50 Steers Walk Into a Farm: The Biggest Swing of Our Farming Careers

The other day a batch of steers arrived at the farm.

A big batch.

Fifty steers, to be precise. The Big Five Oh.

This is incredibly exciting stuff for us. It is also the biggest single swing we've taken in the history of running a small grass-fed beef farm.

From 7 cows and bathtub water to 50 steers in an afternoon

Jesse and I started our farm in 2017 with 7 cows and 3 little bull calves. We had no infrastructure. We hauled buckets of warm water from the bathtub all winter because the hydrants weren't in yet. When those first cows hopped off the trailer, we genuinely had no idea if they were going to run right through our electric fence and disappear into the woods of Northern Vermont (where we lived at the time) forever.

So casually receiving 50 steers in an afternoon is….quite the moment.

Obviously we've grown a lot over the years. We do plenty of cattle buying, but it's almost always in loads of 5 or 10 as cash allows.

So going out and convincing Farm Credit (yes there are specific cattle loan banks) to give us a terrifying loan and putting fifty animals on the farm in a single afternoon is a different sport entirely.

It's scary. It's also exactly what we used to dream about when we were carrying those buckets. And we know that in another year or two, when we're taking deliveries of a hundred steers a couple times a year, today is going to feel like the cute little day we got nervous about 50. (This is what I mean when I talk about building this farm for the long run.)

Why we're buying cattle from the farmer down the road

And the coolest part of all of this?

We're getting the cattle from a farmer just a few miles down the road. They have awesome 100% Grass Fed cattle genetics, a ton of land, and for a variety of reasons they prefer to specialize in raising calves rather than finishing them out (and shipping beef and all that).

We're the opposite.

Finishing cattle on grass and filling your (free) freezer with beef is what we do. It's our whole thing. It's why I get out of bed.

So we get to source hyper local cattle, finish them the slow way we believe in, and fill even more freezers with beef better than anything you'll ever find in a grocery store.

The farmer down the road gets to do what he loves. We get to do what we love. Everyone wins.

(If you want the longer story on how we actually finish them, here's how we raise our cattle and every other animal on the farm.)

Why this is happening at all

And it's all because of you.

Because people like you are sick and tired of a system built on efficiency over everything else:

• Throughput > Flavor
• Speed > Animal Welfare
• Profit per Share > The Environment
• Efficiency > Farms and Rural Economies
• Scale > Human Health

You're SICK OF IT (and not just cause its literally making us sick 😉)

The people are demanding something better. And we're fortunate to be one of the small farms doing the work of making it happen.

Fifty steers is still a rounding error

But here's the thing.

Fifty steers sounds like a lot (and trust me, when you're staring at them galloping off the back of the trailer, it IS a lot).

But in the world of American beef, it's a rounding error. The Big 4 packers have slaughterhouses that kill Five, Seven or even TEN THOUSAND head in a single day.....

And yes, that's as gross and insane as it sounds.

So we are still a small farm doing a very specific thing for a specific group of people.

(For more on what that "specific thing" is up against, here's why grocery store beef is watery and who's profiting from it.)

And that group is growing faster than our herd....

So if you've been on the fence, or you've been meaning to reorder, or you've been quietly telling yourself "next batch"….

Now is the time. You can reserve your Beef Share with a free chest freezer here.

Every share reserved is one more vote that this movement is real, and one more reason for Farm Credit to keep approving bigger, scarier loans.

P.S. Not sure what size is right for you? Take our Beef Share Quiz for a personal recommendation. Everyone loves a quiz.