Back Valley Ranch

Hello again everyone. I wanted to dedicate a blog specifically to Hi-Valley Limousin who as most of you know we have recently formed a partnership with. We have been starting to run on short supply of beef as people become more health conscious. There’s also the factor of making sure the animals are humanely raise and treated well throughout their lives. So for a little over a year we have been on the lookout for another ranch to partner with that shares our views.

Last fall we had a terrible set back with our two bulls Rocky and Rudy breaking down. We ended up with half our herd not bred and scrambling to find a bull that would suit our program. We had seen Hi-Valley Limousins site before and had thought the Limousin breed was interesting. We figured that one day we might give a bull a try. Well that one day turned into phoning them at 9:30at night asking if they were around the next day.

Jerry and I drove over with trailer in tow to check out their bulls as they had five yearling bulls currently for sale. We drove to 100 Mile House and met with a very nice couple, Dave and Linda Harvey. The place was beautiful with nice open pastures as far as the eye could see. After introducing ourselves Dave and Linda took us to the pen where they had their bulls waiting. We walked up and saw five very impressive looking young bulls. We asked how tame they were, we just wanted to know if it was safe to enter the pen. Then Linda stated that two of them were even halter broke, haha, so I guess we’re safe. We walked among the bulls and no one seemed worried that there were two strangers in the pen with them. It was a hard decision but we finally selected a bull that you all now know as Optimus Prime.

We went back a week later and bought another bull, Megatron, as there were still a lot of cows that needed to be bred. We were so impressed by the look and temperament of our two new bulls that we started looking more into what kind of stock Dave and Linda raise.

We have some very strict rules to follow when looking for another ranch to partner with. First, the cattle have to be raised from birth to finish on the ranch. Nothing can come from auction as we know nothing about the life before the auction and what may of been put into the animal. This alone made our search difficult as most ranches either raise from birth, sending the babies to auction as weaned calves or ranches buy the weaned calves and then resell them back to auction at just over a year old. Not too many places raise yearlings right from birth. We were happy to see that Dave and Linda did raise their animals right from birth to yearlings. They don’t like the thought of their animals going to feedlots so they wanted them to live as much time as possible with them in a comfortable environment. Plus being registered Limousin they try to raise as much breeding stock to sell as they can so that way their cattle can live even longer lives if possible. The other rules are, no grain, no hormones and no antibiotics. Dave and Linda don’t do any of that with the exception of their breeding bulls which need to be grained so they can get to a good breeding weight. Even then they are grained very little but we wouldn’t be buying the breeding bulls as they go on to other ranches to be used for breeding purposes.

We were very happy to see that Dave and Linda love and raise their cattle exactly like we do. Their cattle graze when there’s grass and get fed alfalfa hay in the winter when the grass is gone. Instead of using hormones to make their cattle grow faster they have spent almost 25 years perfecting this breed to get maximum weight, great temperament and fantastic tasting beef naturally. We mentioned to them a while back about possibly entering into a partnership where they can still raise breeding stock but instead of the remaining yearlings going to auction we will buy them instead.

As of October 31st of this year we picked up for cull cows from Dave and Linda to use for our ground/stew beef orders and our speciality (pepperoni, smokies, sausages, etc.) orders. Just like the two breeding bulls we bought these four girls were very relaxed and easy going about anything we asked of them. This is very important to us as we believe stressed out cattle cause for tougher meat. Next fall we will be getting at least 10 of their yearlings, probably more to add to our program. This is a very exciting time to Back Valley Ranch as we will be able to provide more great beef for all of you.

If you check out www.hivalleylimo.com you can see for yourselves how these cattle our raised and you will find a small write up of us in the beef sales section.