We're Beef Men: Inside a Cattle-Dealing Day at Dirty Dog Farm

This morning Jesse and Jackson are headed off to a neighboring farm to look at about 50 cattle we want to buy this spring.

You might remember that we recently signed a lease to add another 200 acres of pasture to graze this year.

This is awesome, but it also means we’re going to need about 75 to 100 more cattle to eat all that grass.

Which is convenient, because to keep up with orders we need another bazillion cattle, so we’re getting there!

How Grass Fed Cattle Are Sourced (Our Standards)

Obviously the trick is finding cattle that meet our standards....

Lifetime 100% Grass Fed, no antibiotics/hormones/etc., no sprays, good grass genetics, and so forth.

Luckily, there are some amazing farms nearby that are eager to work with us. (For a deeper look at what we put on the ground, here’s how we raise our cattle and what our grass fed cows actually eat.)

Why Small Farms Like Working With Us

Because we deal with two things that a lot of farmers don’t want to do...

• Most farmers don’t want to figure out marketing, selling online, shipping beef, etc. Its a whole other world and (more than) full time job, and most folks just want to spend their time raising cows.
• The other thing most farmers don’t want to mess with is FINISHING cattle on 100% grass. You see raising calves (up to about a year) and finishing cattle are two VERY different things. The different classes of animal require very different management, nutrition, equipment, etc. To the point that it’s generally best to manage them as multiple herds, which is a big pain in the butt (ask us how we know).

It it just so happens that we have spent the last 8 years figuring these two things out.

Which makes us an awesome partner for other small farms.

They get to do what they love doing (produce the best grass fed genetic calves around) and we get to do what we’re getting increasingly good at: finishing the best 100% Grass Fed Beef anywhere, and giving people free chest freezers.

I love it when a plan comes together!

The Bigger Vision: A Local 100% Grass Fed Supply Chain

Our dream is that as we continue to grow, and add more acreage that we’re managing directly, we’ll also be able to persuade more and more small farms to do things our way (aka the right way, obvs) and then let us finish their calves.

The result will be a thriving local supply chain for 100% Grass Fed Beef, making it practical for small family farms to improve their management, providing a path to keep small farms in family hands, and keeping more and more land and cattle out of the industrial system.

When you order a share from us, this is the vision you are helping bring to life: day by day, cow by cow.

It’s much bigger than just our farm, which is a beautiful thing.

How to Be Part of It

If you want to support that mission (while also stocking up on the best 100% Grass Fed Beef in existence), all you have to do is reserve a Half Beef Share with a free freezer or pick a different size that fits your family.

Your Farmer,
Josh

P.S. we’ve been kicking around the idea of partnering with other local farms to offer other meat products (lamb, pork, chicken, etc.). If there is something you are absolutely dying to see us add to the menu, let me know!