The ranch
"Two veterinarians walked into a pasture… and never left."
Nick & Kristen
We met as veterinarians. We bought our first head of cattle as a side project. The side project became the main thing.
We live and work in Ontario, Oregon. Our pastures stretch across the Idaho border — three hundred acres of grass, sage, sky, and the occasional surprise calf. Our herd is small enough that we know every animal and large enough that we take it seriously.
We came to ranching with a vet's eye: a healthy animal is a well-cared-for one, and well-cared-for animals make the kind of beef we want to feed our own family. Now we're growing that family — our first child arrives any day — and the ranch with it.
"We know every animal by name. We know the land by season. The beef comes after that."
The land
Eastern Oregon and western Idaho — high desert pasture, big sky, real seasons.
The pasture sets the pace through most of the year. We move cattle to follow the grass — about 1.2 head per acre, rotated to let the soil recover. Some years are long and green; some are dry and slow.
For the last stretch before harvest, we shift to grain finishing. The grass does the work for the long part of the life. The grain handles the finish. Both deliberate, neither hidden.
We chose this country on purpose. It's the kind of place where you remember food begins long before dinner.
Our philosophy
We don't think raising cattle should be loud. No proprietary system, no marketing lab, no claims we can't back up.
What we do: we watch. We move them when it's time. We treat them when they need it. Pasture for most of their life, grain at the finish, processing at a butcher we trust. And we sell directly to the people who eat what we raise — because that's the only way to keep the chain short and the trust intact.
If you've read this far, you probably get it.
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