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Hosted by @Regenaisanceman with the mission of reconnecting us back to where our food is grown & exposing everything that is wrong with our broken food system. We are more disconnected from our food than we ever have been. I sit down with ranchers and farmers to give them a voice and hear their stories, helping paint a picture of what it really looks like to support humanity with food. I also will be talking to others involved in the agriculture space as there is a lot that goes into it all. My hope is that from hearing this podcast you will begin to question what you eat and where from.
When the pasture's growing, basically, we're moving them every single morning to a new to a new paddock. And then we kinda mimic this in the winter with rolling out the hay in a different spot every day, if that makes sense.
Ryan:So when you say growing season, how long is then? When exactly?
Julie:It's actually like pretty long for us and especially because of the ways that we manage the pasture. And it just depends on the rain as well. But we start grazing normally in mid April. So in mid April, we're on the daily rotations. And that can go through, I mean, in past years, it's gone through December.
Julie:And sometimes we've even gotten grazing days then later, like if all the snow melts in February or whatever and we have grass stockpiled, so that grew higher and then sort of just fell down and wasn't cut for hay, we can graze that too. So we do kind of have an extended growing season, but we do have kind of harsh winters here as well. So you just it's unpredictable with how much snow we're gonna get because the the sheep actually will graze through the snow, but the cows are like Nah. They're, like, kinda lazy about it. They just, like, want the hay.
Julie:They want the ease. Yeah. So then we have no everything's mobile, I love that about about it because I can kind of change our herd size is always growing and changing, and then, like, their grass height is always growing and, you know, changing. And so by keeping everything mobile, I have no permanent structures that I have to work around
Ryan:Yep.
Julie:Which makes it really great for constantly changing the system based on the needs of the animals or the ecosystem. But, yeah, and I can show you, like, I'll let her My parents help me a lot with the farm. It's not their primary occupation. They have an excavating business, which is also very, like, helpful for the farm because he helps me develop the water. So it's like a spring that runs into a holding tank and then overflows.
Ryan:Very cool.
Julie:But we've had pretty much, like, endless water supply through that, so it's been awesome. So we fill the totes and bring the water out to them. So she's just placing a tote right now, and then you guys will probably wanna come in when we are getting connected and everything.
Ryan:It rains here a lot year year long?
Julie:Yeah. Last year, we had a drought year, but this year, we had we've had a lot of rain. So, actually, where we've rotated the cows, we've actually made that we're on the second loop of the same rotation, which is only taking up maybe a third of our grazing acres, which is really cool that we were able to consolidate them to only one third this season. And then we have all of the front pasture that we've reserved for for hay, because we do need a lot of winter feed just because of how big our herd is, and you don't know how long you're gonna need to feed hay or not. So I like to have a lot.
Julie:Basically, normally, doesn't take this long, but because we have, like, a lot of
Julie:wind and and those got detached, and then there's another thing that got detached.
Julie:So I told him, I was like, I have to do, like, a couple of repairs. I hope you guys don't care that I need to, like, work a little bit while you're here. Yeah. We have, like, very low staffing. It's, like, me, and then Sarah works three days a week.
Julie:And, our full time employee, Becca, just got injured. So we're, like, very, like we have a lot going on with, like, a few people. So I'm like, I have to get as much in while she's Oh, she's turning it off. Okay. Yeah.
Julie:So because, so everything that is now our pasture was I just want to let Rocky in so he's not barking. You can come in. He only go under the fence. Since everything that's pasture used to be corn and soy. So that was it.
Julie:It was conventionally farmed before we started farming it in 2020. So it was all corn and soy. And of course, whenever there's crops, you can't have trees, you know, because it would be hard to harvest the crops. So anyway, our pasture is so, you know, there's no trees or any shade for the animals. So we kind of came up with this idea of the shade cloth that spans between our two structures.
Julie:So that's the shade, the original shade structure when we only had like eight cows. That was enough shade for that. And then this is our egg mobile. So that's where all the egg layers lay their eggs and sleep at night. So then we just connect it with bungees and this, little pulley system and yeah, take it down and put it up every day for them.
Ryan:Very cool.
Julie:Yeah, it's great. I mean, I feel like this is like not very expensive. We do go through a few of them a year because the cows like to like get under it and then get stuck in it, And then they like pretend they're a little like ghost cows and like, but then they're like spooked because they're like stuck in the shit. Yeah. So we go through a few, but it's a great option for giving shade to the animals if a farmer doesn't have trees or access to that.
Julie:It definitely helps a lot with the water intake and just keeping them cool.
Ryan:Yeah. Does this help against any predators at all? I guess what are the predators for the lamb and I guess the chickens here?
Julie:So for chickens, we have a lot more predation with our broilers than the egg layers. And I think that's kind of why we have the sheep and cows together because the cows are so big that they really deter like a lot of predators.
Ryan:Especially because it's just straight open.
Julie:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So like we don't really have predator issues with the lambs at all, even like the newborn lambs. Hawks and things, owls will get chickens sometimes, but I think between the structures and the cows, the layers are pretty well protective.
Julie:Definitely had situations where like a fox or something did like a massacre, a big attack, but for the most part it's pretty okay. It's kind of just part of the it's kind of part of like raising animals on pasture. Like you try to protect them as much as possible, but inevitably there's going to be predator loss. But like the other alternative is like no predator loss, but they're completely enclosed. So I would rather, yeah, I think it's about like figuring out the balance, between those two things.
Ryan:Does Rocky help at all with barking? Does that help from the predators at
Julie:Yeah, probably. Because I think that especially around the house, the dogs are so active and there's a lot of activity happening up there. That's where we start the chickens and the brooder up there. And, actually, all of our turkeys are up there too right now. You'll see them.
Ryan:You You had turkeys too. Okay.
Julie:Yeah. Turkeys. Our turkeys, we don't have a ton, but, we've hatched some of our own this year. And so they're all up there. They're kind of just free range.
Julie:They just go wherever. Yeah. I know we have helicopters too.
Ryan:Yeah, with a giant chainsaw. That's just crazy to see in person.
Julie:I didn't have like a specific breed or anything in mind, but I knew I wanted to do heritage breed. And so with the cows, there was a guy in Pennsylvania who was selling his whole herd and they were belted Galloway and they were trained to single strand electric and he was moving them every day. So it was like the exact situation that I wanted. And his whole herd was only eight cows. So it was small.
Julie:And when I bought them from him, he was like, yeah, they were in with a dud bull and they're, they're probably not pregnant. So I picked them up and I took them straight to my friend's, farm who has like a shoot structure set up and we pregnancy checked them all. We just like drew blood from their tails, sent it out and they all came back pregnant. So within like two months the herd doubled.
Ryan:It's how you started.
Julie:Yeah. That's how I started with the cows. Yeah. So that was really cool. And then Rocky.
Julie:Sorry. Don't put that. Our bad dogs that do not help with lives. Usually, they're not out here with me. Well, actually, Miller is my dog, she's always out here with me, but Rocky's Rocky's just, like, here because you guys are here.
Julie:He usually, like, is more chill.
Ryan:He's showing off.
Julie:He's showing off. No. Go over here. Go. Miller, go.
Julie:So, yeah. So we have just since then grown the herd. Like, I've kept all the females and only processed the males. Also in the interim, the same guy whose facility I used, we borrow his bull every fall and then I bought calves from him as well. That's kind of the system for cows.
Julie:But yeah, pretty cool. They do really well. The summer is actually harder on them, I think, than our winters. They get like big furry coats, they're still outside in the winter. They do have more wooded access to have more of, like, a windbreak and bed down, but they do they do really well here year round.
Julie:They're super hardy. And the thing I love about them too is that they really keep their body condition very, very well. Because they are heritage breeds, some of the breeds, as they've modernized them and gotten those breeds to eating grain, they can't sustain on just grass. You know what I mean? But these are true heritage breed, and so they do really well on grass alone even when they're nursing calves, even when it's winter.
Julie:Because of the way that we manage the pastures at being holistically managed, no synthetic inputs, and the rotation, it's the perfect it's the perfect habitat for a lot of the grassland birds that are losing habitat as people are growing grass for hay and spraying it or just not growing pasture at all and just growing crops. So that's really cool because in the spring and early summer when you come out here it's just like full of like eastern meadowlarks and bobolinks and these other grassland species that our populations are declining. And it's just like such a cool part of the way that we do things in the ecosystem and like truly seeing the impact of regenerative agriculture. And I've seen the cows, you know, leave when we move them to the next paddock, I've seen them leave like a tuft of grass around just like a little nest. And I don't know if they did it on purpose or if it's just this beautiful thing that I saw, but it was pretty cool.
Julie:And We do cut the hay later because of that because they need till mid July to fully have hatched, mature, be ready to fly away. The quality of the hay then declines a little bit, but I think it's one of those things where it's like a trade off where the cows can still do well even with that little bit of decline in their hay. In the forage quality, they're still fat in the winter and they're still doing well and they're hardy but then it just allows the birds to be able to to you know more generations to hatch. So yeah we started with pigs and chickens. Had 100 egg layers, 500 meat chickens, and 10 pigs.
Julie:That's what we started with and turkeys too. So that was the first year, which was funny because we have like all this grass, but we started with like no ruminants at all. I don't know why. I think it was a thing where like the pigs I knew of another farm who were family friends that did pigs in the woods. And so it was like same situation.
Julie:Like I didn't care so much about the breed. I just wanted heritage breeds and I just wanted animals that had that lineage that was raised the way that I wanted to raise them. That was the perfect. I knew a good spot to get piglets to start pigs in the woods. I actually wasn't even really that excited about the pigs, but it made sense.
Julie:We have woods, I knew of the place, whatever. Now pigs have become my favorite species for sure.
Ryan:You said you started with the broilers and the laying hens. I'm curious when talking about regenerative agriculture, if that had influence for starting that because whenever folks are starting to learn more and wanting to start their own thing. Mean, Jill Southen talks about starting with broilers a lot. So I didn't know if that had any influence on you on that decision.
Julie:With the broilers, it's like the fastest growing meat. That was the thing. It was like how can I I'm starting this farm in 2020? What is the thing that I can do that will produce meat the fastest? That's why the broilers made sense because I knew that by the end of summer, I could actually have meat to sell where everything else was going to take a year to a couple years.
Julie:A lot. I know. Now we have a self guided tour here too.
Ryan:Do self guided tours here?
Julie:I mean, if I like yeah. Mean, I think I know I know, I know them. They're they're friends. So I but I do just tell people that if they wanna come over, they can walk around and see the animals themselves. It's just I think it's nice.
Julie:I can't because I feel like I don't have enough time to give people proper tours all the time. Sometimes the animals are closer, which is really nice. But yeah, we always let people know when they come to the farm store, feel free to walk around and see the animals. Because I think it's so important for them to not just come here and buy the meat, but them to actually see how it's being raised.
Ryan:Two: And it just helps incentivize them to actually do that. That's why I continue to talk as these visits and everything is you have to kind of incentivize or nudge people to actually take this initiative.
Julie:They wanna know where
Ryan:their fruit comes. Yeah. It's
Julie:so peaceful and beautiful. Last night I was working as I was working late, and I fell to water toad late because we can only fill so many water toads today, I wanted to fill one last night. And all of the lightning bugs were out, and it was so pretty. And I was, like, thinking in my house, like, I wonder if the cows and sheep, like, also think the lightning bugs are pretty. Like, I want you know what I mean?
Julie:Like, I wonder if they're, oh, the lightning bugs are out. And they're also thinking this stuff is pretty that that they see.
Ryan:That's so funny.
Julie:Yeah. I
Ryan:grew up in all those too, so I I can relate to that.
Julie:But, yeah, it's so peaceful. It's so, like it and I think, like, Will Harris this is, a Will Harris quote, but he said, if you can, like, pull up a lawn chair and have a glass of wine and watch the animals, you know it's good animal welfare. You know what I mean? And it's like, I feel like you could just spend a really long time just watching the animals Well, do what they're
Ryan:that's what I was doing half the time whenever you you were kinda walking around was I was just watching their grazing patterns.
Julie:Yeah. Yeah. No. It's cool. Cool to see what they do when they first come over because it's like a big, like, they know, like, okay, this is today.
Julie:I want to find the best stuff before somebody else finds the best stuff, Yeah, you so that little calf is a bottle calf. So her mom rejected her. I'm not sure why or what happened. This is actually the first bottle calf we've ever had though. And so as she's gotten a few weeks older, she's like learned that she can actually go in behind the mama cow between the back legs so that her butt is facing away from the cow's head.
Julie:Normally when the calves nurse, they go in sideways and their head and maybe oh, you can see that one. So see how that one's nursing and the butt is almost if the mom lives on her head, could smell and make sure that was her calf. So that one has learned that if she keeps her butt away from the cow's head, the cow will not realize that it's not her calf, and therefore she can seek milk from every cow.
Ryan:What a sneaky little cat.
Julie:Yeah. When we first had bottle lambs, we took the bottle lambs and we separated them because, I don't know, we just didn't know what to do. We separated them, we bottle fed them, and then when we tried to integrate them back in with the herd, they didn't they thought they they only wanted to be around dogs Yes. Or They were afraid of sheep. Even though they were sheep, they were terrified of the sheep, they just wanted to run away.
Julie:So it took like a while for us to get them integrated. So then we started just actually leaving all the bottle animals out here and bottle feeding them here and they have a much more normal quality of life. And even in this circumstance, she's able to get milk from the moms. If we were to have separated her, you know, she wouldn't she just wouldn't have the same experience. Yeah.
Julie:Yeah. All running around in a circle together and doing Yeah.
Ryan:So what benefits are there to keeping all three animals in the same paddock together outside I know you mentioned with the cows kind of helping with predation. Is there like actual elements to healing this land toward putting them together?
Julie:Yeah. I mean, I think yeah. So like I think the predation is like the big well, so there's multiple things. There's the predation, like the cows deter predators, and so we don't have to worry about the lambs. But then two, it's easier to move one group of animals once a day than move multiple groups of animals once a day.
Julie:If we had the cows and sheep separate, it would be more work for us. And they do really well together. I feel like between the smaller ruminant and larger ruminant, they're grazing things a little bit different enough that getting a more even I mean you can see like it's evenly grazed. The sheep are definitely less picky. So I think the cows will eat, you know, the more desirable stuff and the sheep will eat what would be less desirable for the cows.
Julie:So they're kind of looking for different species of grasses. And then the chickens, I mean, you know, they go through, they kind of scratch out the manure and that helps it to not be like so clumped, you know. But I don't know. I don't know how I mean, like we still have flies. But again, it's like not something I would I wouldn't treat them for flies because you would kill every like if you treated for flies, you would kill the other bugs.
Julie:Yeah, you can. Yeah, so like you need the bugs. So they just have to deal with the flies for a couple months of the year, you know?
Ryan:I've got them. This is cool. It was interesting watching the cows and the sheep together. That's what I was also watching.
Julie:Have you been to any farms where they do that? No. Okay. Yeah.
Ryan:That's why I I was just really watching how they really are work great together.
Julie:They work great together and they are bonded. Like, I feel like anytime a new something new is, like, born, they all, like, investigate. Like, it's, like, they're they're, like, the crazy the crazy ants of yeah.
Julie:Everybody's going to the barn because they don't do it separate.
Julie:No. Right. Like, if yeah. Exactly what Sarah's saying. If the sheep needed to go to the barn to be sheared, every every the cows would go too.
Julie:Everybody would go up. Yeah. You
Ryan:I've never heard that before then. That's interesting.
Julie:Yeah. There's no way to separate them.
Julie:Every single day, that's what they do. They Yeah. At least go together. And sometimes the sheep lead the way and sometimes the cow leads lead the way depending on what's going on. But, like, if one goes, the other will keep trying to go whether you like it or not.
Julie:You might as well just accept they're staying together.
Ryan:Yeah. Now how big do the sheep get?
Julie:Well, they're the biggest, but like, that's an adult. That's an adult you right there.
Ryan:Yeah.
Julie:I think that's Sherman the bottle lamb and he's not quite full grown. But yeah, that's an adult ewe. That's about the size that they get. For example, the hang weight, when we process them is between thirty five and forty five pounds is the hang weight. It gets up there.
Julie:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then that one goes on there.
Ryan:I love all the moss and the rogues. Yeah.
Julie:That?
Ryan:Yeah, so we're in the muddy well, just rained a lot, so it's quite muddy. As you can see from this, that's where these pigs previously were, got moved here. And so we actually had to move the two shelters back there from pretty much the mud pits to that. It took all four of us. It was a lot of farms.
Julie:Yeah, so Firefly Farms, which is an accident, it's just a town over. They're a really big cheese maker. And so when during the cheese making process, what gets separated out is all of the water content and the whey protein from the milk. So it just goes into a big, like, cold holding tank, and we just pick it up for the pigs. So we use the large IBC totes that are like 300 gallons, and we go pick it up a couple times a week, and then we just feed it out to them.
Julie:So it's 90% water and 10% whey. So it looks like milk. So they drink it as they would drink water, but they like it. They like it more than water because it has like the whey protein in it. And I think it definitely impacts the flavor of the pork as well.
Julie:It just makes it makes them that much more awesome. But it's cool because it's like, it's just a byproduct. Like, would they have no real outlet for the whey because they're not scaled enough that it would make sense for them to invest in a human grade equipment or dehydrate it and sell it as a protein. It's like, it just yeah. So there's other pig farmers that pick it up too in the area.
Julie:So we're really fortunate to have that. And like, yeah, the pigs love it.
Ryan:And then how much whey do you feed them?
Julie:I mean, they probably each drink like, five gallons three to five gallons of whey a day.
Ryan:Wow. I didn't I was waiting for the last part, and you said day.
Julie:That's crazy. That's a Yeah. They drink a lot of they I can't believe they can drink that much. But that's the other reason why they don't really drink water because they get all of the water through that way. Yeah.
Julie:They love it. He's so he's rooting a big So they root for multiple different reasons. Like, they root to find food underground, but then they also root to just make little beds. Like, I think that's probably, you know, partially what he's doing right now. Like, the deeper he roots, the cooler it is, so then he'll lay down there.
Julie:But it's totally, like, their most, natural instinct is yeah, he's making a bed. So it's totally their most natural instinct is rooting behavior. Like, I always say that they root even when they're in their mom's bellies because if you feel them in there, and I swear it's just their little snouts, you can feel against the mom's belly. And then they start rooting as soon as they come out. And you can see the design of them is they have these really short, thick necks and these really long and strong snouts that are you know, just make them, like, the perfect excavator.
Julie:But then they have, like, these tiny little delicate hairs on the end of their nose so they can, you know, find it's, like, the strongest but most sensitive thing at the same time. They love they also love hiding behind trees. Yeah. And then, like, looking around the tree.
Ryan:Like little puppies.
Julie:Oh, so they're back there nursing. When they first have litters, they have really big litters and then like almost like too big. Like their first litters are always like almost too many piglets. Then their second, third ones are like good, you know, good sizes. And then, so like spuds is probably getting closer to being, you know, she's like done because she only had six piglets this litter where like her last one was like 10.
Julie:Cowgirl has 10. That's like a strong, a strong litter is like 10. 10 is like a good number. But sometimes, I mean, I've seen them have like 14. It just depends.
Julie:But yeah, we don't, wean, so we don't ever set, well, like at some point, you know, they'll obviously get separated from the pigs, but we don't separate them before they're done nursing. The moms will just naturally kick them off by like three months. And it's like they have enough space, you know, to get away from the piglets. It's not like they're in a confinement situation where like they can't get away from the nursing piglets and therefore you have to wean. They can do it very naturally where they're just like, can get away from them or kick them off or just lay down on their stomachs.
Ryan:That's what they do, lay on their stomachs to
Julie:They'll say, I'm lay on their stomachs when they don't want them to nurse. And then, yeah, and then they roll on their sides when they do, you know, when it's like time, like, and they do a lot of little they have a very different oink, like a very maternal, almost like a singing to their piglets oink when the piglets are nursing. So it's cool. They all have unique voices too. I don't know if that's the case for like all species, it could be.
Julie:But yeah, so all the pigs have their own voices, even though they, you know, to us it's like indistinguishable. But I heard that and I didn't really, you know, connect the dots until I had taken a video in another paddock of pigs. And then I visited another group of pigs and I was like uploading it to Instagram and the pigs heard the video of the other pigs from another group snorting and they were all like on alert. They were like, like they couldn't figure out where it was coming from or who those pigs were that they were hearing. So that was really cool.
Ryan:That's gotta be wild
Julie:Yeah.
Ryan:To just randomly experience that.
Julie:Well, like, look at them. They're so happy. They're just like
Ryan:Just munching and enjoying them in the
Julie:woods. Yeah.
Ryan:How old are the piglets?
Julie:So some of them were born June 28, so like three weeks old. And then some of them are like a week and a half old. Yeah. So there was like a week and a half gap between between the litters. Such a misconception about what pigs eat because it's like they are omnivores.
Julie:Like they eat basically everything, you know, they eat plant tops, they eat plant roots, they eat bugs, they eat nuts.
Ryan:That's also the interesting misconception too, because most of the pig industry is so destroyed and what most people see is what they see from confinement areas, the stuff they're fed there is just horrific.
Julie:Yeah. I know it's yeah. Like they have such a diverse diet because they have all of this forage and because of the frequency of movement. I do think what we said, it's hard figuring out the balance between how often to move pigs, but realistically, you know, not everybody moves their pigs as often as we do. So like just, but having the access to the forage just gives them such a more diverse diet.
Julie:And it really impacts the flavor. Like, I think it's so interesting. It's the same thing with grass fed beef. Like I'm sure, you know, all grass fed beef tastes different because of different grasslands, different species. And it's the same thing with the pork.
Julie:Like it tastes different, different times of year based on what they're foraging. I think that's like how meat should be. It should change flavors. You should be able to have distinctions. But whenever the animals are raised in these confinement large factory settings, they're fed the same thing.
Julie:It's like the most consistent meat ever at the grocery store where like this steak is always going to taste and smell and look this way. And it just kind of, like, is a really bad way to raise animals, but also it takes the whole fun out of, like, how meat should taste and be. Mhmm. Nuanced.
Ryan:Well, I forgot. It's I don't know if it was a documentary or the book about finding the best steak, the guy said essentially the best steak in the world he's ever had and the worst steak in the world he's ever had is grass fed and finished. It's because that just shows Yeah. How big the spectrum is.
Julie:Totally. Find any manure too, but it is
Ryan:No, there actually is over here.
Julie:It is really cool to see how
Ryan:There's been
Julie:Just like, I think like the mycelium, everything is just like, the manure breakdown happens so much more rapidly in the forest than even in the pasture. Yeah. I think it's just because of all of the mycelium and fungi and this isn't a great example. Yeah, so there's no bad odor. It smell like a manure, it doesn't smell like a barn at all.
Ryan:Well, that's a good point too. Not even the barn, because the one thing that I learned quick was whenever driving past farms, it's not supposed to smell terrible.
Julie:Yeah. No.
Ryan:And so now I realize, oh, that's a sign of mismanagement. Yes. Every time I drive past one, because even like in West Texas, where there's a lot of cattle feedlots and whatnot, you can smell it from miles away.
Julie:Oh, yeah.
Ryan:And here, yeah. I'm so used to it now, visiting all the farms that are doing it, I'm so used to not even having that to where I'm just now realizing whenever you mentioned the smell, was like, yes. I completely forgot about that.
Julie:Yeah. It's something I talk about, like, when people are coming for tours because, yeah, you don't think about it. And then it's like you say, and you're like, oh my gosh. Yeah. There is no smell.
Julie:It just smells like we're in the forest. It doesn't smell like there's livestock being raised here. And it's because of the movement. Really, it's because there's not a stockpile of manure. The animals aren't staying in the same place for too long.
Julie:And then what's happening is that the soil is just using that manure as just fertilizer. And then it's getting broken down naturally. They're getting curious now.
Ryan:Smile for the camera.
Julie:They literally have, like, one thought at all times, and it's like, is this food?
Ryan:Yep.
Julie:This something that I can eat?
Ryan:Is this rubber boot?
Julie:Yes. They just they just My like
Ryan:brain is very similar. Yeah.
Julie:They're so cute. I love it when they, like, they come out behind the trees. Like, they're, like, hiding, but then they're The other thing is that pigs don't really have sweat glands, so they don't release heat the same way that humans do. So they don't have that odor either.
Ryan:And I know that's why they burrow a lot too Yeah. To pull
Julie:That's why.
Ryan:Do piglets burrow as much?
Julie:No, yeah, they do too. They'll like they use mud as cooling mechanism. Yeah. So that's why you'll see muddy pigs is because that's a cooling. And like the whole conception that pigs like you have pig sty or like pigs are messy or dirty is like so not.
Julie:Like They even have select areas that they'll go to the bathroom in and then areas that they eat. You know what I mean? You can see where they've collectively decided, okay, this is the bathroom area. It's interesting.
Ryan:Well, that's why I feel like I mean, there's always misconceptions for every animal and farming and ranching in general. But to me, there's the most misconceptions around the pig because of social media, but then all the factory farms and the fact that there's not many people like you actually doing this anymore in America. And then thinking on there's like the whole parasite aspect too, because that's another thing I've seen people latch onto online to where they will refuse to eat any pork because they believe that in They're
Julie:embarrassing too.
Ryan:That's cool. But yeah, they believe that all of them just come with parasites. Do you ever get questions like that from customers?
Julie:I don't get No. I actually have not gotten the parasite question a lot. But I get what you're saying. I agree. I think it's like the most misunderstood species and maybe that's why it's like my favorite because I feel like I have to defend it because they're so cool.
Julie:And I think it's also like I will say of pork that's like if you're talking about animals raised on a regenerative farm versus meat from the grocery store, the difference between the forest raised pork and pork from the grocery store is like the biggest difference. Know what I mean? If you were looking at grass fed beef versus conventional beef, like the gap is closer. Way Pork is like almost not even the same species because they're raising industrial breeds that have lighter meat, that have less fat, that are like, you don't get the nuance in flavor, you don't get the really delicious fat, you don't get like the deep rich flavor. And so like, I think that has given pork a bad wrap because I think in my opinion, it is the best protein.
Ryan:I haven't had grocery store pork in. I can't even remember the last time I went because I just do not trust that at all. No. Even before visiting farmers and ranchers, never did because it always I just remember it just always tasted so nasty and I wouldn't feel that great. Because I talked to another, he's a pig farmer around SF and he talks about how there's so many customers to where they wouldn't eat pig pork for years, but then they tried his and they could finally start digesting it again.
Julie:Yeah.
Ryan:She's like, that in itself is very telling.
Julie:Yeah, I've heard people say that they have pork allergies and I don't know exact it's like, I don't know what Well, I think it's the most diverse protein, like it's breakfast, breakfast, lunch and dinner, you know? And it's also like the only animal that you're getting like full charcuterie out of. And like also people try to recreate the coveted bacon. You know what I mean? People are trying to make turkey bacon, mushroom bacon.
Julie:It's just, yeah. I think it's so diverse and that you can And I feel like it's used among so many different cuisines too. Cultures, yeah.
Ryan:You guys sold it?
Julie:Yeah. Yeah. Well, I have to go to the farm store too, and I'll show you guys the farm store. So we do send our fat out for fatty acid analysis too because that's another major argument even in like regenerative or carnivore that's basically pushing to eat grass fed beef because pigs and chickens are fed corn and soy. But the thing is that I hate that so much because there are people like us who feed the pigs diets that we do no corn, no soy, and all of our feed is certified organic.
Julie:And we've sent it out for fatty acid analysis and the linoleic acid is like 4.1%, which is like on par with like grass fed beef. So there's no difference in the poofas in the meat or the fat. And I think we should be pushing for more people to eat pork and chicken that's raised that way instead of just dismissing those proteins because those animals are really, really useful. Look around. What other species could we put in here?
Julie:You know, you couldn't raise cows in here. There's not enough forage for them. Or you would have to take out a lot of trees in order to turn it into a silvopasture, which would be taking away a lot of habitat for other species. So it's like pigs do really well in here and we have the land and space and it creates this really amazing protein. So I think there should be more people advocating for like eating pork that's raised this way or eating chicken that's raised that way.
Ryan:That's what I'm trying to do with pork in particular because in America, just going back to the grass fed thing that you were talking on, so many Americans, I've said this on the first visit with other pig farm that thyroid health is really under discussed in America. And when talking on vitamins, B1 is huge for that. And when you think of the actual protein sources and one of the best ones of that is pork. And so if we have good sources of that, I think that could really help with health too in America, especially with women. Because I don't know, to me I think that is the most, I mean, have Hashimoto's of my thyroid and it's, I think a lot of people don't realize that that's one of the key issues of their health is their thyroid health.
Julie:Yeah. Yeah. That's a really cool point too. I've had several customers also, and this would be like for a majority of small farms because they're all processing the same way. Because the question that comes up is like, do you have any fresh meat that's not frozen?
Julie:But then on the other end of the spectrum, it's like I have customers who specifically want the meats that we raise and the exact way that we process it, where it's like slaughtered and then hung and then it's cut. And immediately upon being cut, it's vacuum sealed and frozen. And that just stops it prevents so much bacteria from getting to that meat. And, because what's happening is that it's like, you know, meat at the grocery store or if it's cut, then it's exposed and then the histamines are increasing. So and that's causing people having a lot of a lot of issues with that.
Julie:So it's like getting through to people that like, this is actually so fresh because it's cut and packaged and immediately frozen. It's not sitting around and then packaged or and then frozen is another educational component, I think, that some people realize and some people are looking for, and then some people don't realize why it would be beneficial to buy the frozen, you know, the frozen meat from the local farm. Well, for example, like meat that's sold at the grocery store, that could have almost even been pre frozen as well. Because like if you think about a grocery store, okay, they're getting meat in larger pieces, whether it's like a quarter or like a loins coming in or whatever, and then the butcher shop at that grocery store is then breaking it down, and then they're like putting the cuts out in the cooler. So like who knows where the meat even came from or, you know what processing facility or like went through Cisco.
Julie:So it could have been previously frozen in like a larger chunk. And like I don't even know the time window between that. And then they're cutting it and then they're putting it on display and I'm not sure exactly how many days they can leave it on display before they have to then, okay, package it and put it in the other refrigerator case. And then they freeze it. So it's like how much exposure that meat has had and how much less fresh it actually is, even though to the consumer it's perceived as fresh because it's not frozen.
Julie:But it's been like up and down and it could have been frozen before and then defrosted.
Ryan:That's just crazy just hearing you explain all that on top of like just the conditions they're raised and then the feed and all of that combined. It's no wonder you literally can't digest that stuff because it's hot garbage.
Julie:Yes. It's like, right. It's exposed to so much and it's, yeah, it's definitely just best to like, to know your farmer and buy your meat from them.
Ryan:Do you process on farm here?
Julie:We do not process on farm because everything has to go through a USDA inspected facility for us to sell. So all of the animals we take on the stock trailer to a federally inspected facility for slaughter and breakdown and packaging, and then we get the meat back.
Ryan:Is that difficult to schedule? Because I know that's a massive bottleneck, is the whole processing in America.
Julie:So it was challenging at first, and I had a really hard time getting in. But now that I've been a little bit more established, I actually have like preset appointments. But yeah, like you have to, like I have appointments set out for a year, which that kind of creates a little bit of like, because I don't know exactly how many pigs I'm going to have because it depends on litter size. It does require, like you have to have those appointments in advance and then you have to kind of figure out how many. And sometimes I am kind of scrambling last minute to call other processors if I have more pigs than I have appointments for or more cows than I have appointments for and to get in those last minute appointments.
Julie:It's not like, oh, I have an animal ready. I can just call and go that week. It's like, yeah, it's like a year in advance.
Ryan:I remember my wake up call was 2022 in June. I was visiting a ranch in Colorado. We went to the processing facility. He was having it processed for September of the following year. And
Julie:Yeah.
Ryan:Yeah, that's when I learned that that's tough.
Julie:It is tough. And it's like the other thing is like the cows, like it's such a you just don't know exactly when they're gonna be ready. And then it's like, if they're not quite ready for that appointment, like, do you do if you can't get another appointment? Like, it's like, do you just slaughter because even though it's a little bit less, you know, it's a little bit smaller than you wanted? Or do you wait longer?
Julie:It's like, yeah, trying to make those, like, those decisions. We have, I mean, sometimes so like we do a friends and family fourth of July pig roast. And so for that, we'll do that on the farm. We'll just slaughter and do the scalding and scraping on the farm. And I love that because it's like, the way that we raise, I mean, they're born in the forest.
Julie:They spend every single day in the forest. Their hooves have never touched anything except for the soil. They've never known synthetic lights, you know, they only know sunlight and moonlight. And then they get loaded on a stock trailer and then they get unloaded at a facility where they're stepping onto concrete. And then they're like, all these lights, you know?
Julie:And so, I think that's, like, the the kind of the toughest part is that, you know, their last moments are in just like this totally different environment that they've never been exposed to. But whenever I am able to do the harvest on farm, it's like they're just in the woods, they're just eating, and then it's like basically just lights out. It's the most humane sort of way to do it, but yeah, there's no other way to get around the regulations. There's no way to get around the regulations. They have to go to federal facility for us to sell the meat.
Ryan:Yeah. I can notice the subtle size differences between them now too.
Julie:Look at that one going over the log.
Ryan:He's just chilling. I'm so glad you
Julie:talked But they love play. They love playing. Like, I think they're also much more, like, athletic than people think they are. Like, they really can, like, get around and and jump over things and whatnot.
Ryan:And they're so fast when they
Julie:Oh, yeah. They're so fast. They, like, dart arounds.
Ryan:Yeah. And then that was oh, wait. I was gonna say he was chilling and then he just got up.
Julie:But, no, it's, like, it's a super great life. Like, it's a super great life for them. I think it's like a karma thing too. It's like, I don't know, wouldn't you want to raise meat from animals that is that have this, like, happy natural life, like they're you know, versus like an animal that was, like, stressed and wasn't able to express its natural instincts. And then it's like, that's what you're using to sustain your life versus like this that's like feeding.
Julie:It's all kind of part of this beautiful system.
Ryan:Yeah, you don't see zoomies inside of pig refinement area, that's all
Julie:we No, have you been in one? No. So during COVID, there was a whole bottleneck because basically what happened is that there were like COVID outbreaks in slaughterhouses, which shut down the slaughterhouses. And everything is on a very strict schedule. Like pigs are finishing out, they need to go to slaughter, and there's more piglets that are born that are taking their place in that facility.
Julie:So like, you can't just wait a couple weeks. I mean, we're talking like millions of animals, like, or hundreds of thousands. If one large scale slaughter facility gets shut down for a week, it's like, well, I don't know, 100,000 animals. It's something like massive that then can't be processed. Okay, so there were like farms in Ohio that happened, the slaughter facility shut down, and they were going to either have to euthanize the pigs because there was nothing else to do with, like any pigs that basically they put it out there that we're selling pigs for this amount, they're finished, but you have to take them live, have to figure out slaughter, or else they're getting euthanized.
Julie:Like that was the deal. And they were like a pretty low price, I don't know, 150 or something for like a full size pig, just so that the farmer could recoup some of that, you know? So we took a stock trailer and just put in as many as we could fit. I think it ended up being like $20 that was the first time I was ever in a factory farm and I was just like and we had pigs here at the time and I was just they were so different. Like when we brought them here, we had set up an area in the barn with a fenced in area outside of the barn.
Julie:We were only keeping them for maybe three days before we were doing the slaughter and then we just donating the meat. So, I mean, they like didn't know like what to do. Like, they didn't know, like, what grass was. Like, they didn't you know? And then they cut off all their tails, which is also, like, just they just didn't even look like our pigs.
Ryan:Yeah. Dystopian.
Julie:Yes. They just looked like
Ryan:mean, a pig factory.
Julie:Meat creature, like monster. Like, I don't know how to describe it. Like, I don't wanna talk yes. Like it was, like, sad that the pigs are bred to like look and live like that. And then it's sad that we eat that.
Julie:And then the conditions it's like, imagine living hard surface your whole life. You never get to like touch, do all of the things that your body is saying like, this is what I'm designed to do. This is what I'm meant to do. This is what my instinct is to do, is to root. And they never get opportunity to do that.
Julie:It's just, it's really, it's sadder in person than even like the pictures and videos.
Ryan:I can only imagine.
Julie:What was
Ryan:it the smell too? Was it bad there?
Julie:No, the smell wasn't bad. And I think that was because they have like the grated floors. So basically those grates, like the floors are open enough that they can be sprayed down, so all the manure, which is another thing that I talk about with people because I'm like, it almost is better to buy meat from a factory farm pig than like a farmer who's small scale but like keeps them in the barn their whole life. You know what I mean? Because it's like the fat facility is more set up to keep the space really clean, to make sure the animals are healthier, you know?
Julie:Like Yeah. Yes, versus like a farmer that just raises pigs in a barn because that's what they learn in four H and that's how their parents raise pigs in a barn. Then the pigs, whatever, they clean their stall once a You know what I mean? There's living in.
Ryan:Absolutely. Yeah. I'm sure if there's things going on in the farm, they're just not going to pick that back up or just leave them behind essentially of the conditions they're already in.
Julie:Yeah. I think one of the biggest pros too from a human labor standpoint is we never have to clean shit. We just move the animals, and that's it. We don't have to shovel manure ever. That is not part of my job whatsoever.
Julie:Would
Ryan:you still be doing it if you had to do that?
Julie:Well, the worst part is when with the brooder. Like, because the when the chickens come, they have to be inside until they get feathers. They're mimicking, like, a mom laying on them. So we do have to clean out the brooder, and everybody hates that job. Like, hates that job.
Ryan:I remember doing that.
Julie:Yeah. So I guess we do shovel a couple times times a year. But for the most part
Ryan:She's
Julie:at least she's not barking. She's not barking. Just like the years, I've just had different thing would be like to show you guys the garden. We built the farm. So this building was here, but we transitioned it into the farm store a couple years ago, which is awesome because before that people could buy from us and we were doing markets, which we still do farmer's markets, but I just love people coming onto the farm because I think, like, it's so important for people to just be on the land where the animals are raised, to have the opportunity to see the animals, and just that full transparency, like, because I think going to a farmer's record is great.
Julie:Of course, you can access a lot more people, but they're still reading off of a, you know, a sign or I'm telling them it's so kind of like similar to the grocery store, where they don't get to like really see where the food is produced.
Ryan:Yeah.
Julie:So I love that people can come here, and then they can shop the glass freezers, because again, it's like, you're getting the balance between what people are used to, which is like seeing the meats, you know, not reading off of a menu of what they're gonna buy. So they can see everything and we can talk about everything. So right now we have chicken. So we don't, we didn't get to see any broilers today because we don't, we're in between batches, but we have all of our pasture raised chicken in the first quarter, all of the forestry's pork in the second one, and then grass fed lamb and our grass fed beef.
Ryan:What's cool for this though is, for example, I picked up a pork tongue and a kidney. So that's something you don't get really in grocery stores.
Julie:Yes. And then this too, the Oh wait, let me pull a different one that says Copa on it. Yeah. So this is a Copa steak, so it's pork, but it's kind of a cut that I don't think a lot of small farms would carry. I don't even think a lot of grocery stores would carry.
Julie:It's a muscle in the upper shoulder and it's the same muscle that they would make like Capacola out of. But we just get it cut into steaks, like it's uncured, so it's just fresh. And I just cook it exactly how I would cook a beef steak. Like I just cook it medium rare, and it's like beautifully marbled and delicious. So this is like another special thing that you can get here.
Julie:And then the bone broth is new as well. So I found a facility that was able to make us the bone broth, which is great. So yeah, everything has to have the USDA stamp for us to sell it in the store. So sometimes, you know, that can be challenging to get exactly what what you want. Like, I've wanted to be able to sell bone broth, I hadn't found a facility that actually did bone broth that was USDA inspected.
Julie:So finally finding one has been cool because now I have the pork stock, the beef stock, and the chicken stock.
Ryan:Welcome to the REGENESANCE podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Griggs. Visit www.theregenaissance.co to learn more.