Our Philosophy

Our Farming Philosophy

We strive to always do what is best for the animals and the consumers. We partner with other small area farmers to provide beef, pork, and chicken raised according to our beliefs. Animals are kept in very low-stress, clean, and natural environments. All live outside all year around and can get out of the weather if they want. We interfere with them as little as possible so they grow up “in the wild.” Our practices include the following protocols:

• Grass Fed (learn more below regarding each term)
• Pastured
  
• Raised Outside
  
• No confinement (free range)
  
• No antibiotics
  
• No hormones
• Regenerative agriculture

Look at any food label and you'll see many different terms, however, many terms don't accurately describe the product. Below are our definitions.

Grass Fed
At North Pasture Farms GrassFed means that animal is raised and finished on grass. The animal may have a little grain to help it get over the weaning process when it is a calf, or some pro-biotic in the form of Apple Cider Vinegar and Molassas during winter. Those two items consist of less than 0.001 of their diet. Other than those two items, they get grass, hay (dried grass) and mother's milk as their their entire life diet. Because our animals eat what their bodies are designed to eat, they also don't need antibiotics to stay healthy.

Pastured
Our animals live outside. Period. No feedlots, no cramped barns, no cages. Cows live in huge fenced in areas and are rotated to new pasture daily. Pigs have access to inside and outside to freely forage. Chickens are raised outside in movable enclosures so they can roam freely inside or outside and gain access to fresh grass/foraging areas regularly, yet are protected from wild carnivores.

Raised Outside
Raised outside means that the animal is raised where it has ready access to sunshine and fresh air. It doesn't necessarily mean the animal is on pasture. Our pork is raised outside so it can get sunshine and also get inside if it wants to get out of the rain, cold, or hot sun. The pigs get hay and cornstalks so they can eat that if they like, or make nests out of it. The pigs can also get inside out of the rain, cold winds, or hot sun if they like. None of our pigs is given antibiotics or hormones in their feed. Their diet consists of the hay and corn stalks mentioned above plus ground corn and soybeans, vitamins and minerals.

No Confinement

Our animals are raised outside, free to engage in natural behaviors. Our cows are outside year round. Our pigs are outside, with access to a barn, year round. Our chickens are raised outside in "chicken tractors." Chicken tractors are large moveable, enclosed spaces which protect the chickens from predators. The chicken tractor is moved daily over fresh ground to allow for new foraging and a clean space. They are a fantastic way to have "free range" animals without predation.

No Antibiotics
Our animals eat what nature intended them to (grass and hay for cows; grain and corn for pigs; grass and grain for chickens) they don't need antibiotics to stay healthy. Zero antibiotics in our meat = zero antibiotics passed on to us.

Grain-fed feedlot cattle live in cramped, dirty conditions. They stand around in a pen, living in their own feces, jockeying to reach the feeder, catching their neighbors’ illnesses. 

They are fed grain. Feeding a cow a high energy corn or grain diet is much the same as feeding yourself a diet of straight soda-pop, candy and cookies. You can live on it, but you will not be healthy. You will probably get really fat and are likely to die an early death from massive health issues.

Since the cattle’s native gut flora and fauna are not evolved to process the grain, they produce unhealthy amounts of acid to break the grain down. This condition is known as rumen acidosis, basically a bad heartburn. These animals are then given antibiotics to counteract the acidosis. This cycle becomes worse when the animal builds immunity to the first antibiotic and must then be given a higher grade to combat the issues the grain is causing. These antibiotics end up in the meat. The antibiotics given to the animals to counteract the diseases developed from living in cramped and dirty quarters also wind up in the meat.

No Hormones

Our animals receive no hormones directly, nor indirectly through their food sources.

Regenerative Agriculture

Regenerative agriculture is a way of growing food that actually makes the environment better and more able to sustain life instead of making it worse. Regenerative agriculture builds soils and does not use chemical inputs to do it. Regenerative agriculture uses livestock to increase the carbon content of soils and the ability of those soils to produce food crops. Regenerative agriculture increases the soil’s ability hold water and infiltrate water. Regenerative Agriculture has been proven to reverse desertification. Regenerative agriculture sequesters carbon into the soil as opposed to ‘conventional farming’ which through the use of tillage and chemical additions to the soil actually lessens the amount of carbon in the soil.

Many regenerative farms are getting the same or better yields per acre with food crops that conventional farms are getting.  They are doing this while increasing the carbon content of the soil.  Increasing the carbon content of the soil pulls carbon out of the air and helps fight climate change.

Animals that are raised on regenerative farms generally produce foods with better nutrient content than those raised with ‘conventional farming’ or Confined Animal Feeding Operations.

Some of the practices that make up regenerative farming are: Cover Cropping, Mob Grazing and Pasture Cropping.

Regenerative Farming is what REALLY floats our boat at North Pasture Farms. We know that if we can get enough people interested in and buying meats and other products that are raised on Regenerative Farms, we can do our part in combating climate change while producing much higher quality foods than are readily available now. 

To learn more about regenerative farming visit: https://www.quora.com/Can-we-reverse-global-warming/answers/34310028