PRODUCER PROFILE

A successful grass farmer/grazier is interviewed and featured in the Producer Profile column. The profile article covers the grazier’s operation(s), from pasture acreage, forages, genetics, fencing, marketing, challenges, helpful advice, etc. to their favorite resources. This month, we have 2 profiles:

Name:  Mike Peterson

Farm: Kinloch Farm

Location: The Plains, VA

Phone: 540-253-5266

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.kinlochfarm.com

Grazing:  15 years 

Subscriber: 10 years

Acres in pasture: 1100

Paddocks: 45 Paddocks. 25 acre average, further broken down with polywire into 2-6 acre paddocks.

Forages: 90 acres in native warm season and switchgrass. The remainder is in cool season perennial pasture.

Centerpiece Operation: Our cattle operation is our centerpiece. We have a foundation herd of historic Aberdeen Angus genetics that we utilize to adaptively graze our perennial pastures. We direct market the beef that we produce.

Additional Operations: We have an apiary on the property.

Other interests: We are focused on the intersection of conservation strategies and production agriculture. We measure the outcomes of our management as a metric of our success. What is our ecosystem telling us about our management and how can we continue to improve our management to improve the health of our cattle, waterways, grasslands, wildlife, and dedicated staff?

Marketing: We direct market our beef and honey through our farm store and select retail and wholesale markets.

Meat Processing: We’re fortunate enough to have 4 different USDA facilities within a 3 hour radius. We primarily use one that’s 35 minutes away. It’s an integral relationship for us and value the transparency and communication we have with our abattoir. We book our appointments in March for the entirety of the following year. Projecting growth rates and market demand 18 months ahead of time can be a challenge, but provides a great planning exercise.

Family/Owners: The Currier family is incredibly devoted and passionate about protecting open space and utilizing working landscapes with a conservation centric management strategy.

Current Challenge: It's drought. But, the great part about challenges is that they present opportunities for creativity, adaptive solutions, and thinking outside of the box.

Helpful Advice: One simple, but complex statement. Manage for what you want. Don't manage for what you don't want.

Goals/Vision: We strategically integrate a historic line of Aberdeen Angus cattle to complete nutrient cycles across the landscape and create multidimensional grassland systems that promote whole systems health and enduring regeneration. The result of our work is the proliferation of our genetic line and the influx of nutrient dense 100% Grassfed Beef sold into our regional community.

Favorite Resources:

Genetics: Our genetic foundation of our cow herd lies in several old Wye lines, Ballot of Belladrum, Octoraro Angus, and Pinebank Waigroup 41/97. To adaptively manage these lines in a changing climate, we are adding in Red Angus and South Poll influences this year. It’s a multi-faceted approach and one that we’re not taking lightly. We’re looking to add hybrid vigor, heat tolerance, and continued fertility, fescue adaptability, and in influx of outside genetics. As we venture further into direct market beef sales and steer further away from primarily seedstock sales, these crosses involving our pedigrees that are based in Pinebank Waigroup 41/97, Wye, and Octoraro will put us on a path to select the best stock that possess the epigenetics that thrive in our management.

Fencing: We like to support our local co-op. We do end up using a lot of the Gallagher equipment and like the versatility of their ring top posts.

Livestock watering: We’ve installed a lot of Mira Fount troughs on the farm for various soil and water projects. We also use portable Rubbermaid tanks with Jobe valves and just recently started installing quick couplers in all new water line installations.

Forage: We’re blessed to be in the heart of fescue country! We’re all aware of the benefits and detriments of it. More than any one type of perennial that we seed, we promote diversity from the latent seed bank through our grazing practices. We’ve historically seeded 30% of the farm every year with King’s Premium Clover mix.

Animal Health: We’ve moved away from only using a pre mix mineral to one that adapts with the seasons. We’ve historically mixed kelp in with a custom mix mineral, but this year have used Redmond with Garlic, starting late February, and late summer we’ve started using Sea 90. We’re still supplementing with kelp, too.

Name:  Stefan and Jonathan Bouw

Ranch(s):  Howrey Angus, Sterling, North Dakota, and Edie Creek Angus, Anola, Manitoba, Canada

Phone:  204-232-1620 (Stefan), 204-471-4696 (Jonathan)

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.howreyangus.com, www.ediecreekangus.com

Grazing:  25 years

Acres in pasture: 950 acres,Sterling, ND,1000 acres, Anola, MB

Paddocks: For Manitoba operation, macro paddocks are adapted into smaller paddocks depending on herd size and forage production. Average five acres. As many as 20 poly reels are used throughout the year. 2-3 day moves. Larger paddocks are used for Howrey herd, 100-160 acre paddocks with 5-10 day moves. 

Forages:  Edie Creek’s tame pastures consist of alfalfa, trefoil and clovers, Orchard, Timothy, meadow brome, tall fescue. Cattle graze bush pastures with native species.  

Howrey Angus cows graze multiple cool and warm season grasses— native and tame species, alfalfa and clover. 

We hire custom seeders for multi-species cover crops and everything else but grazing corn, which we plant ourselves with old zero till JD 7000 planter.  We avoid tillage, except when absolutely necessary. We were pushed to zero till in the drought of 2017-2021 in an effort to conserve moisture, and haven't regretted minimizing tillage.

Centerpiece Operation: Breeding bulls for grass farmers, low input breeding stock focusing on maternal traits. Same selection criteria guides both Edie Creek and Howrey breeding programs. Profitable, ranch-adapted cattle require the same maternal performance traits, no matter where you are. Cow families that have performed reliably in the environment we ask them to show us who to select as breeding stock. This method of selection has taught us a lot over the years. Profitability falls by the wayside when chasing maximum production levels. 

 Time and experience have shown performance and carcass EPD’s are detrimental to selection of a functional cowherd in real-world conditions. They are, in fact, antagonistic traits to fertility, longevity and functionality.

 Cattle that graze year-round are a tool for improving their ecosystem. Converting low-quality, high-fiber feed from land unsuitable for crops into high-protein, nutrient dense beef is one of the best equations in modern agriculture.

Additional Operations:  We've been selling prime grass-finished beef by the quarter or half 15 years, but winding down now to focus on management of newly acquired Howrey Angus division. We also sell Union Forage Seed. 

Fencing: We use electric fence on most pastures, and run a lot of single strand fences. We have gone away from making permanent gates, and now use a PVC pipe as a fence lifter with cattle trained to go under it. This makes for flexible grazing systems and quick cattle moves. 

We use poly reels for sorting cattle; it's great because there is no running, cattle respect it and see it as a moving fence they cannot go through. We use a similar method to walk cows 2 miles down the road. We set up a poly wire rectangle trap on the road, walk the cows into the trap, then walk that rectangle box down the road and the cattle come along inside the box.  

Marketing: Fall online bull sale offering 18-month old bulls from Howrey Angus and Spring Bull sale offering 2-year old bulls and bred heifers from Edie Creek Angus.  

Family: Stefan and Jonathan are third generation of Bouw's to care for the land in Manitoba.  Parents, Herman and Marilyn, support success of our everyday operations, and are working towards retirement.  Stefan and Jonathan are each married with four kids who are becoming more and more helpful every year! 

Main Challenge: Transferring what we've learned over 20 years in our Edie Creek Angus operation over to the Howrey Angus operation, and getting to know the customers that Monte Howrey has served over 25 years before he entrusted us with stewarding these genetics as we acquired the Howrey Angus herd. Our bull sale this fall for our Howrey Angus herd is the inaugural sale. We expect to learn a lot.

 In terms of overwintering, we will be trying out new extensive grazing techniques to reduce dependency on equipment and drive down wintering costs while improving the land. Lots of learning opportunities (mistakes)!

Helpful Advice: "People often underestimate the power of the paradigms they hold. Paradigm paralysis is often fatal; changing paradigms takes courage; change occurs at the edge; paradigms can be changed!” (Ranching for Profit) We grew up with a feedlot and winter calved cows, but now sell grass fed beef and calve low input, forage based cows on grass in spring. Understanding paradigms we were stuck operating in (ex. Can't calve cows a couple miles away from the barn) and then overcoming them, have had huge impact on our business and family life. 

“Think outside the box. Try (crazy) new things. If you never fail, you haven't tried hard enough. Have a humble attitude—always ready to learn something new!” (Don Campbell, Holistic Management educator, Meadow Lake SK, former Cattlemen's Magazine writer. We had the privilege of taking the Holistic Management Course from him and wife Bev, highly regarded by rancher’s here in Canada.)

Goal: Breeding maternal genetics proven to fit low-input environment and management practices based on maximizing profit per acre of grass.

Philosophy: Minimizing the time, money, and iron we put between a cow and its feed results in profitable businesses: healthier, happier land & people for generations.

Favorite Resources

Union Forage Seed:  Novel tools for soil health, extended grazing, profitable beef production. Company was started by a cattlemen with international experience, who weren't satisfied with the status quo. They have experience grazing what people say “can't be done here”... We are going to try grazing a silage pile out in the pasture directly from the side of the pile for instance, which was inspired by Union Forage practitioners in Alberta. They also have dealers in the U.S.

Gallagher and Stayfix/Speedrite: Their fencing enabled us to adapt grazing and lower wintering costs by extensive grazing year ‘round. 

Livestock Watering: We have loved the Jobe brand of hi-flow water valves. Our pastures are watered by 1" or 1.25" above-ground pipelines, which eventually have grass covering them so water stays cool.  We used to have small plastic troughs—which were a liability—but now use giant (8' diameter) practically indestructible mining truck tires as water troughs.  A Manitoba company developed a plastic insert that fits inside the bead of the tire perfectly to seal it and has a 1" fitting into which you can screw the Jobe valve (or anything)!

Animal Health: Free choice mineral and salt for Edie Creek herd, and Howrey Angus cows are offered Vinegar.

Windbreaks: Steel 24' or 30' portable windbreaks have made winter grazing possible. When bale grazing in winter, we do not have enough trees to protect from the wind that can often feel like -40F in January and February.  We also use the steel panels to set up anywhere as a corral. 

The Stockman Grassfarmer's "Best of the Best" Edition 

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