• So you want to live forever….

    ….or at least longer? Our good friend Bill Roberts, of 12 Stones Grasslands Beef, is justifiably proud of his son, Will, who has already made a name for himself in the field of physical fitness.  Will has survived more than one Iron Man competition, trained professional athletes, and owns a health spa. In a recent newsletter, Will interviews his “old man” about how to live longer.  In a sense, the rules are less complicated than you might think.  Spoiler alert:  grass fed beef plays a big role but Will maintains he  has switched the strength and endurance of professional athletes with that one change in their diet. Here’s the interview:…

  • Thistle Hill Alumni…Tennessee Chapter….

    ….we’re always gratified to see how Regina and Tom Tesnow take our genetics to the next level.  Their Tomina Farm in Waynesboro, Tennessee probably has more Thistle Hill cows…and their progeny…than we do.  Well, not quite.  And they’ve blended to some other great lines, particularly Bill Roberts’ 12 Stones Grassland Beef. Their first big catch was our THF Magic, followed by THF Casino, the brother of our herd bull, Jackpot.  (You beginning sense there’s a theme, here?)  And now, with the real test of a bull, Regina has sent us pictures of Casino‘s progeny.  We’ve included two of his bull calves below.  (We’re currently out of bulls so we suggest you…

  • Farm land…what’s it worth…

    Our friend Bill Roberts, of 12 Stones Grasslands Beef, has had some experience in the subject in an “earlier life”.  Sometime back we posted his thoughts on just how a farmer, or particularly a would-be farmer, should approach the subject of buying land for his operation. Bill has just gone back to the subject on his blog and we thought it important and am posting it permanently here.  Just go to the Archives section….it’s right at the top.  

  • Still more on marketing grass fed beef….

    ….my recent post on the price disadvantage American producers face when competing against foreign grass fed beef (see below “Roundtable:  Can I make money selling grass fed beef) needs some fine tuning.  My point was that I pay almost four times as much for butchering as my competitor in Tasmania.  And so foreign beef can absorb the shipping costs and still undersell American beef. But my good friend Bill Roberts of 12 Stones Grasslands Beef files a mild disagreement (that’s what friends are for, to tell you when you’re wrong.  Mildly.) Bill says we’re not up against price competition alone. As I understand it, price is not the main issue in…

  • Roundtable: Can I make money selling grass fed beef?

    It’s a question that comes up whenever a new Devon breeder recognizes the gourmet quality of the meat in his pasture:  can I sell this animal at a reasonable profit or do I have to settle for the price dictated by the auction barn?  That same new Devon breeder also quickly becomes discouraged when he realizes he can’t produce enough meat for the commercial marketplace. Not many Devon breeders have the numbers necessary to supply the needs of just one store much less a major supermarket chain or a wholesaler that buys thousands of steers at a crack.  The marketing problem seems insurmountable. Edward Taylor of Vermont wrote us recently…

  • Addendum…..

    ….or should that be addenda?  Addendae? Anyway, here’s more on managing heifers growing out of our Roundtable below.  Both Bill Roberts and Juliet Cleave have posted comments along the way the past several days but I thought these two were worthy of special attention so I brought them up here. If you haven’t seen Juliet’s video, I hope you’ll do so now.  Turn up the sound. http://youtu.be/S_kKoeRcmwM First, to re-introduce Juliet.  She’s one of our partners in the Traditional Devon project in England.  A native of Cornwall, living and raising Devon on land her family has farmed for well over 100 years.  She has a spectacular herd and it was…

  • Breeding heifers…and more…

    The other day some of us got into a discussion, via email, about breeding heifers.  But as these things go, we wandered off topic quite a bit.  When I signed off, I realized that  there might be some thought-starters in our ramblings for readers of this blog and so I have reproduced it here with the permission of the participants. Taking part were myself, and our two partners in Traditional Devon, Bill Walker and John Forelle, as well as two people whose counsel we frequently seek out: Bill Roberts of 12 Stones Grasslands Beef and Dr. Sue Beal, a holistic vet in Pennsylvania.  The give-and-take began when I posted a video…

  • The secret ingredient….

    ….in Thistle Hill cows and beef. But it’s no secret, we’ve been saying for some time we think (next to Wooz’ care, of course) it’s our mineral program.  Visitors invariably remark that they have never seen a group of healthier, more vital animals than those at Thistle Hill. We do a lot of experimenting, try various grazing plans, top-seed clover, spray with different natural fertilizer combinations.  But the one thing we’ve held constant is our mineral program. It’s a cafeteria-style approach, where the cows don’t have a mixture of all the essential minerals as designed by “experts” but select from trays of the individual minerals.  They do actually self-diagnose.  Soils vary…

  • Those who can’t….

    ….well you know the rest.  And it’s certainly true in the cattle business.  Some of the best-known consultants have never really successfully managed a herd, much less produced a notable cow.  You can check. But here’s a Devon cow bred by a consultant, Bill Roberts of 12 Stones Grassland Beef, that would be a star in any herd.  Her name is 12 Stones Maxine and she traces her roots back to the Lenoirs Creek and Lakota farms. Bill not only produces beautiful animals but does a limited amount of consulting when he can fit it in between finding grass steers for processors and running a mineral business.  I hope you’ve been tracking…

  • Not all food is created equal….

    A good friend has written an article on food production that we think deserves wider dissemination than we offer here…..but we’ll do our bit. Organizations such as Weston A. Price are stout advocates of what is termed “nutrient dense food”.  It’s a phrase that is beginning to find its way into popular literature and Bill Roberts, of 12 Stones Grassland Beef, offers his take on it below.  We think he’s right and spend a good deal of money each year trying to improve the mineralization of our soil.  We also spend about 10 times what the average farmer does on natural, organic mineral supplements for our cows. America’s soils were…