's just, it's funny how that
kidding. Gotta get lucky sometimes, right?
Right. Yes. Yeah. Now, you got started with the stockers, or your cow calf, and then you did stockers. But you have a whole bunch of other species here. You've got your poultry, your pork, and your goats. When did you add those, and why
So, those were actually all added right away, and we wanted to Really hit hard with the diversity part of the soil health part of it. And we have a lot of woods where I'm at. So like the pigs and the goats and all of that, they really are awesome for running through the woods and stuff. So like the pigs, you know, we'll feed them their grain every day and we'll actually feed them right amongst like multi floor rose and stuff. And they'll root the big roots up on the multi floor rose bushes and.
Yeah.
Yeah. I honestly, the pigs are really well adapted to be in the woods. It's, it's like air conditioning for them. You know, pigs like to root when they're in the woods that, you know, they don't root as deep because they're in shade and the ground is cooler naturally all the time. Pigs don't sweat. It's just an all around perfect environment for them. They really thrive in there.
And then if you get towards fall, you're going to have acorns and all of them different things that they can chew and nibble on and. Yeah, they just really enjoy it. And then, yeah, the goats, you know, they really hit home with all the brush and stuff. We have hundreds and hundreds of acres. It's, I haven't even hit it all. And we have a pretty large herd of goats.
Oh, yeah.
So we followed the cattle with the chickens.
So you've got your your cattle in one herd and then you've got chickens follow them and then you've got your pig herd in the woods and you've got goats in the wherever they need to be.
I should. Kind of give you more context to kind of the way our farms are, you know, I got my home farm where the dairy is and my brother and I bought a farm that joins up to the dairy farm right now. Currently all of mine and my brother's land goes towards the dairy. So it's got row crops and hay on it and that kind of thing. Um, my wife and I are really Itching to get that one turned completely into grass too.
But working with my dad on that, I want to, I want to do my own grazing herd there and then walk them up to the parlor apart from the conventional dairy. That's in the works,
Oh, yes.
but yeah, we'll, we'll get there hopefully. In 2024 or 2025, that's the next big adventure. Um, just getting away from all the herbicides and stuff like that. I just totally believe in the grass part of it. And that's where my heart is and doing the soil health and building a healthier community and everything else. And, and then our other farm where we were doing the organic row crops on, that one's actually 13 miles north of my home farm.
So we have to do a little bit of travel to that one too. And then where I'm at right now, my mother in law's here, this one's kind of seven miles East. So it's kind of like a big triangle. Um, but this year when we were running the cattle on the two farms that were North of my home farm, we would actually run the cattle all in one group on. Each of them farms and we truck them back and forth as we're grazing.
This way we were able to extend our rest periods and we were able to slow them down during the D4 drought that we had during the 2023 growing season. And that made the world of difference for us. Huge, huge difference.
I've got some properties that are, are apart from each other, and they're not as far apart as yours, I've kept two different herds at times, and at times I combine them, trying to figure out what to do best, but I think in 2024, my, I'm going to do my best to keep all one herd and move them between the properties as needed. I think that would. would work better. It's just, I just think about trucking them, hauling them. It's so many trips and it's going to take me half a day.
And, and that's always, that's always what convinces me. I think about it. And then I'm like, I'll just put some over there, but then I'm going over there every day. So if I add up all the extra travel time, I'm sure it comes out about the same or better to truck them over. It's just hard to, to give that whole amount of time right then.
Yeah, that was one thing that concerned me too. You know, you got your trucking expense to go from farm to farm. Um, we were moving over 200 head from farm to farm that way. And we'd have like six trailers show up in one day and we could start at about eight in the morning, maybe done by noon.
Um, you know, it's an expense, but when you figure in your time and your labor and spending time with them, cattle, while you're out there, you can do a better job of grazing them and the management of the grass and stuff. It's a win-win all the way around instead of running from farm to farm and trying to get back from milking and all of that kind of stuff.
Right. Yeah. Yeah, that milking time, you can't deviate from it very
yeah, for sure. Yeah.
With your goats and hogs, how are you moving them and managing them in the
So the pigs, they're run separate from the goats. They're in their own place and they're on the home farm. So they're kind of close to where I live and everything.
Oh,
helps out a lot. Um, I do feed them daily. Uh, I don't really use a feeder too much. Our ground and our soil in our woods is pretty mellow. So I don't really like to keep them in one spot for too long. I like to kind of move them around within the paddock that they have. And about every four days, typically they'll get moved to a new, fresh paddock. Unless if you get an inch or more of rain, then you're moving them every day.
Oh,
So yeah, pigs, they can destroy some stuff in a hurry.
Before you go on to the goats, just on the hogs there, are you using poly wire to move them or electro
using poly wire for the, for the pigs. And depending on the pig, sometimes I'm lucky enough. I can get by with just a single wire. But then there's certain times where the pigs are trickier and I got to use two wires.
Oh, yeah. And about how high do you put those
so I guess it kind of depends on the age of the pig. If you're lucky enough where they do respect it nice and you have a good, good hot fence. Uh, typically I would say about eight to 10 inches for younger pigs, but then once they get to be about butchering time, just about knee high. So probably right around 20 inches.
Oh,
Yep, just enough. So if they duck under it, they're going to get hit. And if they try to jump over, they're going to get hit.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've seen a lot of people with their fences and their, pigs. I have not personally done any pigs with electric fence, but, it, it seems to work good for a lot of people. I would, in fact, I would love to do pigs. I just don't know that I can make a
Mm hmm, I guess yeah, that's where the direct marketing comes in. You know, you set your own price and You don't need to do a whole lot You just do what you think you can sell and It'll slowly grow over time as long as you have a product to speak for itself it and then it's a good deal. So I
Actually, on the pigs, do you have a certain breed, and are you farrowing, or are you bringing
We bring in feeders typically. So we don't typically have the same breed every single year. Um, we've done a little bit with, uh, Red Waddle and then we've had Berkshire and then Durac too, even. I guess in all three of those breeds actually do pretty well for us. Mm
Yeah. Very good. so I mentioned one holdup I have is profitability on them. And I think you bring up an excellent point if you're direct marketing them. That's a whole different game. If you're thinking on the wholesale end, you're sending them through a sale ring. You're not working with very good margins there. The other issue I have is wild hogs in the area.
We don't have that problem up here.
I, I suspected that, but I wasn't sure. Um, because that always gives me pause when I think about how I'm gonna have to do it. Um, so, I haven't
Maybe you'll have to invite me down to go hunt them sometime.
There we go. Come on down. Yes. The goats. How are you doing the
So the goats, I guess we like to kid them out in the spring on fresh green grass. Uh, we put the bucks in about December 5th area and then kid about the beginning of May and then. Move them around all summer long, typically that way. So we've done a little bit of both ways. We've gone with polywire and we've had success and many failures with that too.
So, uh, typically if you keep them full and you keep moving, the polywire can definitely work well, but with all of our other enterprises and things we got going on, I like to try to move them like once every four days to a week in that timeframe. So if you're not moving them like once every day or every other day, I found like with polywire, it just hasn't really been. Too effective enough for me to be able to use the polywire.
So we actually did go to netting last year with them and that works out pretty well. But we have a lot of steep terrain and we're only 10 miles from the Mississippi river here. So we have a lot of bluffs and
Oh,
steep side Hills and all of that fun stuff. So it's, it's a challenge, but if you get it cleared out enough, it works out pretty well.
When you go in and put that netting up, are you going in and clearing out an area, or are you just trying to find an area that's fairly clear and using that as the fence
tried to get an area as clear as I can, but definitely you can't always have that happen. So there's plenty of buckthorn and multiflora rose and yeah, if you're trying to snake it through, it can be a challenge.
I know with the electro netting I use for goats, I love it because the goat, well, let's say it's a love hate relationship. I love how good the goats respect it and stay in it. I hate having to move it. It's um, some of the areas the honey locust just reaches out and grabs everything. And um, it's yeah, but it's really beneficial. Now one thing I want to do this year in 2024 is we come to an end here and.
Actually, by the time this will be released, it will be 2024, but I'm going to try and get my goats where they're more respectful of poly wire. Even if I, I think you hit on a great point there, as long as they are not too hungry, it works. But if you keep them somewhere too long, they're going to go ahead and move themselves. At least that's my assumption.
You hit that nail on the head, in my opinion. Yeah, if you keep them full and you keep them moving. They'll stay in the polywire, but if you have an accident one day and things don't go quite as planned and if you're 15 minutes too late, they'll move themselves.
Oh, yes.
had it where I was setting up the next paddock and I'm right there and they move themselves. So it's just, they, they just don't have patience. It's nope. And they can smell that fence off. Just the other day, I was moving them with netting and they, they must've knew I had the fence off because I was setting up a new paddock and here the whole works comes running right out. And when you have a good border collie, you can get them put away pretty quick. So it works out good.
Oh, yes. Yeah. Now, when you're moving your goats, you've got a pretty good size flock. How many, uh, electro netting sections are you putting
So usually we're putting up right around 25 to 30 nets per paddock.
Oh, wow. And here I am complaining about four, so maybe I shouldn't complain.
Oh, you get used to it right now. It's pretty nice because we're still grazing them here in the open fields where we had the stockpiled grass. And that's just a breeze compared to doing it through the woods. So I I'm kind of appreciating that, but right now they're actually really stripping the bark off the trees too. Once it gets to be this time of year and there's not as many leaves, they really hit the bark hard and it's pretty cool to see.
Oh, yes. Now, one thing, um, we, we hadn't talked about much yet, but I think you, you are selling Um, grass fed, raw milk. I think I word that right. So you have a few cows that you're grazing that
Yes. So we have six jerseys and they go out and graze and pasture every day. And then we bring them up and we milk them once a day. So when we, I bring them up, it's actually like three, three o'clock in the morning, I bring them up to the parlor
Oh,
and I like to have them in there first because then the parlor is at its cleanest and everything is really sanitized down nice. You have a good clean product that way. And then after I'm done milking those, they go out in their own side pen and they get to eat hay out there while I'm milking the rest of the cows.
And then once I'm done with all the parlor work and all the other cows and cleaned up, then I can walk them back down to their pasture and give them a fresh new paddock of grass every day.
Oh, very interesting. So, I was wondering, I'd read on your website that you had a few grass fed cows. I was wondering how you were, the logistics of that. So, and that makes sense. If you milk them first, the parlor's been cleaned. Pipelines are clean. They're not getting any residue of. Um, non grass fed milk. And if you have some residue for your, for the conventional herd, that's not a
But another thing I should state too, we don't even milk them in the pipeline. Actually, we milk them separate in the stainless steel buckets too. And
Oh, so you got buckets that you, they go
yep, we keep it all separate just like that because, you know, from the washing cycle and stuff like that, there could be water and stuff in the pipelines too. And when you're only dealing with six cows, you know, I'd rather have a perfectly premium product when I'm working with it.
That's true because, you know, you flush that line out and you want to make sure you're not getting that water in the bulk tank and stuff. Um, but yeah, that's a valid point, especially when you're doing a specialty item like that. You want to make it as, as high a quality as possible.
And yeah, milk quality really speaks for itself too.
Yes, and you chose jerseys for that is your is the conventional herd jerseys Or do you decide on jerseys because you were going grass fed
So I chose jerseys cause we were going grass fed with them. Um, the conventional herd, they're mostly Holsteins. We have a little bit of Jersey crossed Holsteins in there as well. I have been breeding more towards kind of the grass ones. I'm in charge of the breeding. Um, so when I buy semen and stuff, I, I don't tell dad how much I'm breeding him to that. no, he, he's on board with it too. We're, we're definitely moving right along with that.
And he sees a lot of the points and stuff that I'm trying to do and stuff. And yeah, it's pretty good.
So you're milking a few cows and having that grass fed raw milk Are you finding there's a high demand for it?
Yeah. So when we started out, yeah, it was slow going right away. And then, well, we've only been doing it now for a little over a year and the demand is growing and growing and growing. And. Um, we charge enough for our milk too. So it makes it worthwhile. You know, I have to take special time out of my day to go get just six cows up and, you know, you know, and then bottle it all separately and do all of that and we, we charge 15 per gallon for our milk and.
Um, yeah, it's been a really good deal. And then when you have a quality product the way it is, people are willing to pay it. If it's, once they try it, they, there's, there's people that were getting milk for 2 a gallon, and then they're getting it for 15, and they said their kids will not drink any other milk anymore. And they just absolutely love it. My dad too, you know, he was another one that drank the regular milk out of the bulk tank his whole entire life.
And then as soon as he started drinking this stuff, he was sold on it too. And I always ask if I have any leftover milk for him too,
Oh, yeah. Because he doesn't want to pay that retail price.
Yeah, but it's worth it to him though, too. Uh, the, the benefits of raw milk is just unbelievable. So with all the health and everything.
I grew up drinking milk from the bulk tank, and that milk is just so much better than what you can buy in a store. That, I imagine, that grass fed's the
Definitely. You hit that nail on the head. I have grown up drinking regular milk out of the bulk tank too and this grass milk, you know, when you have a good cream layer on the jar like four inches thick, it's just like, wow, this is a, this is some awesome stuff.
So are you able to sell it all as raw milk?
Yep. So, yeah, they don't milk a whole lot when they're on grass though. They're not like a conventional cow where they're milking 80 plus pounds per day. And, you know, that's, they're getting fed grain and they're a fine tuned machine to produce, produce, produce. And that's kind of the trouble in today's world is everyone is focused on the production, production, production, and then quality is just out the wayside. And it's really unfortunate because people need the quality part of it.
They're not even understanding. All the health part of it, you know, food is thy medicine. And I think people have that mixed up nowadays. They're going to the doctor for the medicine instead of doing the prevention side of it.
Yeah. And did you, you may have mentioned this earlier. Are you milking your grass fed dairy cows once a
yep, just once a day.
Oh,
saves a lot on time and labor and quality of life.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, it does, you know, it's that was always the thing. Um, growing up, we talked about twice a day milking, you know, and all, all the time. It's always like, do we need a milk a third time? I don't know where we'd find the hours, but you, you get into that. How much milk can you produce? And that's where you're thinking. I've read a lot of stuff on once a day milking, which makes it really appealing to me.
I always tell people, once you've dairied, either you go running away from it, or you can't get enough of it. Because I'm telling my wife, I need a couple dairy cows.
We like to run our numbers a lot too. And, you know, our dream eventually is to turn all of our acres that we run into grass. Cause that's what we believe in. And we've been running numbers a lot, you know, milking the extra cows on that land that boots up to the dairy and trying to figure out what enterprise that we could go into. That's going to be the most profitable for us so we can make the payments on the farm and. You know, pay off all our other debt and stuff that we have as well.
And just even milking conventional cows on that ground once a day, milking and 35 pounds of milk and take out all the feed expenses and hay expenses. And I even had it factored in. We'd only milk them nine months out of the year and had them dried up from January 1st to March 31st.
Oh
just blows every other enterprise out of the water. It's, it's really cool to see. So, yeah, that's got me really excited.
Oh, yeah, I imagine so. Now we touched on this just a little bit with your milk sales. You're also selling all these, um, grass fed meat products to the end consumer. How did that market go for you in getting that developed?
So my wife, she does the direct marketing side. She's the one that gets the emails and does weekly emails and builds the relationships with the customers. And, uh, it's been going really well for us. She, she's really good at it. I'm very thankful for that. Cause that's not my forte. I like to do the management side out in the field and manage the grass and the soil, and that's where I thrive and she does a really good job with the computer work and stuff.
So that's kind of how we do that but She yeah does a really good job with the direct marketing and all of that.
Oh, very good. That, that's really beneficial. Both of you working with your strengths there. And, um, yeah. That really works out really well. I noticed when looking at your, um, website, got a blog up there she posts stuff on, or I'm assuming she does it. And then your email list, and you have recipes going out, which I thought all looked really nice. Are you finding there's more demand than you're able to produce, or are you just growing with the demand right now? How is that for you?
we're, I would say we're growing with the demand as far as like the grass fed beef and stuff goes. Um, the milk, there's times where we come up short on the milk. Actually, there's kind of a new deal going around. People are becoming more aware of how good the milk is for you and everything else, but yeah, it's basically just building the relationship with the customers and that's where things really start to take off.
So in going through, through this journey, you've added a lot of enterprises and getting it to the end consumer. In going through your journey, what's been maybe a challenge you didn't anticipate that you've had?
Well, I guess time management was a really, really big one.
Oh
mindset shifts and everything else. You know, you're the weird one when you're starting to do this kind of stuff. Uh, so you gotta have a pretty tough layer of skin sometimes, but it's pretty cool also to see. People starting to change and do some of the things that you're doing, like bale unrolling and bale grazing and stuff like that. And all of a sudden now that's starting to show up around the neighborhood.
And, uh, you know, people kind of think, oh, well, he's going to go broke before he even gets started. And after you're doing it for five years, then there's like, well, maybe it ain't so bad, you know, and then they start to do it, but yeah, um, Rochelle. She's been going through a coaching program and she's a certified coach for time management and mindset and stuff like that.
And that's been stuff that's really helped out a lot with our time management and getting all the things done for our business and having the quality of life for our family. And it's been a really neat journey that way too, so. We're starting to help other farmers out with that too, right now. So that's been a really cool thing to see other people too. So, and starting off with their journey,
And time management is so tough. For everyone, but I, you know, I grew up on dairy and, and dairied for a while. I know I've said that a hundred times, but that took all the available time and then we, you know, at the time I had a few small things, but nothing major. Um, but you've got all these other enterprises going on. And then, of course, your marriage and your kids, which those all require quality time as well.
So, I can see how time management is like of utmost importance for you to get to
definitely. That is for sure. It's been, it's been a real blessing for us to be able to get our ducks in a row and be able to do all the things while having the quality of life and having fun farming, you know. That's what keeps it sustainable and regenerative is being able to fit all the pieces together and be able to hit all your goals and still have the quality family time. That's kind of what's important to us and I'm sure it's important to most other farmers as well.
Yes. And let's just put you on the spot real quick. If you had someone that came to you and they're like, and they're trying to do this and they're, and obviously they need some help with time management. What would you be your first suggestion to them?
I guess I would say get in touch with us. We're willing to help. My wife just started a podcast, you know, uh, we run
Oh, yeah.
com and yeah, we're more than willing to help out with whatever we can. And there's a lot of good content and stuff for them to listen to on there for free. And yeah, it just start there and start listening and seeing what people are doing to manage their time.
Oh, yeah. Very good. And before we go to the overgrazing section, Jordan, we talked about a challenge. Let's talk about what is one of the biggest successes you've had.
Oh, one of the biggest successes. I guess turning both of the rented farms a hundred percent into grass, that's what has been what I would consider one of my most favorite successes, I guess, and being profitable at it and being able to see the beautiful changes in the soil health and everything, it's just been phenomenal and just, it just lights a fire under me to keep going and going and doing more and more and more. It's, it's a blast.
Wonderful. And I'm sure if you were to, to consider those points in time, when you first got that rent land and what you were doing versus now, the progress is so great. And just from personal experience, it's easy to forget about that kind of progress, so you need to reflect upon it and
Mm hmm.
But yeah, excellent.
And then being able to Get a higher and higher stocking rate and density and stuff. It's been like just from 2022 season to 2023, we're actually running 50 more animal units on our acres than we were the year
Oh,
And just to see improvements like that is what really keeps you moving and motivated, like you said, reflecting on how far you've come and it just keeps you going and makes you realize that all the work you're doing is not for nothing. It's definitely for something.
Right. Yeah. Well, Jordan, it's time we transition to our overgrazing section. And in our overgrazing section, we take a little bit deeper dive into something about your operation. I believe today we're going to talk about goat genetics.
Yeah, so that's been quite the journey as far as the goat genetics goes. Um, when we first wanted to get goats, we started out actually with bottle kids that we bought in, and that was a really big learning curve because a lot of the bottle kids that we bought in, the vet had told us that they probably didn't have as an adequate amount of colostrum that they should have gotten. And we lost probably half of our goats that we started with there. Goats have been a real challenge.
And that's why I really wanted to hit hard on the goat genetics, because it's definitely a challenge if you don't start out in the right spot. And then we decided to get our own herd and all, well, moms would raise kids a lot better than we could. So we figured we'd go by, uh. regular goat herd. But the problem with that was we got a herd that was more conventionally raised and they were raised in a feed yard kind of a deal.
So they got their grain and their hay and their bed and breakfast and all that kind of stuff. So then when we tried to do it more regeneratively on our farm, they did not thrive one bit. And we
Oh,
we started with the goats in 2020. And, uh, of that main herd of 80 nannies that we bought, I would say we probably have about five left. It's unbelievable how, how devastating and bad they called themselves out. Um, and then after realizing that they weren't going to fit the bill, we ended up getting the Spanish breed and the Spanish breed that we got, they were way more of a hands off operation.
And they ran lots and lots of goats and, you know, when you have a bigger herd of goats, you're not just doing your backyard genetics where you can, you know, treat and pamper and, you know, give them the bed and breakfast, you know, they were real true hardy genetics. And when we put them into our environment, the mothering ability was awesome and they just did an excellent job of grazing and browsing and they're thriving well for us. We're, we're sold on them guys,
I, I hate to admit it, but I have stories of wrecks with sheep and goats that, that go back to the same premise you're talking about. Those, those animals you get. Um, it's got to have the right genetics, and, and one way to get that is find a farm that's doing what you're doing, or similar enough that what you're wanting to do, um, I brought in some, my first goats were out of some show stock, and that didn't work out very good, and um, and sheep, I had a similar experience with them.
Uh, we purchased a flock that a guy had put together. I learned after the fact. I, I was too dumb in the beginning to, to realize that, but it took us a while to, we called them really hard to get them to where we are now. Um, but yeah, starting out with those right genetics can really
definitely. Yep. And if you have to pay a few more dollars, it's honestly probably worth it because your heart will feel a whole lot better. And then
Oh,
you have live goats instead of more dead goats. So nature calls pretty hard. If you don't have a heart for any of that stuff. It's the, the good ones survive and the bad ones don't. And honestly, you know, with all of our enterprises and stuff, we want to be as more of a hands off operation as we possibly could be. We really don't even have much for handling facilities or anything.
We just, we just, you know, they're going to be goats and they're going to make it in our environment or they're going to be culled out. So. We, we don't have time for pampering around. We want to have good, profitable genetics that can do the job that the good Lord intended them to do.
And, and that's an important point there. Um, you know, with those first goats I got. I was getting up in the middle of the night to make sure they kidded all right, because I had too many kids that didn't get up and nurse, so I was out there, and then I went with Kikos, and I ran Kikos for a long time, and Kikos did wonderful for me, and then I sold them. Just because I didn't have the right forage for goats, they had grazed themselves or browsed themselves out of a job.
And then I recently purchased some Spanish does because the lease properties I have have woods on them and, and they can really help me there. But, um, those first goats, um, man, I, I told my wife, I can't, I can't spend all night up making sure this, I need something that works for me. I'm a lazy farmer, or if you're good with PR, I'm an efficient farmer. I go out there. The babies should be out there. The mamas should be
you betcha you hit that nail on the head right there. That is the way to have it. Nobody wants to spend sleepless nights out there. You want to wake up and go out and see your goats in the pasture with mom and couple of twins on her, nursing and sucking away. And she's doing an excellent job taking care of them. That's the way they're supposed to be. That's the way nature intended it to be.
Right. And I know I'd asked you before about direct marketing. Are you finding direct marketing goats works well
So we haven't really hit hard on that part of it yet. We've been focusing more on the other stuff. There is definitely a great opportunity to do more of that. We have done a little bit of it, but kind of letting it just go on its own. And if we have people reach out to us, we'll supply them with goat. Um, but there's other enterprises within the goats that we also do. We do the grazing on other people's land for invasive brush and all that kind of stuff. So we've got that part of it.
Oh, okay.
then there's other people that do that kind of work that don't have the right kind of goats or don't have enough goats to do it. So we actually lease our goats out to some of them people as well. So they'll pay us a little small fee for using our goats during the summer months to go and supplement their business. And it works out for both parties really nice. So yeah, it's kind of cool. You get four enterprises in one enterprise, if that makes any sense.
Oh, yeah. So, so just to, to go back over that. So, for one, some of these individuals that's grazing areas and they need more goats, they'll lease goats from you to go out to do that. And then, you're doing some of that
Yep. Yep. Not too much though, because our time is limited and my time is needed in other areas, so we kind of let that go out to the other people that are doing it for their sole living. Like, there's one guy that completely quit his job to go graze goats on brush. So, pretty, pretty
Oh, yes. Yeah, that's very interesting. And that's a creative way. That's a lower cost way for him to get started with it. So he doesn't have to go out and buy all the goats. It's a creative way for you to get a little bit more income from your goats to lease them out like that. So, so very nice out of the box
for sure. Yeah. And it's pretty neat when people can pay you to put your goats on their land. You know, what other enterprises can you do that with?
Right. Yes. Yeah, exactly. I agree. Well, Jordan, it is time for our famous four questions. Same four questions we ask of all of our guests. Our first question, what is your favorite grazing grass related book or resource?
Oh man, there's been a lot of them. I guess, I guess as far as like the soil health goals goes and stuff like that, there's, well, Dirt to Soil, and then there's the book by Nicole Masters for the Love of Soil, um, And then just going to local grazing events. So in my area, we have SFA, Sustainable Farmers Association, um, or LSP, Land Stewardship Project. They do a lot of great stuff with soil health and promoting grazing and stuff like that. And it's pretty neat to see.
So them are my main main resources and just having a good community of people that are trying to do the same things that you're doing, you know, communicating with them back and forth. Um, and then we have that kind of a network now with our Mindful Farmers Group too.
Oh, yeah. Very good. Very good. Excellent resources there. One thing I want to highlight there, you talked about your, your regional or local, um, meetups. I know for, for me, living in Oklahoma, I didn't even know the Oklahoma grazing land. Um, I think it's coalition, but they have some meetings around and I'm like, where have they been? I didn't even know it was out here till, um, I don't know, a year and a half ago.
So, so look around, uh, talk to two people who's doing this and you can get, uh, knowledge about some of those local groups, which can
you bet
to you. Yeah. Our second question, what is your favorite tool to use on the farm?
my pliers If I If I don't have my pliers, I feel Naked
So, so what kind of pliers do you prefer?
one that I got on me right now, even, it's a, it's a Erwin Vice Grip pliers, so it's got the insulated handle. So if you ever. Let's say your fence, uh, remote control isn't working, you can't shut your fence off or anything, you can grab the wire with this and you won't get shocked because you got insulated handles, or you're dealing with water line that's not working right, you need your pliers, or you need a hammer for something, you got your pliers, you know, it's everything to me.
You need a pry bar, you got your pliers, you know, it's,
There you go. Excellent choice there, yes. Thirdly, Jordan, what would you tell someone just getting started?
hmm. Find people that are doing it, reach out. And go to events on the grazing and just learn as much as you possibly can, but then take action. Don't sit still, just go and do it. You know, build yourself the mindset to go and start tackling it because failure is the only way forward. Don't be afraid of failure, just embrace it.
Tons of points there, but yeah, you're gonna fail. Just get over it. Go ahead and fail. And learn from it. And move on. But the thing that really jumped out at me, take action. Because Uh, you can get into analysis paralysis, and read and read, and try and figure it out. But until you just get started, you're not going to be able to make those final
Exactly. Yep. You can read and read and read, but until you take the, you know, you can talk the talk, but walking the walk is the next thing. Just go and just do it.
Yes, exactly right, yeah. And lastly, Jordan, where can others find out more about you?
So we have a Facebook page, Wholesome Family Farms, or my individual page under Jordan Meyer. Um, I actually have a YouTube channel that's Wholesome Family Farms. And then we have that new group with my wife doing the mindset coaching and that kind of a time management stuff. And that's under mindfulfarmers.com. So them are the places that people can find us. And then we have an
Oh, very good.
too.
Okay, we will put those links in our show notes. Excellent. Jordan, I've enjoyed the conversation today.
awesome. Well, thanks a lot, Cal. I sure had a lot of fun talking to you.