100% grass-fed & finished
Pasture April–November, our own hay December–March. No corn, no grain, no distillers' grain, no "finishing ration." Not even as a treat to move them.
How we raise
What "grass-fed" means here
"Grass-fed" on a grocery label can mean a steer that ate grass for a while and then finished on corn in a feedlot. On this ranch it means grass, hay and water from the day a calf is born to the day it leaves for the locker. Here's exactly how that works, season by season, so you can decide for yourself.
No hormones, no antibiotics
No growth implants, no ionophores, no antibiotics in feed or water. A sick animal is treated — and then sold at the sale barn, never as our beef.
Daily moves
The herd gets a fresh paddock every morning and doesn't come back to it for 45–60 days. That's what keeps the grass growing and the parasites down.
Local, inspected processing
Fjelstad Locker in Cresco, 22 miles away. State-inspected, family-run, 14-day dry age. We haul them ourselves, in the morning, in small groups.
Grazing
420 acres, 38 paddocks, one herd
The home farm is 420 acres of Driftless hill ground: steep enough that it should never have been row-cropped, which it was, badly, until Grandpa Arne seeded it back to pasture in the 1970s. Today it's a mix of orchardgrass, meadow fescue, red and white clover, birdsfoot trefoil and whatever the birds bring in. We've added no synthetic fertiliser since 2012; the cattle do that job.
From mid-April to late November we move the whole herd — about 110 cows, their calves and the finishing steers — every day with portable polywire. Each paddock is roughly 11 acres. They graze the top third of the plant and leave; the rest regrows for 45–60 days before they see it again. Stocking is kept light enough that we have grass left standing in August when neighbours are feeding hay.
Winter is bale grazing: round bales set out on the poorest paddocks in a grid, fence moved every few days. The waste hay and manure rebuild those fields. The herd stays outside all winter with a windbreak of white pine and the oak woods for shelter. Water is from two spring-fed lines and three frost-free tanks.
Steers finish at 24–28 months, 1,150–1,350 lb live, on fall grass. That's why most of our beef is processed November through February: that's when they're fattest.
Health
What we do when an animal gets sick
Honest answer: it happens, rarely. Pinkeye in a dry August, a bad foot, a calf with scours. We treat it. Sometimes that means an antibiotic, because letting an animal suffer to protect a label is not something we'll do.
That animal gets an ear tag and a note in the herd book, is held the full withdrawal period and then some, and is sold through the sale barn in Decorah. It is never processed as Red Gate beef. We've done that for 11 head in the last ten years out of about 1,400.
What we never use: growth-promoting implants, ionophores (Rumensin), sub-therapeutic antibiotics in feed, or synthetic wormers on a schedule. Parasite pressure is handled by the long rest between grazings and by the chickens scratching the pats apart.
Why Red Angus
We switched from a Hereford-Angus cross to purebred Red Angus in 2009 because they finish on grass alone, calve easily, and stay calm in the handling pen. A calm animal has better beef; stress right before processing tightens the meat and darkens it. The herd has been closed since 2014 — every animal we sell was born here, to a cow that was born here.
Processing
From the pasture to the locker
Processing day is a Thursday. We sort the steers the evening before into the pen by the red gate, so they're calm and together, and trailer them 22 miles to Fjelstad Locker in Cresco first thing in the morning — no overnight in a strange yard, no long haul. They're processed within two hours of arrival.
Fjelstad is a state-inspected plant under the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. An inspector is on the floor on every kill day. Shares are processed as custom-exempt (your animal, your cut sheet, "Not for Sale" stamp, exactly as the law requires); cuts for the freezer store and bundle boxes are processed under inspection so we can sell them by the piece.
- Dry-aged 14 days on the rail before cutting
- Vacuum-sealed (not paper-wrapped) so it keeps 18+ months
- Each pack labelled with cut, weight, date and your name on shares
- Hanging weight comes off a certified scale; you get a copy of the ticket
Pigs & poultry
The hogs
Berkshire × Duroc pigs farrow in huts on pasture and move at eight weeks to 14 acres of oak and hickory woodlot, divided into four paddocks they rotate through. They're fed a non-GMO barley-pea ration milled in Ossian plus whey from Calmar; no antibiotics, no ractopamine. They're processed at Fjelstad at 8–9 months.
The chickens
Broilers live in 10×12 ft floorless field pens moved daily across the pasture the cattle grazed three days earlier. Processed on-farm under the Iowa 1,000-bird exemption, with a mobile scalder and plucker, chilled in ice water and bagged the same morning. Laying hens live in two Eggmobiles that follow the herd.
Come and see
The best proof is a walk through the pasture
We don't carry a third-party certification. The audits cost about what a used stock trailer does and we'd rather you came and looked. Pasture walks are the first Saturday of May, July and September at 10 am. Any other Saturday morning, ask at the store and someone will take you out.
Water & soil
Spring-fed water, no feedlot runoff, 40 ft grass buffers on both creeks. Soil organic matter has gone from 2.1% to 4.4% on the worst fields since 2012.
Our own hay
About 600 round bales a year off 90 acres we cut once in June and let regrow for fall stockpile. Nothing bought in, so nothing sprayed that we don't know about.
Pasture walks
May 2 · July 4 · Sept 5, 2027, 10 am. Wear boots. Kids welcome. Coffee and a few samples on the grill after.