Perhaps the funnest part of this endeavor so far has been designing the fencing and corral for Ozarks Natural Beef. We have seen our share of headaches but after all the planning it sure is rewarding to watch it take shape. The basic design was purchased from a rancher in Australia with some modifications taken from Temple Grandin's corral design book. The corral has an outer and inner wheel that can hold 100 head. The outer ring is connected to a crowding pen with two panels that rotate 360 degrees. The crowding pen then dumps into a squeeze chute with separate channels for potloads and stock trailers.
The outer and inner circles have a 2 inch rock base to prevent stress on the cattle from excessive mud. The crowding pen and squeeze chute areas are concrete with deep grooves to avoid slipping.
Our 120 acres is surrounded by 5 wire high tensile electric fence with 1 1/4 inch Powerflex fence posts. The pasture is divided into 3 paddocks with single wire electric fence. Along the two fence lines that divide the pasture in thirds, there are six water stations - three on each fence line. These water stations measure 20 x 20 feet with a geotextile base and a 6 inch base of 2" rock on top. In the middle is an 8 foot tractor tire with the sides cut out and a cement base. Each of these tractor tire waterers will hold around 500 gallons of water. Each is equipped with a float and hooked to an underground water line that was trenched alongside the fence line. We have cemented four corner posts around each water station to allow our temporary fence to be connected to it. This gives the cattle 360 degree access around each water station as we parcel off portions of each grazing area.
With six water stations in the 120 acres we are able to provide water at all times within 1000 feet of every cow. Additionally, the flexibility we have in watering allows us to parcel off the 120 acres in up to 38 grazing paddocks measuring from 1.5 to 4.5 acres with temporary fencing.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
What, when, how and why
We needed to translate our passion and ambition for raising grass fed beef to a marketable product. Since the only necessary and sufficient element of any business is a customer we began looking for who our customer(s) might be. This was not as obvious as it would seem. For example there are feedlots looking for stocker cattle. Marketing to that customer with either a cow-calf operation or stocker feeding wasn't exactly in line with our ideals since what we wanted was to place a unique and healthier product on the dinner table of the end user. We discussed custom grazing or backgrounding cattle from other ranchers. Pursuing that customer also seemed unsatisfying as once again we couldn't control the end product. Perhaps the utlimate direct customers are the ones sitting directly around us. There are many accounts of grass farmers that market their meat products direct to consumers in their community. For us though, this did not make much sense. What we think we can be very good at, what we are passionate about, and what drives our economic engine is producing a high quality, grass finished beef carcass. What we are not as passionate about is advertising, marketing, logistics, and processing that carcass. For our purposes, that seemed like a job better left to those who did feel passionate about those things.
We then started looking at two companies that market grass finished beef directly to consumers - Tallgrass Beef and American Grassfed Beef. These two companies are within a reasonable distance from Springfield and are in the business of processing and marketing the product that we are passionate about producing. We contacted Tallgrass first. Initially what we heard sounded promising. People from that organization would help us find and select the right type of feeder cattle for our purposes and then buy them from us at a premium provided that the cattle met the live ultrasound data required by their customers. This seemed great until we started getting feedback from people who had dealt with them in the past. Apparently Tallgrass has promised more than they have been able to deliver in terms of a market for grass finished beef. As a result, two cow-calf producers that I spoke with had disassociated with Tallgrass and warned me to do the same.
I then spoke to Mark Whisnant from American Grassfed Beef. They run a very similar type of operation as Tallgrass and will help with finding, selecting, and growing grass fed cattle and then will purchase grass finished cattle for their abbatoir and customers. We will wait and see if they are able to deliver on their promises to do what Tallgrass apparently has not been able to do.
We then started looking at two companies that market grass finished beef directly to consumers - Tallgrass Beef and American Grassfed Beef. These two companies are within a reasonable distance from Springfield and are in the business of processing and marketing the product that we are passionate about producing. We contacted Tallgrass first. Initially what we heard sounded promising. People from that organization would help us find and select the right type of feeder cattle for our purposes and then buy them from us at a premium provided that the cattle met the live ultrasound data required by their customers. This seemed great until we started getting feedback from people who had dealt with them in the past. Apparently Tallgrass has promised more than they have been able to deliver in terms of a market for grass finished beef. As a result, two cow-calf producers that I spoke with had disassociated with Tallgrass and warned me to do the same.
I then spoke to Mark Whisnant from American Grassfed Beef. They run a very similar type of operation as Tallgrass and will help with finding, selecting, and growing grass fed cattle and then will purchase grass finished cattle for their abbatoir and customers. We will wait and see if they are able to deliver on their promises to do what Tallgrass apparently has not been able to do.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Thinking, testing, integrating, rethinking
Although we knew that buying the fewest things that would rust or rot for our fledgling cattle operation was a principle that we needed to abide by, we needed a litmus test for what we would help us decide what was absolutely necessary. After significant thought we came up with a two pronged test: we had to use it at least 500 hours per year OR it had to significantly improve the safety of those taking direct care of the cattle. Applying that test we decided to rule in and build the following:
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Getting started
I am creating this blog to both remind myself of everything we have thought about, good ideas and bad, as we try to get our grass finished beef business rolling, and help anyone else interested in starting a similar venture.
We bought our farm a little over two years ago and had it leased out for hay production until the fall of 2007. It was about as simple of an investment as you could have...just sit back and collect a check every 6 months. But our goals have never been limited to simply generate income. We wanted to start a business that reflected our values - values that spoke of who we are and what we hope to become. We chose the grass finished beef business because of our interest in cattle. The challenge that became all too obvious was how to grow a small business in a commodity industry. Knowing that the sustainability of a finished cattle operation even in the largest operations relied on razor thin margins, we began looking for ways to fill a niche market - one that could provide a reasonable profit from 100 head or less. In addition to profitability this niche market had to be one that would also allow us to fulfill our greater, more holistic values of preserving and improving the natural resources of our land - the water, minerals and energy that naturally cycled through our 120 acres. It had to provide us with the opportunity to sell a product that we passionately believed in and be managed in a way that we could involve our children in so that they might understand the inseparable needs of the land, water, livestock and wildlife with our need, no matter what business or industry we are engaged in, to generate profit from those resources without wasting or abusing them.
We began reading. We started with a subsciption to the Stockman Grass Farmer. This publication is a treasure of insights and ideas. After reading the first several editions of our subscription back in early 2006, we began to see an opportunity in grass fed beef that could potentially meet our criteria. We were particularly struck by articles on growing a healthier version of a common product (beef) by subscribing to management principles that by all accounts have been around for tens of thousands of years and actually reflected the inherent desire of the livestock to form herds and graze. What made it even more appealing was the empiric observation that this could be best accomplished by lowering the input costs to the livestock. Thus purchasing anything that 'rusts or rots' or does not contribute directly to the ability of the land to grow more grass or harvest more sunshine must be subjected to strict scrutiny.
Next came books...and more books. We started with a set of books by Allan Nation including: Quality Pasture, Grassfed to Finish, Pasture Profits with Stocker Cattle and Land, Livestock & Life. We also read an excellent book by Jim Gerrish called Management-intensive Grazing and followed that with a 2-day conference here in Springfield, MO put on by the Stockman Grass Farmer where Mr. Gerrish gave about 12 hours worth of lectures. We attended a second conference put on by the Missouri Extension Agency on transitioning land and livestock to organic certification.
By the time we had finished with that initial set of learning, it was April of 2007 and our minds were buzzing with ideas and questions. What type of cattle should we start with, how could we invigorate a new business and stay on top of all the other activities in our lives such as kids, work, exercise, and time with family and friends. I reflected on a comment by Allan Nation in one of his books that I thought was very insightful. He made the case, I thought persuasively, that the highest form of human activity is thinking. In other words, to develop a business requires an extensive amount of time from the owners of that business. If the owners spend their time in the production of the product, there is less time to devote to developing the product, expanding into new products, marketing, managing, setting goals for the future and reflecting on past failures. On the other hand, if the owner's time is spent in those more intellectual pursuits, it is likely that the business will find more value added since it will have leadership and direction on which to set its course. This notion is clearly obvious in larger, publicly traded companies where the upper level management of the organization spends time doing those types of things rather than working on the production or assembly line and at a wage that is significantly higher than that of the production or assemblyman. Similarly if the owner of a cattle operation spends his or her time being a cowboy, that will mean there is less time to be spent on growing the operation and making it more profitable and efficient. Thus it is the thinking, vision, management, and leadership that defines a successful operation from an unsuccessful one.
And so the hard thinking began.
We bought our farm a little over two years ago and had it leased out for hay production until the fall of 2007. It was about as simple of an investment as you could have...just sit back and collect a check every 6 months. But our goals have never been limited to simply generate income. We wanted to start a business that reflected our values - values that spoke of who we are and what we hope to become. We chose the grass finished beef business because of our interest in cattle. The challenge that became all too obvious was how to grow a small business in a commodity industry. Knowing that the sustainability of a finished cattle operation even in the largest operations relied on razor thin margins, we began looking for ways to fill a niche market - one that could provide a reasonable profit from 100 head or less. In addition to profitability this niche market had to be one that would also allow us to fulfill our greater, more holistic values of preserving and improving the natural resources of our land - the water, minerals and energy that naturally cycled through our 120 acres. It had to provide us with the opportunity to sell a product that we passionately believed in and be managed in a way that we could involve our children in so that they might understand the inseparable needs of the land, water, livestock and wildlife with our need, no matter what business or industry we are engaged in, to generate profit from those resources without wasting or abusing them.
We began reading. We started with a subsciption to the Stockman Grass Farmer. This publication is a treasure of insights and ideas. After reading the first several editions of our subscription back in early 2006, we began to see an opportunity in grass fed beef that could potentially meet our criteria. We were particularly struck by articles on growing a healthier version of a common product (beef) by subscribing to management principles that by all accounts have been around for tens of thousands of years and actually reflected the inherent desire of the livestock to form herds and graze. What made it even more appealing was the empiric observation that this could be best accomplished by lowering the input costs to the livestock. Thus purchasing anything that 'rusts or rots' or does not contribute directly to the ability of the land to grow more grass or harvest more sunshine must be subjected to strict scrutiny.
Next came books...and more books. We started with a set of books by Allan Nation including: Quality Pasture, Grassfed to Finish, Pasture Profits with Stocker Cattle and Land, Livestock & Life. We also read an excellent book by Jim Gerrish called Management-intensive Grazing and followed that with a 2-day conference here in Springfield, MO put on by the Stockman Grass Farmer where Mr. Gerrish gave about 12 hours worth of lectures. We attended a second conference put on by the Missouri Extension Agency on transitioning land and livestock to organic certification.
By the time we had finished with that initial set of learning, it was April of 2007 and our minds were buzzing with ideas and questions. What type of cattle should we start with, how could we invigorate a new business and stay on top of all the other activities in our lives such as kids, work, exercise, and time with family and friends. I reflected on a comment by Allan Nation in one of his books that I thought was very insightful. He made the case, I thought persuasively, that the highest form of human activity is thinking. In other words, to develop a business requires an extensive amount of time from the owners of that business. If the owners spend their time in the production of the product, there is less time to devote to developing the product, expanding into new products, marketing, managing, setting goals for the future and reflecting on past failures. On the other hand, if the owner's time is spent in those more intellectual pursuits, it is likely that the business will find more value added since it will have leadership and direction on which to set its course. This notion is clearly obvious in larger, publicly traded companies where the upper level management of the organization spends time doing those types of things rather than working on the production or assembly line and at a wage that is significantly higher than that of the production or assemblyman. Similarly if the owner of a cattle operation spends his or her time being a cowboy, that will mean there is less time to be spent on growing the operation and making it more profitable and efficient. Thus it is the thinking, vision, management, and leadership that defines a successful operation from an unsuccessful one.
And so the hard thinking began.
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