Heritage Livestock - Our Ranch
In our farming operation, we are
committed to open-pollinated and heirloom plants. In our ranching operation, we are committed to raising heritage breeds
of livestock. When we decided to raise livestock, we immediately
decided to raise heritage breeds. Why? It is quite simple really. We are what are called contrary farmers.
As we began to learn about agriculture, the overwhelming and obvious lesson was that modern agriculture, and its mechanistic approach,
had created or contributed to many of the problems that family farmers had been living through now for over half a century. We are convinced that many
problems with modern livestock, from parasites, to disease, to problems in birthing offspring, can be traced to the "breeding up"
of animals in the past century for more "economic" meat and milk production. While not widely held, others have adopted our view
before us. We quickly discovered the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, which
not only shares our view as to the source of many problems in livestock breeding, but is also dedicated to preserving American
heritage breeds of livestock.
We are initially raising three breeds of heritage livestock, in an effort to preserve these breeds in Texas -- Jacob and
Navajo-Churro Sheep, and Dexter Cattle. We chose these breeds because of their adaptability to our Texas Hill Country
conditions, the lack of "breeding up" and the resulting retention of natural instincts and survivability, and the histories
of each of these breeds.
In the future, we will add heritage chickens, ducks, turkeys, donkeys, and perhaps other animals to our domain. Our
principles in selecting breeds for these species will be the same -- animals adoptable to our environment, who exist in their
more or less natural state, and who share noble characteristics. We invite you to read further about each of our breeds, and to learn
with us as we evolve in the future.