How We Raise Our Cattle (And the Morning Our Backyard Filled With Baby Animals)

Yesterday was QUITE the day here at Dirty Dog Farm.

My wife, Amelia, has a couple of dairy sheep, Doris and Baaabs, who live in a little paddock behind our house with our donkeys. It's an eclectic backyard.....

Last fall we bred them to one of the ram lambs that we were raising on the farm.

And my family woke up to find our first baby lamb, an adorable little black and white girl who Juniper has named Violet.

If you didn't guess, a baby lamb on a beautiful spring morning is unfathomably exciting to a 3 year old.

This is the event of the decade. Move over baby sister who was born 2 months ago. THERE'S A BABY LAMB OUTSIDE!!!!!!

Once that excitement settled down just a tad, I headed off to work and didn't make it across my yard before having a baby chick shoved in my face.

That's right. Baby chicks. Brand new, just hatched baby chickens had started popping out from under a broody mama hen.

At this point my household excitement levels had never been so high. Amelia has fulfilled a lifelong dream of being a dairy shepherd. Juniper was getting whiplash jumping back and forth between our sets of adorable baby animals. Baby Maggie had no idea what was going on but started picking up on the elevated vibes and giggling uncontrollably (a new skill).

Why this scene matters more than it sounds

Amazingly, even for me this stuff never gets old. No matter how many baby animals come and go on the farm, they are always a reminder of why we do this.

These are real living and breathing animals. They have personalities and lives and quirks (and moms).

Yes, they are here to provide food for my family. Meat or milk or eggs. That does mean some of them will die.

The donkeys are purely pets and will possibly outlive me.

But knowing that, it feels like nothing short of a moral responsibility to give them the best lives possible while they are here at Dirty Dog Farm.

How we raise our cattle (and every other animal on the farm)

• Rotational grazing on real pasture
• Natural diets (grass for the cows, bugs and soy-free grain for the chickens, more grass for the sheep)
• Real space to do the things they were built to do
• No hormones, no antibiotics, no shortcuts
• A calm, low-stress life all the way to the very end

Happily, that simple principle also winds up producing the best tasting, healthiest milk/meat/eggs in existence. Instead of the bland, colorless, sad stuff they are passing off at the store.

How this connects to your dinner

Obviously our handful of chickens and one dairy sheep won't even keep up with my ravenous family (we will be sharing with a growing lamb after all), so you're still on your own there.

But we can definitely help you out with the meat part.

Our 100% Grass Fed Beef Shares are the same beef our families eat every single day.

Actually better, we eat anything that comes back with a little freezer burn or other blemish 😂

From cows that grew up on the same rotationally grazed pastures, ate the same grass, and got the same calm, decent life Violet and the chicks will be living. The only difference is yours shows up at your door, frozen, vacuum sealed, and you don't need to negotiate with a toddler about which farm animals are allowed in your kitchen.....

If you want the longer story on the inputs, here's what a Beef Share actually is, and the specific breeds we raise.

If you're ready to get your family off the supermarket beef carousel, you can reserve a Half Beef Share (it comes with a free chest freezer).

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