Adaptation
Calves, lambs, chicks, and piglets all enter the farm here. They learn the water, the fence, and the handler, and settle into the routine before anything else is asked of them.
Barnardsville, North Carolina · Buncombe County
Raised on pasture in the Craggy Mountains.
We raise cattle, pigs, chickens, and lambs on mountain pasture, moving them through it a paddock at a time. The animals are grown and finished on this ground.
I · The ground
What this ground grows is grass.
Big Ivy runs north out of Barnardsville and climbs from there, set against the backdrop of the Craggy Mountains. It is steep country. The bottoms flood, the benches are short, and row crops were never going to work on it. Grass grows well here, and cattle are how you harvest grass on a mountain.
Most of the place is woods, creek, and ground too steep to graze, which is what mountain farms tend to be. The open pasture is the part we work, and we work it by moving through it.
Paddock to paddock, ahead of the regrowth. The herd takes the top third and moves on. The grass rests, the roots go deeper, and the manure stays where it fell. Done steadily enough, the pasture comes back thicker each season instead of thinner.
Nothing else goes on it. No commercial fertilizer, no chemicals. The animals do the fertilizing, and rest and rain do the rest. Working with what already happens on this mountain is easier than working against it, and it leaves the ground better than we found it.
The animals get moved quietly, on their own feet, at their own pace. Shade, clean water, and room are not amenities here — they are what the ground already offers, and the job is mostly not getting in the way of it.
It is a slower way to do it. We think it makes the best animal we know how to raise.
II · How our animals are finished
Our animals move through three stages.
Pasture
The long middle. Grass, movement, and time. This is where frame and the potential for marbling get built.
Finish
The last stretch. We use free-choice grains to complement our pastures, and our animals always remain on pasture. Nothing else goes in the feed — no hormones, no antibiotics. The grains give us the consistency we need, so that one animal finishes much like the one before it.
III · The stock
The breeds we've settled on.
Red Angus
Mostly Red Angus. We'll source Black Angus now and again, but small-frame Red Angus have proven the best fit for our terrain and our climate.
Berkshire × Tamworth
A Berkshire and Tamworth cross that thrives in our environment. Hardy on hill ground, and content to spend the day rooting through it.
Bresse & Freedom Ranger
We don't love broilers — too fat, too fast. These grow slower, spend that time on grass, and taste like something.
Katahdin × Dorper
A cross that suits this valley. Our lambs come from a producer in Burnsville who has been at it longer than we've been alive.
