Protocols

Our animals are out on pasture year round, not just in the good months. Animals on grass move around, get sun, and behave like the animals they are, which keeps them healthier and heads off most of what you'd otherwise have to manage. It's better for the ground, too. Hooves and manure spread across a field feed the soil in a way a barn never will.

Every animal we sell was raised here in Sparks by our family. We don't buy animals in from sale barns to fill out an order, which means there's no gap in the story and nobody else's practices mixed in with ours. If you ask us what an animal ate or how it lived, we're not checking with a supplier. We were there for it.

We never give our animals added growth hormones. Nothing to speed up how fast they grow or change how they put on weight. It means our animals take longer to finish than they otherwise would, and we're fine with that. Growing at their own pace is part of why the meat turns out the way it does.

Our animals don't receive vaccines. That's a choice you can only make with animals you've raised yourself on ground you control and eyes on them every day. It takes more attention rather than less. We'd rather do that work than have to add a qualifier when you ask us the question.

Our animals don't receive antibiotics. We put the effort in on the front end instead: fresh air and sunshine, clean housing, room to move, good feed, and daily attention, so problems don't get started in the first place. That's more labor than reaching for a treatment when something goes wrong, and it's the trade we'd rather make.

Our meat is frozen the same day it's butchered, and it's frozen quickly after cutting rather than slowly in a standard freezer. Freezing fast makes smaller ice crystals, and smaller crystals do less damage to the muscle. When you thaw it, it holds onto its juices instead of leaving them on the plate, which is why properly frozen meat eats much closer to fresh than most people expect.

Every animal is processed at a USDA-inspected facility. That's required by law for anyone selling meat by the cut, so it isn't a choice we get any credit for making. What's worth knowing is what it actually involves: an inspector examines every animal before and after harvest, the facility runs to documented sanitation and temperature protocols, and every package traces back to a specific animal and processing date. 

Every package is sealed tight with the air pulled out. Air is what causes freezer burn and off flavors, so removing it is what lets a package sit in your freezer for a year and still be worth cooking. It also means you can see exactly what you've got without unwrapping a thing.

We raise Black Angus because the breed does well on this ground and puts on good marbling. That marbling, meaning the fat woven through the muscle rather than sitting in a strip on the edge, melts as it cooks and does most of the seasoning for you. It's the reason a well raised Angus steak needs almost nothing but salt and a hot pan.

Our cattle graze our pasture and also eat hay and grain. Grass builds a healthy animal over time, and grain adds the marbling that gives beef its tenderness and flavor. We're not going to call this something it isn't: it's grain fed beef (but not the feedlot kind), and that's a deliberate choice. It's the beef we want to eat and the beef we feed our girls.

We grow as much of our animals' feed as we can, right here. Sorn, soybeans, alfalfa, wheat, barley, and more planted in our own ground, which means the feed isn't a line item from a supplier we've never met. When you plant it yourself, there's nothing about an animal's diet you have to take somebody's word for, including ours.

We raise older heritage breeds of pigs rather than the fast growing modern ones. They take longer to reach weight, which costs us time and feed, but they carry more fat and more flavor for it. Heritage pork tastes like pork in a way a lot of people have never actually had. That's the main reason we chose them.

Our pigs and chickens forage outdoors and eat a quality grain ration alongside it. Both are omnivores, and both do best on variety: grass, seeds, bugs, roots and grain together, the way they'd eat if nobody were feeding them. Neither one is built to live on pasture alone, so the feed matters as much as the ground does. What pasture adds is movement, sunlight, and a diet they choose part of themselves, and you can see it in the color of the fat.

We keep our pigs in small groups rather than crowded barns. Fewer animals in a space means less stress, less competition over food, and fewer problems that spread once they start. It also means we actually know our pigs and notice quickly when one isn't right, which is most of what good animal care comes down to.

Our pigs can get outside to root, dig and explore. A pig's nose is built for turning over ground, and a pig that gets to use it is a calmer, healthier animal. It takes more land and more managing than keeping them inside. We think it's the minimum a pig is owed.

We move our animals calmly and never rush them, start to finish. Quiet handling is easier on cattle, pigs and chickens alike, and stress is hard on an animal while it's living and shows up in the meat afterward. There's no version of this where hurrying pays off. It costs us time and nothing else, so we take the time.

Every single day, our chickens move to clean grass. That means fresh forage in front of them and nothing building up underneath them, which is the whole reason pastured birds stay healthy without needing help. It's hard physical work with no shortcut and no machine that automatically does it for us, in whatever weather the day brings. It's the part of this job we'd never skip.

The tallow in our soap and skincare comes from the same Black Angus we raise here. Nothing is sourced from an animal we didn't raise. Using the fat is also the oldest thing you can do with it: an animal we spent two years raising feeds a family, and then keeps going a while longer. Nothing gets wasted here.

Short ingredient lists with things you can actually pronounce. We started making these because we wanted them in our own house, and the standard was simple: if we wouldn't want it on our daughters' skin, it doesn't go in.