Grassfed Life

When you have an animal that eats grass, then you as a farmer have a big advantage. Grass is free. You don't have to buy it, and depending on where you live you might not have to water it. So your input costs on your end product, are low. But not all grass is created equal. If you don't have a lot of grass or grass year round, then you might find yourself in a situation where you need to purchase hay, which drives input costs up. It's in your interest to have the healthiest most productive pastures as possible. As a farmer, you are both a manager of the animals and the grass to help avoid this problem. It's practices like mob grazing that lead to improved soils which can sustain more life, for longer. Poor practices can lead to the degradation of land, and conversely good practices can lead to a dramatic improvement in the land, soil, and pasture. And improvements can be truly dramatic. Take someone like Greg Judy for example. Greg grazes using planned high density grazing. Putting a lot of animal weight on a small piece of land for a short period of time. Since adopting that system his grazing ratio has changed from 4.5 acres per animal unit (AU=1,000 lb.) to 2.2 acres per AU and forage production has doubled. Judy is using the extra forage to expand his cow herd for a grass-fed beef business, and he has added 300 head of hair sheep. Judy manages the livestock on 900 acres (300 acres owned and 600 acres leased.) "This reduction in grazing acres per AU is like having another 600-acre farm, and we don't even have to pay additional land taxes. In our area, 600 acres is worth $1.8 million," Judy says. More grass, means more animals, and no extra land needed. As Greg said, it's like getting another farm for free. It's all about building soil and that's the focus of today's episode, the first in a multi-part episode series on building pasture.

READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM?

The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com

Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry

Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX

Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

What do you do if you have one view of agriculture, and your family has a different view of agriculture?

And what do you do if your family owns land and farms on that land in a way that's different than the way that you would farm?

How do you navigate that situation?

On one hand you have a big asset at an arms length. The asset being potential land to farm. On the other hand, you realize that farming on that land in way that you believe is right might directly contradict the method of farming on that land currently.

Not an easy situation to navigate and one that we will be discussing today.

READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM?

The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com

Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry

Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX

Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

So far this season we have covered everything from pastured poultry to pigs to cattle to sales and marketing. We've covered a lot, from the basics to the specifics. And based on the feedback it's be helpful. Also, along the along the way we have received a lot of great questions from you all. Questions like - How do I go about selling chickens to customers and not worry about people trying to sue me should they get sick from one of my birds? Today we will answer that questions, and many others spanning topics such as freezer inventory management, thoughts on the American Guinea Hog, and poultry feed management. This episode is an episode, designed by you, the listeners. If you have sent in one of you questions in the past, thanks, this episode is dedicated to you.

READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM?

The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com

Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry

Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX

Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Last we we heard from Brandy Simpson, Darby's wife, on what starting a farm was like on the other side, the non-entrepreneur side, the spouse side. Today we'll continue to round out that view, because this week Brandy is back, and joined by Darby, as they talk more about startup, their relationship, and holding it all together. How did they both handle money being tight, and set expectations. And what was the key to making it all work. There's a lot in here, enjoy this one, part two of the mini-series focusing on startup and relationships.

READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM?

The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com

Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry

Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX

Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Today's episode is a special one. It is part one of a mini-series focusing on farm start up, but from the other side- not the side of the farmer, instead from the side of the farmer's wife. It's a conversation with Darby's wife Brandy and what it was like to be the farmer's wife and transition into farming in that role, as a mom of two young kids, and as someone who viewed their future not on a farm. Think of Brandy as an avatar - the generic universal representation of the farmer's wife. As you listen to this episode, think about what she is saying, and think about what the other person in your life might say or be thinking. Have you thought about that? Because you really need to. As you will here in this episode a farming future wasn't the future that Brandy had envisioned for their family, and I think it's safe to say that it wasn't even in the proximity of the expected future. And then one day it happened, the idea came up... If we go back to when Darby started farming, it was at a time when he was up to his eyeballs in stress and frustration over his current job. And he needed a change, a change that was going to happen through farming. But he hadn't told his wife yet about what he was thinking of doing. What was she going to think? In a lot of stories you only get one side of the story. The side coming from the person that had the idea, and made it happen. But that all doesn't happen in a vacuum, there are always other people involved. In this case, Darby had a wife and two very young kids. He wanted to farm, she didn't. It was his dream, not hers.

READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM?

The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com

Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry

Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX

Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Today we are still talking about pastured poultry, but we will look at it from a different viewpoint... the viewpoint of why pastured poultry might not be a good fit for your and your operation. We will explore that view by looking at eight negatives associated with pastured poultry and how you might be able to overcome those negatives.

READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM?

The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com

Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry

Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX

Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

This episode is a special episode that addresses a question submitted to us by listener Ben Grimes of Dawnbreaker Farms. Ben's question was a simple one, but the answer wasn't simple or straightforward. Like many things when it comes to farming there's a lot of nuance and variability involved. Given that this episode is effectively two parts. Part one is Ben's questions along with an interview with Ben help add some supporting details and context. Part Two is Darby's answer to that question. If you are listening to this the first time, then it makes sense to listen to the hole episode chronologically. If you are coming back to this episode for a second time, and you just want to hear how Darby would tackle Ben's question, then you can skip ahead to 41:00.

READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM?

The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com

Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry

Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX

Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Today's show is Part 2 of our series on cattle.

This episode is all about the ins and outs of stockers, cattle that you purchase, raise on farm and sell.

It's a great operation for a beginner and one way of raising cattle that is very different from a cow/calf operation where you breed and raise your own cattle on farm to sell.

READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM?

The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com

Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry

Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX

Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Let's say you start raising chickens on grass, pastured poultry. You're rotating the chickens around your land and as you do that the chickens leave behind nitrogen rich fertilizer packets at every stop. Something that the grass will respond to but growing, a lot... The more that you do this, the more grass that you grow. Now you are stuck with a lot of grass, and it's getting to the point where the grass is too tall for the chickens... You have a grass problem. How do you manage that grass? You can mow it. That's one solution. Not everyone's favorite solution, but an effective solution that for sure works. But mowing grass is a cost tat the end of the day. You can't mow it and sell the mower. You burn fuel and need to put new fuel in it next time. It's simple a tool that you put inputs into to manage pasture. On a long term resiliency and fragility scale a mower based system is fragile, it's a problem. What if you take that problem, a too much grass problem and turn it into a solution. Maybe, or you get an animal to mow it for you... specifically a ruminant like a cow. Today Darby lays out the basics of what raising on cattle on grass is really like. He discusses his cattle operation, how he selected his breeds, what advice he would suggest for beginners, and how much land you actually need to raise cattle. And it may surprise you, because it's probably not as much as you think. Let's start at the beginning and talk about how Darby got started with cattle in the first place.

READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM?

The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com

Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry

Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX

Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Think about your life and your work situation. Is it one that consumes a huge majority of your time? And is that by choice or because that's just the way that it's always been.

If you don't like it, you can always change it. That's what this episode is about, designing a life that works for you.

READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM?

The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com

Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry

Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX

Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod