We hope you’re enjoying our newsletters! You’ll find a lot of information packed in each one such as what’s keeping us busy right now, what stages different sets of livestock are in, product offering news, and much more!
One goal with this is to establish and nurture a direct relationship between you (the well-informed consumer) and us (a pasture-based farm). That’s something that industrial agriculture and supermarkets will never be able to fully duplicate. Thanks for your support and enjoy the latest from Watson Farms!
***Be sure to scroll down to participate in an opportunity for a $50 store credit if you can help us come up with a name for this newsletter!***
What’s keeping us busy.
We first of all wanted to wish you a Happy Easter! This is always a special time of year for our family because of the Resurrection, but also because of the massive renewal and regrowth that we see at this time each year. It is wonderful encouragement to see pastures and livestock in such a state of vitality and rebirth!
Speed Grazing!
Our grass is growing very fast right now and this requires us to move the cattle quickly over each paddock in order to “top” it and move them on to the next one. Every time that a plant is clipped off it prunes it’s roots to mimic the top of the plant. This is called biomimicry and is the key to carbon sequestration. The plant will then try extra hard to re-grow what has been pruned off and to do so it uses sunlight through photosynthesis. So what we’re doing here is using tightly grazed herbivores to power this cycle of photosynthesis and carbon sequestration.
Here’s how Joel Salatin puts it in several of his books: Mob Stocking Herbivorous Solar Conversion Lignified Carbon Sequestration Fertilization. While that’s a mouthful, it definitely encompasses everything we’re trying to do by moving our cattle in large mobs across the landscape so that we can provide the most positive impact possible for the environment, the cattle, the farmer, our neighbors, and the consumer.
Below is a video we made this week as well as some photos that illustrate some of this process.
First Tour Date of 2021!
If you would like to see some of these methods in practice that we mentioned above, we are providing a great opportunity to do so on Saturday, April 10! We will have a tractor-pulled hay ride ready that will transport you around the farm to show you first hand the benefits of pasture-raised livestock that are constantly moving.
- The date/time is April 10 at 10:00am.
- We look forward to these tours as it lets us talk with customers at more length than is usually possible. It also lets you see in person where and how your food is raised.
- We plan to have tour offerings about once per month.
- Hit the button for more details on the April 10 tour.
More Beef in Stock
We were able to get several pallets of beef hauled back from the processor this week, much of which was reserved for some patiently-waiting bulk customers, and some of which we were able to replenish our shelves with. So head over and stock up!
What makes us different
With this segment we plan to highlight one aspect of our farm that makes us different from other farms.
Watson Farms – Multi-species pastures and grazing
Our pastures contain many different species of grasses, legumes and forbs. Also, we don’t graze just one livestock species, but instead we allow several species to use the same pastures. This diversity is not only beneficial to the economics of the farm by using the same acreage for multiple livestock enterprises, but it is also a benefit to the pasture and the livestock themselves.
For example chickens are able to act as the pasture sanitizers as they pass over the pasture after the cattle harvesting fly larvae and other insects that come with cattle. The cattle also can help us shorten the grass and prepare the pasture for the chickens. Each species complements the other.
These are the type of production models that you and other consumers are demanding more and more, and we can’t thank you enough for it.
Other Farms – Monocultures
Most farms in the U.S. focus on just a few or even just one major cash crop. Whether they produce livestock or crops they usually create monocultures on their farm and amend the shortcomings of these systems with chemical or otherwise dubious inputs.
For example, in the commercial turkey industry (which we know about firsthand) the only species that occupies the massive space of a growout facility are large flocks of turkeys standing wing to wing month after month with very little rest time between flocks. Integrators then require the farmers to fumigate and otherwise attempt to sterilize those barns between flocks in order to make up for the fragility of the next turkey flock that will soon occupy the space. And when a flock unavoidably gets sick, the obvious answer is antibiotics which are less and less effective over time.
Help Us Name This Newsletter!
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Huge Chicken Sale! ????
Our chicken sale continues for now!
These are some of the best prices EVER on our truly pasture-raised, non-GMO chicken products. As you can see below, many products are 25% off or more while our bundles are as much as 15% off the already-discounted bundle price. Head over to the website and stock up!