Country Folks Magazine recently published an article on Broadview Ranch. Check out the article and the good folks at Country Folks by following the link below:

Broadview Ranch loosens reins on Mother Nature

You guys may have been wondering about the results of the bull naming contest.  Well we had some farming drama.  Shortly after we began the naming contest, we took Red Prince to the vet for a breeding soundness exam.  I’ll save you the gory details but they check to make sure that everything is in working order and that his swimmers are swimming.  Much to our dismay Red Prince flunked his exam decisively.  The sale was contingent upon good exam results so we called up the seller and arranged to audition a second bull – Rodeo King (shown right).  Rodeo King aced his exam and is now hard at work in the herd.

Now for the results of the contest.  Rodeo King will henceforth be named – Heff!  Nicole Ottavian and Kitty Tilson both suggested names inspired by Hugh Heffner.  Both will receive a pack of Hot Italians links, a pack of mild sausage, two lbs of ground beef, and a dozen eggs for their efforts.   Come visit Heff sometime, he’s a friendly and charming  philanderer.

Now for the more technical side of what we are trying to accomplish with Heff and how this might affect your beef.  The bull(s) are most important genetic part of your herd has he will supply 50% of you all of your calves’ genetics.  Like any good farmers we evaluate our herd carefully and try to chose a bull with genetics that will steer our herd toward our ideals.  Unlike the industrial markets which values black hide, heavy carcass weight, and high fat content we have a much more complicated set of criteria that we wish to promote with our genetics.  Our herd is strong in calving ease, parasite resistance, docility.  When looking for a sire we wanted and animal that would keep these traits, and add consistency, early maturing, and increase forage efficiency.

We think Heff is the fella we are looking for.  We selected him mainly on breed characteristics and the reputation of his previous owner.  Heff is a purebred Devon.  Devon cattle are a British breed renowned for their efficiency with forage, docility, early maturation, and tolerance to weather extremes due to their thick hide.  Devon’s have recently gained popularity in North America along with the popularity in grass fed beef.

Heffs good looks and enthusiasm for the job give us hope for a strong crop of calves next spring.  With luck we’ll be tasting the fruits of his labor in about 2.5 to 3 years.

Rain, finally!  As most of you know, it has been a dry spring and summer but with all the latest rain, the ponds will be refilled and the grass recharged.  We received 3.5″ from Thursday through Monday!  For reference we received only 0.4″ in the previous 34 days.  The rainfall amount has been the biggest unknown variable with the greatest impact for our fields and cattle herd.  Given its importance, I thought now would be a good opportunity to discuss how we balance our cattle herd with our grass.  Let’s start in the spring at the beginning of the growing year.

Spring - All spring we try to minimize the effect our herd has on the first shoots of tender grass.  The cows are ravenous for the stuff! We manage the animals by feeding some hay and giving them large paddocks in which we move them through quickly.  This is a great compromise as ideally for the grass we would have no animal impact and ideally for the cows they could eat as much as they wanted! We balance and watch the regrowth behind the herd until that joyous point when the grass is deemed to be “ahead of the herd”, meaning that the grass is growing faster than the cattle are eating it.  This point generally occurs around mid-May to the first of June, depending on the weather.

Summer – If all goes well, the “ahead of the herd point” coincides with the middle of our calving season so that the mothers are on great grass and we are adding mouths to the herd at the same time that the food supply is plentiful.  This is also when we add stockers.  Stockers are animals that we buy in the spring and sell in the fall.  We try to balance the number of stockers that we buy with the amount of grass that we will grow over the summer, it’s always a guessing game dependent upon the summer rainfall.  Our goal would be for the cattle to eat all of the grass between June and September and our herd to go to sleep every night completely full.   The grass and soil are the healthiest when we can provide a period of intense grazing with a long period of rest.  We accomplish this by grazing a different paddock each day with the largest herd possible.   In practice we err on the side of caution, as we know that the summer droughts are unpredictable and nobody wants hungry cattle.

Fall – Autumn is a time for evaluating the herd and stockpiling forages for the winter.  We generally want to sell our stockers and any animals that are not a good fit for our herd.  We try to winter our best breeding herd and the best steers for the direct sale beef next year. This process of culling the herd is the main method of ensuring the quality and health of the herd.  It is very important that we continually cull to improve the herd’s health and composition. As fall progresses, there will be less mouths to feed and the cool season grasses will begin to flourish with the drop in temperature.  Our goal by the end of fall is to have a healthy herd of choice animals and grasses that are long and ready for winter grazing.

Winter - The primary feed source during the winter is the standing grass that we grew during the fall.  We will supplement hay during cold snaps, deep snow and when forages run low but the animals still get most of their calories by grazing.  We are scaling back our hay and scaling up our standing forages for this year.  Hopefully we will not have another winter like last year where we had to purchase extra hay because the snow cover lasted so long.  If we get a typical winter season, we expect our fields and balance sheet to emerge in the spring healthier.

As with most things in life, herd management is an educated guessing game.  We guess how much rainfall we will get, how many animals we will sell direct, how much grass we will need to get the animals through the winter, and how many animals the grass can support.  We experiment and adjust all throughout the year.  So far this rotation method has increased the fertility of the land which is the main barometer of our grazing success.  We will be experimenting with some woodland grazing this summer and we will let you know what we learn!

We are excited to announce that we have two interns working with us this summer, Hannah Dubit and David Tilson.  Mind you, interns are not a new phenomenon on the farm, in fact, my grandfather and his friend Roger Mudd were some of the first interns back when Broadview was a dude ranch run by my Great-Grandad Tex Tilson.  Even Josh and I spent a summer working on the farm together a few years back.

Hannah Dubit

Hannah hails from right down the road and has been a frequent guest at our pond parties.  She is a rising senior at Mary Baldwin College and is interested in learning the business of farming and managing large livestock.  Hannah once had an egg business of her own and is experienced in animal husbandry.

David Tilson

David lives on the farm and is the son of Alan Tilson.  He has been working his whole life around the farm but this is the first time we are paying him.  David has been working mainly with the chickens before and after school.  Now that he can work full time over the summer we are looking to get him more involved with the cattle and pigs.

Josh and I  love to work in the big garden at the farm- 33 tomato plants plus squash, asparagus, zucchini, chard, peas, and more. But on our last trip out to the garden, we found our squash plants were getting decimated by squash bugs. So we set loose five chickens in the garden for the day and those ladies had quite the feast!

We need you to assist in naming our gorgeous Devon stud! His official name is Red Prince, but I think we can do better than that! His Devon genetics will mesh nicely with our predominately Angus cattle herd and we can expect his offspring to begin making their appearance about this time next year. In the meantime, our handsome devil needs a name, please suggest one at http://facebook.com/Broadviewranch. The winning entry will receive a delightfully delicious prize. Special consideration will be given to those names evoking the philandering bachelor lifestyle.

Demand for our free-range eggs has resulted in the Great Egg Shortage of 2010, but not to fear, we just purchased an additional 100 laying hens. The new chickens will be producing their hearts out within a month. Thanks for sticking with us through this trying time – eggs are on the way!