Back Valley Ranch

Hello fellow grass fed beef lovers! I hope you have all had a Happy Holidays and a great 2013 so far. The cold and snow hasn’t slowed down the busy life on the ranch. There always seems to be something going on. I’m still waiting for the day that something will go just as planned but it has yet to happen.

This past few months have been crazy with beef sales. People are starting to realize the health benefits of grass fed beef and we have been getting order after order leaving us now sold out until November 2013! We have now started telling customers that they can put in a standing order for each year so you don’t miss out. So all you have to do is email us at sales@stevesfarm.com, tell us what you want for each year and when and we will make sure to give you that same order every year unless you tell us otherwise. Prices are changing occasionally so you will have to check the website for those updates but you won’t miss out on anymore beef. We are very lucky to be partnered with a great ranch and we are working on one or two more partnerships just a few minutes down the road from us. Not to worry, we are not planning on becoming a big corporation 😉 We will always remain small scale, but we would like to be able to fill our trailer each trip and maybe add a few more trips to the coast a year.

As usual we have had some great times and some bad times on the ranch. In December we lost one of our 20 year old cows Fancy. She fell asleep in a hollow area and then couldn’t get up. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does it’s hard to see. Unfortunately Fancy had a three month old calf, Stretch, on her at the time. Although Fancy wasn’t producing much milk before she dies we were still worried about the fate of Stretch. We tried feeding him milk replacer and he refused. He seemed to be doing alright on the alfalfa field so we let him be. We noticed after awhile that he was stealing milk off a couple of cows. He did this for a couple weeks and was quite healthy. Then, on Christmas day we noticed Stretch didn’t seem to be doing so well anymore. He was weak and not really following with the herd. But when we fed he went to the food and was eating fine. We checked him around midnight and he still seemed okay. The next day though was a different story. He was just laying there and not even going to food. We thought for sure we were going to lose him. So we loaded him into the back of my car and brought him home where we could care for him better. I force fed him milk and we gave him free choice alfalfa. Thankfully it didn’t take him long this time to finally accept the milk replacer and he turned around quickly. He is now healthy again and living at home on milk replacer until he’s old enough to properly wean. He is one strange calf though. Most calves when they are getting fed milk replacer are loud and all over you when you feed. Stretch doesn’t make a sound. He just peaks out of his shelter and patiently waits for you to bring him his feeding. We still have yet to hear him make a sound. A couple weeks ago we brought him home a buddy to keep him company. So now we have Oliver and Stretch at home and they are quite the pair.

We are about to finish our last beef run until the springtime. We will be taking a break for birthing season. Hard to believe that’s just around the corner. It’s already time to vaccinate our pregnant girls with scourguard and then bring them home from their winter pasture. We bring them right into our 3 acre front yard where we can watch them closely and help with any calving issues that may arise. I’m looking forward to seeing the new little babies. I also can’t wait as this will be the first batch of babies that will not only be from our Limousin bulls (who we saw what they can produce already) but from our home grown bulls Brain and Andre. We may not be able to tell who comes from which bull but we will see. Either way it’s some exciting times ahead and I promise to update more often 🙂

We will see some of you very soon when you pick up your beef and again we always appreciate getting to serve such a great bunch of people with healthy beef.