How Raised Wild Texas is Redefining Ranching

Hey friends, welcome back to the Everyday Ancestral Podcast. I'm James Barry. So we have Barron Kidd and ranch manager Ricky Langer. So Barron has a ranch in Texas. His father-grandfather started the ranch in 1961. The ranch is, you know, like many ranches were just, it was barely getting by. It was spending more than it was making. And he took a look at that as a businessman and said, you know, I think we need to make some changes. So in 2019, he made the commitment to go 100% regenerative ranching. So enjoy this episode, I learned a lot, and you're going to hear a huge revelation. I'm not going to give it away, but holy moly, when I learned what they're doing on their farm and their— or their ranch, that's truly unique. I was really blown away. So, enjoy Baron Kidd and Ricky Langer. All right. Twosome. 2 for the price of one today. I love it. Nice to see you guys. So, right off the bat, let's get right into it. Regenerative farming. What made you switch? Why?

The finances. First of all, the feed costs were getting crazy and just looking at the books, the numbers weren't adding up. So that was the first sort of stimulus to go this direction. And the second was that, you know, we've done regenerative ranching here a while, you know, rotational grazing here for a while, and we just sort of made the decision to go all in.

Yeah. Maybe, can you explain, because I think a lot of people, that's a term that's getting thrown around a lot right now, right? Regenerative farming, regenerative grazing. Can you explain it from your vantage point? What is it? What does it mean? And how does it look from your perspective?

Well, there's different grades. We've gone Completely regenerative, which means we don't use any fertilizers. We don't use any pesticides. Basically, it's the way the natural ecosystem should work. So like the cattle eat the grass, fertilize the grass, that sort of Supports the ecosystem.

So there's no, no need for real tractors, uh, at all in the process? No, not at all. And, and, and, and are you allowing also the, the, the soil and to kind of, um, kind of have dips and valleys or, oh yeah, you know, like for it to not be flat the way many, many farms or ranches are that are more conventional?

Yeah, we, uh, We get flack because most ranches and, and, well, ranches, they want their pastures to look like golf courses. Yeah, it looks nice.

I, I'm going to chime in on a question you asked about the flat and level and all that good stuff. Um, from what I understand, you know, if you look at the ranch in a whole, it's several different, uh, kind of ecosystems and different terrains. Uh, topography is different. We got bottomland, we got hilltops, ravines, all different sets of systems there. And if you look at what I guess the Blackland Prairie does when it dries out, it's going to be nothing but ripples and divots and holes. And what does that tell you? It tells you that the ground is thirsty. So if everything was level and flat, just like concrete, it would all— not all of it, but some of it may drain off a lot easier. With all the little depressions and different terrain features, you have areas that will hold water and will recharge the system a lot better than you would if it was just flat. If there was— just say you got a lot of rain in a short amount of time. Well, some of that will get held up in those little divots and, and whatnot, and it would give it time to recharge instead of just running off to the next You know, water system or, you know, to the creek or whatever. So basically it's making its own terraces. Man, mankind's been putting in terraces for a while in farming, but the ground has its own way of doing that. And, and so you kind of have to allow it to happen. The hogs do a really good job of that as well, creating little wallows and whatnot and, and digs. And that also gives that water a place to recharge.

I mean, is that kind of a criteria for being regenerative is having multiple species as well?

Well, it's actually a benefit. So once we started to go regenerative and we, people throw these words around and they become almost meaningless, but once we've gone back to the pure natural ecosystem, we found that more animals are coming in, that the bees start coming back, the birds start coming back. Actually, the hog damage is actually less. So it's sort of balancing in both ways.

What do you mean the hog damage?

So in Texas, we have a huge, wild hog problem and they will tear up fields. They love, you know, freshly planted fields. 'Cause the farmer next to us, he hires, uh, uh, an entire outfit of hunters to just sit on his property all night long, shoot hogs.

Well, that can't be cost effective. Geez.

It's, they come and go, but they, they pretty much thermal hunt it.

Yep.

When they're in the area, they, uh, They take care of the issue and, you know, come back another day and scout again. So, but yeah, it seemed like the less you can disturb the ground, the better off you are, you know, just to keep those hogs at bay or let them stay at your neighbor's house or property, whatever you want to say. But—

Does that mean you're getting, you're getting more variety of grass as well with, with, because in a sense you're not tilling, right? You're not, there's no tilling.

There's no tilling.

Oh.

Like you said before, the input costs on all that. If there's a, you know, if you could figure out the right outlet for those margins and those numbers, that's probably okay. It works for some people out there. It just doesn't work for our program right now. So the way we, you know, do our ranching and we rotate, we rest and What you see is a different, you know, set of species of grasses coming in. You know, since we went from commercial fertilizing over to this program, of course the species have changed. Some of it hasn't been able to survive, but it has allowed other grasses to take its place. And of course, there's always, you know, something the earth wants, something covering it. Don't want to be naked. So something's going to grow. So that's what— We're looking at right now. And I think the fertilizer that they get, the natural fertilizer from the cattle that we do run, it helps out with that as well. You know, it's changing the pH balance and different things and different levels. And you're not— was it the rhizomes or whatever? When you plow, you're killing all that. We haven't disturbed that in a good while. So, you know, all that's strong and healthy.

5, 6 years. Yeah.

Can you talk about that actually? Because that's one of the big arguments, you know, uh, a lot of vegans and vegetarians out there will say, oh, well, I don't want to kill anything. Right. And, you know, when you're dealing with a monocrop or you're, you're, you're plowing it all, isn't it true? You're killing a lot of things.

I feel that you are. Yep.

I mean, I've talked to ranchers where like, it's, it's a, it's worse than a horror movie. The amount of different animals and critters that get Caught up in those blades.

Oh, plus if you're constantly fertilizing and you're constantly using pesticides, all those animals will leave or die. And when you go back to just the natural ecosystem, they all come back. And we, we actually see a lot of that on our property, whereas on the neighbors, you don't see that as much.

So what, oh, so your neighbors are not regenerative and yet you are? So does that affect your property at all? If they're spraying, if they're doing anything, is there any kind of wind, wind carryover or anything like that?

I think we've only had one instance in the past handful of years that we might've had an issue and it was due to ground just getting sprayed. And then we had about a 4 to 5 inch rain and we had a lot of excess runoff from that bare ground. into our property. It may have caused some issues with some young calves. And, you know, of course, all the contaminants, I believe, filtered out. You know, the water was filtered when it ran through our grasses. And that particular area, we had some issues with some small calves. And we're kind of thinking that was one of the factors that might have led to the issue was the spraying and potential chemical buildup that might have been over in the cropland.

What kind of issues do you see? Uh, because that's interesting, because here you are, you know, you're raising these calves in a regenerative ranch, and then you're experiencing the, the chemicals come in from your neighbor. So what, what issues did you immediately see in the calves?

A few more illnesses. Basically, their immune systems were— had dropped. And so they were more susceptible to, um, they had some lung issues.

Yeah. One of the necropsies we did, I think we did 2 on some young calves that were, it only affected calves that were about 7 days or younger. And, uh, basically it was, uh, fluid buildup around their lungs, uh, around their hearts, organs. And, um, it was like an elevated Uh, they all carry a strain of E. coli in them. The E. coli strains, uh, change after a certain amount of days, but, uh, they had seen like a spike level of that E. coli in their system. And, uh, here's the deal. The reason that we kind of contributed to that is for the same reason, or for the reason that once we moved them off out of that area, off of that pasture, Um, you know, basically our, our calving window was about a 90-day window. We had this problem for about 2 weeks while these calves were being born in this one pasture. As soon as we moved 'em off, the, the problem was gone. It didn't even exist. And it was just from that, what I wanna call a flash flood. All that water basically come off that cropland into our pastures, into our waterway, and then it was gone, you know? And so, The other thing that could have been a contributing factor is that there was a transmission line runs through there as well. Of course, that creates a higher EMF. So we don't know if it was kind of a combination of both of those two made the perfect storm for the issues that we had with those young calves.

So, well, that's interesting. You don't hear people talking about the EMFs as much. Now, what's your experience of Uh, seeing, like, have you actually seen how the EMFs directly affect the ranch and, and, and the, uh, animals on the ranch?

I don't know if there's a direct connection or not. I haven't had enough time or enough experience on that. But, uh, you know, like I said, once we moved them off out of that pasture into that, off that section, that those issues Uh, pretty much eradicated themselves.

So yeah, and they seemed more like calmer, more susceptible to the younger, like the, the younger calves, you know, just a few days old, their immune systems really are, uh, can't handle it. The, you know, the older cattle that have been around the ranch for a while, I think that they've adapted to it.

I just appreciate you mentioning that because, you know, you know, EMFs is still something that's Mostly talked about in, you know, tight health communities.

And oh, it's a real thing.

It exists.

Yeah.

There.

Yeah. So can you talk about your experience with that? Because, because there's so many people that still don't get it. They, they still don't recognize it being an issue. How is that playing out for you guys?

The specifically, we don't know, but it's physics in the fact that the EMF waves are very specific wavelengths and, you know, organisms can handle other wavelengths. And, you know, it could be that these, the EMFs are just disrupting the natural electromagnetic field of animals, people, everything's connected.

Yeah. Are you guys utilizing any EMF blockers? Because I know they, there are some providers of very large, like, like that will cover very large areas of land. Are you guys utilizing that?

Not yet, but we're always, that's the great thing about being here is that we're always experimenting. We're always open to new ideas. If it works and it's beneficial and it is in sync with how the natural ecosystem works, then we'll do it.

What, well, okay, so this is 2 questions. One, one simply, how long does it take from going, uh, from conventional to, to regenerative to getting certified, you know, or to just, um, being able to say the soil's now cleaner? What's that time period?

There, there is no certification and there is none.

Oh no.

The certifications that are out there, Um, we were with one program that's sort of a certified, um, grass-fed organization. They never came to the ranch. It was all—

What?

Nope.

All-natural program.

It was an all-natural program that is used. I'm not even going to mention it, but it's used in a number of large grocery stores as to being their program. They never came to the ranch. It was all over the phone. Um, they asked us questions. We sent them photos. That's it.

It's basically, they just take your money. They just take your money so that you can put the label on there.

Put the label on and they don't know whether we have antibiotics in the cabinet, hormones in our cattle. They never even seen, never even seen one head or met us or even seen the property other than maybe a Google Map or whatever. But, uh, so it is a very strange program.

Uh, we've gotten rid of all of our certification. Uh, programs, well, all of our, uh, like organic certification programs. Mm-hmm. Because we are so far beyond what they're doing, um, that it's, it's not worth our money to make.

Now, I understand, I understand what you're saying by that, you know, that, that you're so far beyond, but how do you, how do you educate the person that's only looking for those certifications? So clearly you're already alluding to that. The certifications may not be what they seem, but how does someone— what, what questions should someone be asking when they're, you know, trying to find ranches like yours that are above and beyond?

I can help answer that question. Um, so when we market, you know, we have people that ask certain things, and, uh, the very simple one would be, can I come see the, the ranch or the farm or whatever it is?

That's—

And then, you know, you, you invite those folks out and say, come on. 'Cause, you know, sometimes it's as quick as, oh no, we don't allow outside visitors for whatever reason. Um, but the other thing is, is just, uh, a person could simply inquire about, you know, simple practices, kind of what kind of species they're running. How do they handle this or the, or that, you know, as far as, um, you know, how many cattle do you run per acre or whatever? And, You can kind of ask some questions and then kind of do the math on it and see if it's adding up, you know, just see if the numbers match what, but I guess if you're not well educated on that, it may be a little tougher.

Yeah.

But for me, when, you know, you market next to somebody and they said, oh, well, we're, we're processing, you know, 400 head a year, but they only have about 500, 600 acres, maybe 1,000 acres. Well, Your mindset says, okay, they're not doing exactly what they're saying. If they're in complete control from conception to finishing out that steer, you know, it takes, I don't know whether you're grain feeding or grass feeding, doesn't matter. You still can be regenerative. But if they're, you know, processing at 18 months old, or if there's somebody like us that may be 24 to 36 months of age, well, you're not gonna run that many head. on a small amount of acreage, whatever that number is. So you kind of have to do the math a little bit. But just being, you know, just inquire and keep asking those questions and make sure your mindset is okay with it. And then, you know, a lot of times now, most people want to, you know, talk about their ranch on, you know, their website or, you know, Facebook or whatever their social media is. You can go on there and find out a bunch of them. Most of the time they'll have some kind of You know, family history on the farm or the ranch probably gives you a, you know, acreage. And then you can start adding up in your head, okay, well, they got this much chicken, they got this much pork, you know, whatever it may be, lamb, beef, et cetera. And you can kind of put the puzzle pieces together for yourself and be like, okay. Or you can show up and, you know, one farm may only be 50 acres, But you pull up and there's a big distribution center there that's, you know, 10,000 square foot and they're, you know, feeding, you know, what, a community of 20,000? Well, that doesn't add up either. So a lot of it takes time. I know we bought, my family, my wife and I have bought from, you know, we try to buy from local producers as well, especially before we got started on our own journey of you know, providing that here. Um, you know, it took us a little time, but we eventually figured out who was legit and who wasn't.

Yeah. And that's it.

It's just, it takes time.

Go to the ranch, go to the farm and use a little patience. Um, as to the, as to the programs, if you, if you're a giant corporate organization, those programs actually do help. It takes them from not caring at all to caring a little bit. So if you're going to buy corporately produced food, then those labels do help. We are, we are so far beyond that. We're, we're the, we're the tip of the spear. We're, we've gone all the way back to, it's basically full cycle. We've gone back to the way ranching was. You know, 100 years ago.

Well, let's talk about like what caused the shift. So your father, grandfather started the ranching business in 1961, right? So you're, you're taking that over from them, but you only really made the commitment you said in 2019. So what, what was the catalyst for you changing what was done before?

My father retired. He handed the ranch back down to us and I was involved with the ranch, but not day to day. So when he handed the books and we started looking at the books, that's when we started to change. His generation was the generation of Better living through chemistry. So it wasn't just him. In fact, compared to the way other people were ranching, he actually had used less chemicals than most people. But it was still, it's that generation. I mean, that's how they were raised. You had your feed rep, you had your rep for all your chemicals and for your pesticides, and you had your rep for all your fertilizer. And that's the way ranching was.

Now we don't have any of that.

Yes.

And where were you coming from, Barron? So were you, because you didn't immediately, well, like what was your career before you were ranching?

The family oil and gas business. So I was in the business world. So looking at the books was easy and doing the math, like, you know, you want It's pretty simple. Business is pretty simple. Yeah.

You're either profiting or you're not.

A lot coming in and a little bit going out. Yeah.

On the ranching side of the deal, on the operational side, uh, we done a couple different programs. Um, we were working through the Noble Research Institute, I believe, outta Oklahoma there with some pilot programs on raising some beef steers and whatnot. And it just kind of seemed like we were pumping them full of vaccines and whatnot all the time. I mean, you know, you're doing modified live vaccines and some other ones, and then, you know, for some of the calves to be able to handle that modified live vaccine, you had to give the cow the same one 30 days before. the calf was in utero or conceived. So I guess the calf could handle all of that as well. So it just kind of seemed like we were just constantly poking them up, you know, with something or shooting them up with something and caused a lot of stress on the cattle. Conception rates went down, you know, reproduction rates went way down. So then, which I think one year we were down, what, close to 60% reproduction.

Wow.

Uh-huh. Our conception rates went down 60%, and then we had to start a whole new program as far as a calving, 'cause we were strictly just a spring calving operation. Well, we couldn't sell 60% of the herd, you know, the next day and then figure out how we're gonna replace that or what we were gonna do in that short amount of time to get the numbers back up. So I believe we sold off some of those open cows and then We just helped some of them to create a fall, you know, calving program. And so some of those techniques and different things that they were doing. Of course, the other thing that we found out was it felt like the cattle or the grown cows, the mama cows' life expectancy went way down. I mean, you may have one that, you know, they start calving at 2 to 3 years of age. Well, by the time they reached 7 years of age, they were done. You know, they went free-martin or they just wouldn't reproduce or whatever the cause might be. And we just kind of starting adding everything up and what it was costing us to put those vaccines in those cows, plus the low amount of return we would get from those cattle. That was one of the catalysts that drove that change as well. We was like, okay, we basically decided to put the ranch into a reset mode and let's get rid of all the vaccines. We had to wean 'em off slow. We just didn't— And just one day decide not to do anything. Of course, you only vaccinate once or twice a year anyhow, depending on what you have going on. But we just slowly weaned those cattle off those vaccines. And first was the modified live, and then it was some of the other stuff like most common blackleg, which is your most common, your cheapest vaccine out there, in my opinion. And then once we did that, we got off conventional wormers. We were probably using conventional wormer at that time. Uh, we got away from those as well.

Does that go in the feed? How does that get, uh, conventional wormer?

It can be, uh, an injection, or there's a product, you know, or several products. Basically just, uh, you can do oral, injection, under the skin, or there's a topical application that you put on their backbone, which from my understanding absorbs into their spinal cord and then creates that, you know, it transfers that wherever it needs to in the body, uh, whatever organ it may be.

That's the purple stuff. And I remember applying that stuff and then getting it on my skin. I'm like, I don't want that.

So it was a process. It wasn't just an automatic light switch of changing over. So basically what I was talking about, we just kind of put the ranch in a reset mode. We went through a few trials and, uh, nothing that was you know, life-changing or whatever. But eventually we worked through it and I believe the cattle are stronger. We were able to wean 'em off of all the cattle cubes that we were giving 'em, you know, during the wintertime. And the input time, the, I guess the cost of time went down quite a bit just by not having to give 'em all those cubes during the winter that they became dependent on. Uh, once we stockpiled, you know, standing grass, we were able to cut back our hay feeding. Um, you know, we added— actually, we actually were able to increase the herd size, but we were able to decrease the, uh, the hay input, I guess you would say.

Yeah, the number of rolls we fed.

Number of rolls we fed. I mean, I mean, we, we were feeding 600 or something. Yeah, it could be anywhere from 600 to 800 rolls of hay per year. Now we only feed about 230 and we probably increased the herd size by about 50%. So, you know, just those numbers alone increase your margins quite a bit.

Are you able to do that because of the climate in Texas or because— because most— okay, because most farms can't do that year round, you know, it's pasture year round.

Yeah. Manage your grasses. This year is going to be tough.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We've actually been through about 3 to 4 years now of extreme weather cases. And it seems like the last few years we get all of our rain at just in about a 60-day window, and then we get nothing for the rest of the year. So, wow. Um, hay production was a little bit lower this year. Um, we don't have as much standing grass, but you have to listen to your cattle as well. We're having a lot of our fall calves being born right now and You know, those mama cows aren't slowing down. So that tells me everything eventually will be okay. There'll be enough to support them. And, and we just kind of listen to the cattle. And even though you look out there and it's nothing but powder, and I mean, there's, there's grass here and there, it's not much to it, enough to survive on. But you can walk through the dirt and it's pretty much turned to powder. That's, you know, we haven't had any substantial rainfall. It was flooding. It was flooding back in June, uh, or not June, but I guess May. And then June, the water cut off and we've been sitting here pretty much moisture-free since then. So what is that, 5 to 6 months already?

Yeah.

Yeah. Wow.

August, September, October, we're 5 months and we, we've gone to 100, 105-degree weather for what, 30 days or better? Uh, I don't know if every day was right at 100 or over, but You know, you're talking about 95 to 105-degree summer here, you know, and that's what we're dealing with.

Well, we're set up. I mean, we've, since it's just been cattle on the property, that when it does rain, everything's fertilized, everything's ready to go. We just need water.

It doesn't take long.

And it does, it'll pop right back. So a couple of good days of rain, you get a few inches, 2 inches here, maybe for a couple weeks. Everything's green again. It responds. And that's another thing is that it, it bounces back pretty fast.

Well, that's good to know. And so what was that period of from conventional to regenerative? Um, was that a 3 or 5-year period? Like, how, how long did it take?

Still going.

Yeah. Oh, it's— well, it's still going.

Okay.

Level, do you want to look at it? You know, you, you think, oh, I just done this, now I'm regenerative. Because I'm rotational grazing, right?

Yeah.

Or, you know, that's step one. Yeah, step one. Then you take it to step 2, and then, uh, then you may look at, you know, how are you controlling erosion in this area? Or, uh, you know, it, it's probably endless. So it's basically a constant learning curve, uh, from what we figured out or what I understand about it. We're always trying to figure out a way to improve. Um, you know, a lot of times you see programs where people are con— Condensing a lot of cattle down into one small section, you know, maybe putting 50 cows on 2 acres or whatever, and then they just move them every day. That's okay if it works for them. That style doesn't exactly work here. It does do wonders for the grass because as soon as you get rain, it might be 3 foot tall, you know, just within a few weeks. You do really condense that manure, the urine. You know, I guess you create EMF as well by running cattle on top of it. It creates its own, you know, frequency, which I've understood. And I've, you know, heard about people talking about how just running cattle on top of it, like as a migrating herd, actually—

Vibration frequency.

Vibration. The frequencies help grow that grass. It gets it stirred up. It, it like wakes it up and says, hey, I gotta go again. So, You know, at what level are you regenerating? You know, and I think as technology changes, people start learning more and they start seeing the results of what they've been doing for 5, 6, 7, 10, 15 years. There's always going to be that next level of how can I improve it? You know, what can I do better? Your water source may be in one corner of that pasture. The next step to that regenerative maybe is to move that water source to the other corner. And so instead of having all your heavy traffic flow to one corner, now you've got it, you know, your EMF traffic and, and your grazing pattern's different. Um, so at what point do you quit? You know, at what point?

Yeah.

That's everything.

That's interesting. So you're all, you're always listening to nature. You're always kind of learning.

Yeah.

Now I, like, I understand Barron's motivation cuz he's looking at the books. It's his family ranch and You know, we're losing money, so how do we turn that around? But as ranch manager, Ricky, you were coming from a whole other industry. What shifted for you? I mean, was it more just like, oh, I hear what you're saying and I see how that could be of value and I want to just keep learning? Or like, how? Because I'm kind of diving into this because I think As we all know, within the ranching industry, within meat processors, within many of these kind of older industries, we have these antiquated ways, these old thoughts of how to do things. And the shift away from these is really challenging. So, I want to kind of, I'm just trying to identify what shifted in you to get you out of the old way of doing it into this kind of, well, technically regenerative farming is the older way, but you know what I mean?

Yeah.

How to bring it back.

All right. So we can summarize that for you. Basically, there was no big shift. Okay. I had a job to do when, when his dad run the ranch. And so it was basically following what his lead said to do. What you probably don't understand is that I have another small ranching operation that I've been running for getting close to 15 years now. And it was basically just a landowner that backed out, wanted to have the cattle. He didn't have much to do with the land. Um, but what, what I had to do was, uh, because of all my other interests, you know, I couldn't overgraze, right? So most of the time the old mentality is let's put as many head on a piece of property and let's try to figure out how to make it work. One, we're going to talk about, oh, we got this amount of head and it gets a conversation piece for some people. I'm buying this amount of fertilizer. Oh, fertilizer costs me this. Feed bills are higher. You know, everybody likes to talk and complain. I have stayed away from that basically, I guess the whole span of my career as far as running cattle. And so I actually have done this on a smaller scale at another place and had that history. And I was using one vaccine because it was, there was an issue there that was pretty common on that property and the neighbors there. So I was already down to one vaccine and I was down to just SAW. Or a trace mineral lick. And, um, we run those cattle there for many years without any trouble. It was very low input. I was feeding, um, basically I would feed maybe, uh, maybe, I don't even know what, 25, like 25% of a roll per unit on that property, uh, all winter. Basically I just show up and, uh, only time I would put out grass or hay would be when it would snow or we'd have a big freeze or something like that. So I already knew the concept would work. It was nothing that was new. It was basically a landowner that didn't have a lot of, you know, capital to operate on, but he wanted to run cattle. So we figured out how to do it. We kept our numbers low. We rotated just a little bit on a smaller scale and we kept our input costs low. And that is what my background is. And that's how I knew when, when Baron here said, hey, look, we gotta make a change. I already knew is, you know, we need to make a change because I knew from the start, just adding up everything that we were doing and how much time it was costing and how much labor it was taking. It's like, man, this doesn't make sense to me. So when he came in and said, hey, I think we need to try something different. I said, I'm all, I'm all in. I, I've already been doing this. You know, for another landowner just right down the road. So, you know, it was an easy switch. It was basically the mindset of what the owners actually wanted to do. Because like I said, I'm, I'm here because I'm, I work for them, right? That's what I'm—

yeah.

So I have to follow their lead and give them the best advice as we can going down the road.

But now that you both are in it and you're, you're deep in it, What's changed in you that maybe wasn't there previously that you didn't know was going to change? But I'm sure you've changed, right?

Um, I don't know.

I, I don't know.

I don't know how to answer that one.

I suppose, like, is the— do you notice, do you notice like your own health improving? You know, just not being around all those chemicals? Do you notice the quality of the meat that you're eating now is different?

Like, oh, absolutely.

That was another thing is where do you, you want to be responsibly sourced, right? As possible. My wife is real health conscious. And, um, that was kind of a big thing for me as well is, you know, helping her achieve her goals and dreams or whatever. As far as food intake, we're not buying something with, you know, we won't buy as minimally processed. as possible from the store. And we want to buy something from a rancher that we, you know, understood was pretty, you know, pretty clean. So the best way to get that in life is just to do it yourself. And that was a big inspiration as well. And we lucked out and we have a good quality tasting beef. It's pretty What, standard? I mean, it's pretty consistent. The quality's pretty well there.

It's, um, no, we talked about this before. The, the flavor profile of our beef is completely different. Not completely different, but it's, well, it tastes like beef. I mean, it's different than what you get in the store. The grain-fed flavor is different.

The density—

How would you describe it if you were to try to put a name to the flavor of what most people experience versus what yours tastes like? Would you, Can you, can you try to describe that?

It's closer to wild. It's closer to, you know, like it's a little gamier.

I, I don't know if it has the gamey taste. I mean, you can, you can eat venison off of here and it's, it's not quite like that. It's, um, uh, it's, I don't know exactly how to explain it, but it's not an off taste. It's more beef.

There's, 'cause I feel like, I feel like, uh, conventional beef is kind of very watery.

Yeah.

And very flat flavored. So I'm, I'm, I'm assuming yours is not as watery and, and, and it actually has a flavor to it. Yes.

So it's beef. It's, it's a beefier flavor. Like we have, uh, we make hot dogs. Um, and they are, you know, typically, you know, a few hot dogs, you eat one of these. I mean, they're dense.

Mm-hmm.

And you get filled up.

I, I've—

what we've—

we already know from testing that as far as nutritional-wise, it's, uh, it's really elevated compared to others. So we have—

Yeah, talk about that. What, what are you seeing in the elevation?

Iron is what, 50 to 75% depending on whether it's grass-fed or, you know, grain-fed. And then the omega-6:3 ratio is way off the chart in my opinion. I don't remember exactly what those stats are, but Barry might be able to—

It's closer to wild game. So, the omega, the fat profiles of our beef is similar to, actually in some cases higher than like elk that you would get. And, that's just a sign that their bodies have Just shifted back to more of a natural cycle.

And there's, there's quite a few other ones in there, but the words I couldn't repeat just off the top of my, my head, you know, what they are and the difference on it. But it seems like, yeah, we have a lot of, uh, weightlifters and, and, um, competitive weight, I guess, body— what are them folks?

Bodybuilders and stuff.

Bodybuilders. There you go. Men and women. We just had one that I guess she's now got her pro card. She's been— she eats like 5 cups of beef a day, rice, and I think cottage cheese and egg whites. And that's what her diet consists of. And basically she's been doing this for, I don't know, a year plus. And she's won multiple competitions off of it and done really well with herself. And she just went from your You know, your average walk-down-the-street mom to a bodybuilder and has done it with our beef as well. So that was kind of icing on the cake. But yes, we have a lot of those type of people that buy from us. We also have another customer that buys, I think he buys 20 or I think it's 40 pounds of beef. Every 3 weeks and then 20 dozen eggs or something like that. It's some kind of weird— he eats beef, eggs, and rice, and that's his, that's his conditioning ratio.

Are you, are you getting that kind of feedback though? Because I know, I know some of the people that are probably buying from you are, you know, um, very functional with it where they're testing and they're checking things out. They're, you know, maybe even biohacking or something. Have you guys gotten any feedback of, hey, I was using this beef before yours and seeing these numbers, and now that I'm using your beef, I'm seeing huge gains? Are you, are you getting in that kind of feedback?

I don't think we are right now because we try not to. And well, I guess there's some people that tell us their business, but moms and kids, I think that's the biggest one that we get.

Like moms will come in and say, you know, our kids won't eat beef and then They'll, she gives it our ground beef and like, they love our ground beef.

So that was a big one. That was a, we sell to a lot of homeschool moms and different groups and whatnot. And that was one of the big draws when they bought our ground beef, the mom would cook like, you know, 2 or 3 days worth and then they would reheat it. And they said our kids would never eat beef from Walmart or H-E-B. That was our ground beef. once they heated back up in the microwave, said the taste was way off and the kids just didn't want anything to do with it. She said, we can buy y'all's ground beef and heat it up as many times as we want. And it's still the same flavor as it was the first time. So that was a really big positive. That's a big win in my books right there.

Actually, and that's not, that's not necessarily the fat ratio. You're just, you're just talking because of the nutritional profile is different.

And you know, there's, it's clean beef. I mean, it's, uh, we have that eat it raw. I mean, there's people that eat it raw straight out of the bag. I eat it raw.

Actually, we've had some carpaccio and some tartare from our beef. It's really good.

So, I mean, just—

I bet, I bet.

Between our process and the USDA processor that we use, the product is really clean. Um, you know, we have the same folks pretty much cut it. It's the same guy and his helper. month in and month out that, you know, basically cut, prep, and package our beef. And we have minimal issues with it. And like I said, it helps with the quality of the beef.

So regenerative farming, it's helping to retain the water, you're increasing the nutritional profile, it's overall healthier because you're not using as many pesticides. So are you guys using zero horn— zero Uh, vaccines on the cows now? Is it completely—

Yeah, it's forage and water basically.

That's it. Oh, and is there anything that is inescapable, uh, or are you literally using— you're not using any added hormones, you're not using any, uh, any antibiotics? Like, you're able to cut everything out?

Yeah, yeah.

We, we've shifted— actually, we shifted to— if, if cattle have a problem, we've shifted to herbal Treatments for—

Same thing with parasites.

Dewormers, parasites, uh, sort of natural oils for, uh, to control, uh, parasites, dewormers, et cetera.

So that's po— so it's possible to, for them to not even go the route they're going and to do, do it all naturally.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

So is it, why aren't they doing it? Is it, 'cause clearly as you're pointing out, you're, you're saving money. So is it just because They don't know any different.

That's it.

Programming.

That's it. Programming. Yep.

Well, and there's so many incentives. Like I was talking about the Noble Research Institute as a pilot program. Well, they're, they're going to give you just a little bit of incentive to do it their direction so they can do their research. And I'm not, I'm not saying that to knock them for what they're doing, but, um, that was the incentive of giving all those vaccines at one point. And, and, um, you know, That was the result of it. And I don't know, knowing now or thinking back, I don't even know if Noble Research understood what was going on at the ranch. All they really, I guess looking back, I'm kind of frustrated because they didn't really ask what happened at the ranch when we did all this. Did something change at the ranch? But all we had was results of marketing and, you know, finished grades and all that kind of stuff from their feedlots, you know, at the end of the project. Um, so looking back, I wish we could actually have a little input on that and said, hey, did y'all realize what happened at the ranches as the producer? Or, you know, did you just care about what happened at the feedlot and what the meat quality turned out to be?

I'm, I'm, I'm really blown away. I, I mean, 'cause I, I've, I've never talked to a rancher that's doing all, I mean, like what you guys are doing, like where there's nothing That's unnatural being used. This is incredible. What, what, what is it you think needs to happen in the industry for others to take not only notice to what you're doing, but actually start to apply it?

I get that it's scary because you're, you're going from a, you know, you've done something a certain way or your family's done something a certain way for, you know, 20 years, 30 years, 50 years, and then all of a sudden you're supposed to hit the brakes. and do a 180. That's scary. And, you know, your livelihood, your income all depends on this. And if it doesn't work, you know, what do you do? That's a scary jump to make.

That's basically what the vaccines and everything are, is it's an insurance policy. It's what it feels like. You know, you're basically, when you buy your vaccines, you give it to your cattle, you basically, you have a You know, a night you can sleep in an insurance policy that you're, you're probably 90% covered.

We still had cattle when we vaccinated, we still had cattle die.

So it seems like it's—

yeah. What's the point?

Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's like it's sold to you, to everyone as this is security, but it's not actually, it's an illusion, right? It's not actually secure.

Yeah. So you can sleep better at night. Thinking you've done all you can. This is all I can do.

I wrote the check. Wrote the check. I did what they said. I'm good.

Yep.

That's not the case.

But the other thing, the other thing you hear is that, you know, ranchers are barely getting by. And so what you, you mentioned, you came in, you guys were in a state of that where you're barely getting by. So where are you now? Are you, are you, are you achieving the business goals you want? Are you, or at least you're on that trajectory?

Yeah, sure.

We're moving to 100% retail, meaning 100% to individuals as opposed to having to sell to a feedlot or a sale barn.

And already seeing profits that are sustainable, like where you can actually live off them and not be worried. Like, because what I hear a lot of times with ranchers is they have a good year and then they have many bad years, you know, so they're constantly kind of like, making money but having to hold on to it tightly because they don't know what the next year is going to be. Are you now with these practices in a place where you can just kind of, you know, you just go do your thing and you're more than okay?

That's what we're looking forward to is get away from the roller coaster ride of having a good year, bad year. We're just trying to, you know, instead of the highs and lows, just try to level it out a little bit where we're in control. When you market live cattle, I guess wherever, you know, local sale barn, stockyards, wherever, you know, basically they're in control. And in 24 hours, things can change quite a bit. And so you may be holding for, you know, to sell a certain month. Well, by the time you get there, the market's not there anymore. Or, you know, you may hit a home run one year and expect, you know, well, we're going, the market's a little low, and you may come back and get a surprise check and you're like, well, that's great. But Basically, the end goal is to level out the highs and lows and be able to understand what we're doing. And with the retail, you know, we basically control our prices. We know the value of each steer. Sometimes you have to overlook exactly what's going on that day at the, at the sale barn and what those prices may be. But at the end of the year, you're still okay.

And I think that's what we're trying to do is we're getting, we're getting paid Every day, as opposed to getting one check a year, all dependent upon what the sale barn says. They're like, well, this is what we think your cattle are worth. Take the check or take your cattle and go home.

That's amazing. Now I want to pivot a little bit because when you and I met, Barron, I was really taken by your perspective and Of ranching in terms of how it almost— the way you talked about it was almost spiritual.

Yep.

You know, the connection to not only the land, but to just when you're out on the ranch and to the universe around you and just, and how in tune you feel, or at least how you described, uh, to the world around you. Can you both talk about that? About the, uh, I think we, we hear a lot about, um, you know, being a rancher and the kind of The manly stuff about it, but can we dive into the spiritual side that you guys experience on a daily basis?

Um, so you talk about changing. Um, I think that, uh, I have changed in the fact that I've become to appreciate the fact that everything is connected. Like, I believe that, but then you get out here and you experience and you're like, yeah. Everything is connected. And the land is a living thing with a personality. It's like being in a relationship. You gotta get to know the land. So what we do here, all the things we experience, all the things we notice with the land here may not work 50 miles from here because it's a completely different personality, completely different piece of land. So you really have to be connected and aware of how your land responds when it's dry, how your land responds when it's flooding, how your land responds when it's cold, when it has, you know, this many cattle, or you get to, you understand the rhythm of each piece of property because it is a living, breathing thing with a personality.

Do you guys feel now, and I know Ricky, you mentioned Your wife and the lifestyle, and I think she homeschools, right? Um, your kids. Do you guys feel like— how do I ask this? Like, do you feel like you're kind of tapped into an ancestral way of living and coexisting? You know, not only just with the land, but just in terms of human to human and learning and— And being a part of, um, being on this planet. Do you've— can you talk about that relationship that you, that you are in and that you have with, uh, from, from with your kids to the homeschooling to being outside and outdoors? Because I think this is something that's missing for a lot of people that are growing up in cities, right? I mean, oh yeah, and not feeling connected to their food sources.

Yeah, so, uh, Just looking around here at the ranch, we have a lot of road frontage and there's a lot of times kids come riding around out here. And I, it used to bother me, right? Because I'm like, what are they doing out here? Are they gonna leave their trash? Are they, you know, what, what are, whatever mischief they're getting into? And actually I've kind of, I look at it now, I drive by and, and sometimes there'll be 2 or 3 kids just hanging out in the ditch looking at something and 2 of them will jump in like they're doing something wrong and want to hang out or whatever. And I'll just stop, talk to them, see what's going on and just say, hey man, you know, hopefully y'all enjoying your time out here. Because, you know, you talk about people losing their connection to where their food comes from, being in the city all the time, not having the space. Maybe they need a little more connection to earth or whatever. So now it's kind of inviting, or I guess enjoying, enjoying to see them. coming out, trying to get some air and get away from all the hustle. But as far as like myself or my family and myself, this is the way we live. I don't really think about it too much. We try to eat healthy. We try to, you know, put ourselves and our kids in a healthy environment. We try to put those experiences in front of them. My son's what, 11 now, and he's been going to markets with me for 3 years. And so, uh, there was one year he was there every Saturday morning and with me at a market, and I think he missed, you know, 10 weeks in or whatever. And I had customers come up and say, where's your son at? Why is he not here today? And it's like, oh, well, he had something else going on, but—

He sells a lot of beef.

Those people actually look forward to him being there. And I mean, it's learn— he learns cash. He learns a little bit, you know, we use a program for our, you know, our point of sale. So he knows the point of sale. So there's life skills that he learns, communication, all that good stuff that they're learning out here. And so to me as a dad, I just like, hey, I want to give him every opportunity I can and let him experience what I think he needs to experience. So when it's his turn to step up and say, hey dad, I want to go do this. He already has a good start. He's like, I've seen you done do this. Or, you know, he knows how to talk to people where I was a shy guy and didn't even know how to get out from behind my dad's leg, you know, to say hello to somebody. You know, he's already to the point and my daughter's the same way. She's 4. Both of them are, you know, they can be quiet at first, but once somebody talks to them or they get to know somebody, they're, they're pretty easygoing and they can conversate and talk about things and So for us, it's just a natural way. I mean, we don't really think too much about it other than we're very fortunate and very grateful for the opportunity to be in this position because there was one point in town when my wife and I first got married that we didn't have a lot of money between us. We didn't have the income, so we were forced to buy a certain house, you know, at this cost, but we had neighbors that were 3 foot out the window. You know, we could basically extend our arms out each, you know, to each other and probably touch. Well, you know, that closed in pretty quick and we actually were there longer than we thought. So when we got out here, even though I was working out here, what, a couple years, maybe 2 or 3, and still living in town.

Yeah.

Uh, once we made the switch, uh, especially my son, my son just like sprouted. And, uh, I don't know if— What'd you see?

What did you see change in him?

Oh, just the, uh, basically confidence in whatever they want to do, you know? Uh, I think he was what, 5 at the time, maybe going on 6. And there was no training wheel, or there still was training wheels on his bike when we lived in town. We got out here. He realized they didn't roll on grass like they were supposed to. He's like, Dad, we got to take those off. So that was like the first thing that I seen was, hey, it's time to set him free. You know, in, in riding horses now, basically just the confidence in doing things without worrying about what's mom or dad going to think about this. Mom may not always agree about it, but dad's like, if you want to take the chance on doing it, if I think it's safe enough, I'm going to allow you to. To, you know, go take care of that. Or, you know, I may set him out on a horse and go and just say, hey, go count these calves real quick in this pen. And, and sometimes he comes back with the right number. Sometimes he comes back with the wrong number, but it's basically just the whole fact that he wanted to go try by himself, you know? And, and so that's a win. So that tells me anything in life that he wants to go do, whether he wins or loses or he wins or fails, whatever. He has the confidence to step out there and try it on his own. So that's what I see. My daughter, my daughter was actually born here at the ranch. So, you know, she was never in any other situation than what's here. She doesn't get out much other than riding around, check cows. She's not involved in much of the day-to-day, doesn't really understand what dad does all the time, but You know, eventually that'll come. So for now it's just growing up, having fun with, you know, all of us and enjoy the fishing and the riding around, whatever chores we need.

How big, how big is the property? How many acres?

We're at about 3,500 acres.

Wow. So we're coming to the end. So I just, just one last question. Regenerative farming, you're You're not, you're doing everything natural with the cows, with the, with the meat that you're producing. How is that translating to the other choices in your life? Are you now kind of more aware of like what chemicals are being used in the production of your clothes or in the environment or the other things you purchase? Like, has it changed your, your diets, for example? What else has changed in your life because of what you've learned on the ranch?

Yeah. All of those things. You just become, you know, it's all steps, but you're right that every day you just become more and more aware. And especially being in the food business, you see behind the scenes a lot more. And so you're asking a lot more questions and yeah, your diet becomes a lot cleaner just because.

Yeah. It's almost like you're looking at it through that lens for around everything, right? It's for sure.

I mean, Going to restaurants is really hard because you used to go to a nice steak restaurant and now that we're really into raising quality beef, you go to a restaurant and like, I know exactly where this comes from. I know exactly who processed this.

And, you know, it definitely makes, you know, stopping and eating somewhere more difficult because I guess for my family and I, we basically, I mean, in our travels, we will only eat at a couple of different places. Now, if we travel far and we don't know how long we'll be be there. Of course, we'll have to experiment, but it's a lot of packing your own food now. You know, we do some snack sticks, so we're constantly packing those things around. That way we have something clean on the go. But yeah, it changes your lifestyle for sure. Where, you know, used to travel, you just go and get the food wherever you wanted to. And now, I guess for us, it's been a lot longer journey than what the ranch has been. on this path, but you know, you constantly get dialed in, you're getting dialed in more and more. And you see, you get pickier and pickier as time goes by about where you stop and eat. Because just like fast food, there's only a couple fast food places my wife will stop and get something just due to the fact that we know what oils they use or, you know, maybe where their source of beef is or, you know, whatever the case might be. So it really limits you on On where you go and, and how you move about and, and plan your day. But it's very well possible. Everybody can do it. The base— best thing I can say is get started somewhere.

Yeah.

You know, just get started and, and there's no— and do your own thing. Uh, like we try not to, uh, you know, reflect or on what our neighbor's doing or whatever. We don't let it bother. Yeah.

Like judge them, right? Yeah. You're not necessarily judge— in judgment of them.

Everybody, you went back, you said something about the spiritual side of things. Well, everybody's on their own journey and, and you have to allow them to be on that journey because that's what they want to do. And, and that's what they want to experience. We, on the other hand, want to experience this dog. And, um, so whatever we, we just want to stay on that path and, and we want to make sure that there's that security there.

Well, I have to remember that. You know, I, we get excited about this stuff, about finding, you know, new ways to be more in tune with the environment, et cetera. And I forget that other people aren't as excited as we are or as extreme or push ourselves to the limits that we push ourselves. So we have to kind of dial ourselves back a little bit every once in a while, which is good. And we, the first, the best thing that we do is we invite people to the ranch, come see the ranch, come see what we do. You can look at trees and cows and yes, it still exists. So just, that's, that's the best and simplest thing to do.

And even, oh, even the ranch, go ahead.

The operation is pretty simple. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of time. You know, everybody thinks, you know, you see some videos, it, Oh, regenerative ranching is easy, or regenerative farming is easy. Well, it kind of is, but it really isn't. There's still—

Well, you're trading money for time.

Yeah. And so, you know, but all in all, it's a pretty simple operation. And, you know, for you it may sound complicated, like how in the world did they get to that point? Uh, you know, you step, you know, spend a day or two with us or even afternoon with us and, you know, we can show you around and, and see how things operate and how things are set up and you'll be like, oh, Okay. I understand. It's really not that, not that hard. You just gotta kind of change your way of thinking of what we were, you know, whatever you were doing, just, just change your way of thinking a little bit. So.

Well, I, I, I appreciate that you guys are modeling what's possible. I mean, I'm, I'm truly impressed and blown away that you're, you're, you're running things. When, when you said, Baron, that you guys are on another level, you really are. I mean, that you're running cattle so naturally and so in tune with the earth is, is, is really, Just impressive. And, um, I'm grateful. I'm grateful to have ranchers like yourselves out there. Uh, but now, now the biggest dilemma for those listening to this podcast is that you don't ship your meat, right? They have to live locally to get it.

Yeah, we, we live in an area with a lot of people, and so we're here to promote basically ranching, regenerative ranching in general. So we are hoping that more of ranches like us start popping up. 'Cause I mean, we, we did the math and we can feed what, 100, 200 families a year?

Maybe more like somewhere closer to 400, probably.

Okay.

Before, well, the style of beef he is, because everybody, and that's the hard thing to answer as well, is like, at what level do you eat red meat or whatever? You know, like some people eat, you know, some families eat 2 to 3 pounds a setting, you know, for dinner or whatever. And some people might feed a family of 6 with a half pound. So, you know, it all depends on your eating style, how many people we can feed. But just calculating on if a family ate a half steer per year, which we see quite a bit, you know, most people buy them every, I don't know, 10 to 16 months, maybe that the families, you know, come back and buy another one. So just say a half steer a month to make it easy math. You know, we could feed 400 families or so. Once we get up to that full potential, we just, we're scaling up a little at a time. And, you know, with that, there's challenges, logistics, and everything else. So Eventually, that's our end goal is to be at that number.

But that's, well, 400 of 350 million people. So we didn't—

right. It's, it's a start. It's a start. But, but either way, like you said, you're modeling what's possible. So if people do want to come visit, what, what, uh, will you share the— you're in Texas, but what town are you in?

Uh, we're, uh, outside of Waxahachie. Uh, go to the website and we'll have a, uh, a way to, uh, tour the ranch.

And will you share that website and, and how people can find you?

It's raisedwildtexas.com.

And then on socials, you are Raised Wild Texas?

Uh, we are, uh, @raisedwildtexas on, uh, Instagram and Raised Wild, uh, TX on Facebook.

Well, thank you guys. Thanks for your time as well. I, well, I guess you have lots of time 'cause, you know, Baron told me everything's in the morning and then you got your afternoons, No, it's not always time.

It goes for a while, but yeah.

Okay.

Best that, you know, cattle-wise, go get your cattle stuff done in the morning. Afternoons are a little bit more flexible. And then sometimes there's some things to do in the evenings or whatever, but yeah, it's the way it goes.

Well, hey, I thank you guys for your time and—

Thanks. Awesome.

Yeah. Well, and anyone, you know, thank you all for listening at Everyday Ancestral. You heard it here. If you want to see a ranch the way it's done, as naturally and as clean as possible, go check out, um, this ranch. It's— I can't wait to visit next time I'm in the area. You know I'm coming because, uh—

Come for a few days. Come stay at the ranch and we'll put you to work. That's— that's—

All right. I, I want it. I want— I, I— we all need— we all need more grit. We need as much grit as Ricky's kids have. So we gotta, we gotta work on, work on grit for everybody. So thank you guys.

Uh, thank you.

Truly appreciate you. Um, and I, I, I look forward to trying your meat. I'm trying to remember if I got to try it when we were in Wyoming. It was— I'm not—

did you get to the wedding?

No, I didn't get to make that wedding, but we did have— there should have been some That, that night, right, when they were doing the tastings, right?

We had some. Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like that night we tasted something like a lot. I had to taste like 12. Was that 12 or something? 12 steaks?

Yep.

It was a lot. But I remember there were only like 2 or 3 that I actually really— that I tasted like that were really good. And, and I bet you anything, yours was one of those. I, I would almost guarantee it. Yeah. Well, hey, thank you guys. It's been a pleasure.

Thank you.

Take care.

Good deal. Thank you.

Thank you so much for joining me on Everyday Ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one. You can find the show notes, links, and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com. That's eatpluck.com. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.