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The Regenerative Revolution: How Raised Wild Texas is Redefining Ranching · Everyday Ancestral with James Barry

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  the land is a living thing. It's like being in a relationship. So you really have to be
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  connected and aware because it is a living breathing thing with a personality.
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  Hey friends welcome back to the Everyday Ancestral podcast. I am excited to have our next guest
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  Baron Kid and Ranch Manager Ricky Langer. So Baron has a ranch in Texas. His father grandfather
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  started the ranch in 1961. Baron used to work in his family's gas business. So he had a business
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  background and came back to the ranch and it was barely getting by. It was spending more than
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  it was making and he took a look at that as a businessman said you know I think we need to make
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  some changes. So in 2019 he made the commitment to go 100% regenerative ranching. Ricky was telling
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  after the podcast was in his experience when he was working more of a conventional farm and they
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  were being sold potency to give nutrients to the cows. He was shocked to learn that a the nutrients
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  in the feed they were being told to give the cows was really actually only like 10% potency.
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  The rest was just filler. That was very eye-opening to him. So enjoy this episode. I learned a lot
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  holy molly when I learned what they're doing on that ranch that's truly unique. I was really
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  blown away. So enjoy Baron Kid and Ricky Langer. Regenerative farming. What made you switch?
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  The finance is first of all. The feed costs were getting crazy. Just looking at the books,
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  the numbers weren't ending up. That was the first stimulus to go this direction. The second was that
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  we've done regenerative ranching here for a while and we just sort of made the decision to go all in.
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  That's a term that's getting thrown around a lot right now. Regenerative farming, regenerative grazing.
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  What does it mean and how does it look from your perspective? Well there's different grades. We've gone
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  completely regenerative, which means we don't use any fertilizers. We don't use any pesticides.
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  Basically it's the way the natural ecosystem should work. The cattle eat the grass,
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  fertilize the grass, supports the ecosystem. There's no need for real tractors at all in the process.
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  Are you allowing also the soil to kind of have dips and valleys for it to not be flat the way many
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  farms or ranches are that are more conventional? From what I understand, if you look at the ranch
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  and the hole, it's several different ecosystems and different terrains, topographies different.
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  We've got bottom land, we've got hill tops, ravines, all different sets of systems there.
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  If you look at what the Blackland Prairie does when it dries out, it's going to be nothing but
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  ripples and divots and holes. What does that tell you? It tells you that the ground is thirsty. If
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  everything was level and flat, just like concrete, not all of it, but some of it may drain off a lot
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  easier with all the little depressions and different terrain features. You have areas that will hold
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  water and will recharge the system a lot better than it would if it was just flat. If there was
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  rain in a short amount of time, well some of that will get held up in those little divots and
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  whatnot and it would give it time to recharge instead of just running off to the next water
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  system or the creek or whatever. So mankind has been putting in terraces for a while and faring,
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  but the ground has its own way of doing that, so you kind of have to allow it to happen.
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  The hogs do a really good job of that as well, creating little wallows and whatnot and digs and
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  that also gives that water a place to recharge. Is that kind of a criteria for being
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  regenerative is having multiple species as well? It's actually a benefit, so once we started to go
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  for a generative, people throw these words around and they become almost meaningless. But once we've
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  gone to the pure natural ecosystem, we found that more animals are coming in, that the bees start
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  coming back, the birds start coming back, the hog damage is actually less. It's balancing in both
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  ways. What do you mean the hog damage? We have a huge wild hog problem. They will tear up fields.
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  Farmer next to us, he hires an entire outfit of hunters to just sit on his property all at
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  long shoot hogs. Well that can't be cost effective. They come and go, but they pretty much
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  thermal-honoured. When they're in the area, they take care of the issue and come back another day
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  and scout again. It's seemed like the less you can disturb the ground, the better off you are,
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  just to keep those hogs at bay or let them stay at your neighbor's house or probably whatever you
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  want to say. You're getting more variety of grass as well, because in a sense you're not telling,
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  right? There's no telling. Like he said before, the input costs on all that. If you could figure out
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  the right outlet for those margins and those numbers, that's probably okay. It works for some people
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  out there. It just doesn't work for our program right now. The way we do our ranching and we rotate,
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  we rest and what you see is a differed set of species of grasses coming in. Since we went from
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  commercial fertilizing over to this program, of course the species have changed. Some of it hasn't
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  been able to survive, but it has allowed other grasses to take its place and the earth won't
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  something cover, and it don't want to be naked, so something's going to grow. So that's what we're
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  looking at right now. I think the fertilizer that they get, the natural fertilizer from the cattle
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  that we do run, it helps out with that as well. It's changing the pH balance and different things
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  and different levels. Was it the rhizones or whatever when you plow it or kill it and all that?
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  We haven't disturbed that in a good while. Can you talk about that actually, because that's one of
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  the big arguments. A lot of vegans and vegetarians out there will say, well, I don't want to kill
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  anything. When you're dealing with a monocrop plowing at all, isn't it true you're killing a lot of
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  things? I feel that you are. I mean, I've talked to ranchers who are like, it's worse than a horror
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  movie. They amount of different animals and critters that get caught up in those blades. Plus,
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  if you're constantly fertilizing and you're constantly using pesticides, all those animals will leave
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  or die. And when you go back to just the natural ecosystem, they all come back. We actually
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  see a lot of that on our property, whereas on the neighbors, you don't see that as much.
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  Oh, so your neighbors are not regenerative and yet you are. So is that affect your property at all?
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  If they're spraying, if they're doing anything, is there any kind of wind carryover, anything like
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  that? I think we've only had one instance in the past handful of years that we might have had an
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  issue and it was due to ground just getting sprayed and then we had about a four to five inch rain.
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  And we had a lot of excess runoff from that bare ground into our property. It may have caused some
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  issues with some young calves and, you know, of course, all the contaminants I believe filtered out.
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  The water was filtered when it ran through our grasses and that particular area we had some
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  issues with some small calves. We're kind of thinking that was one of the factors that might have
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  linked to that issue was the spraying and potential chemical buildup that might have been over
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  in the crop land. What kind of issues do you see? Basically, their immune systems were had dropped
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  that's long issues. Yeah, one of the knee crops as we did, I think we did two on some young calves
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  that were, it only affected calves that were about seven days or younger. Basically, it was fluid
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  buildup around their lungs, around their hearts, organs. They all carry a strain of E. coli in them,
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  the E. coli strains change after a certain amount of days, but they had seen like a spike level
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  that E. coli in their system. And here's the deal. The reason that we kind of contributed to that
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  is for the reason that once we moved them off out of that area, off of that pasture, our cabin
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  window was about a 90 day window. We had this problem for about two weeks while these calves were
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  being born in this one pasture. As soon as we moved them off, the problem was gone and didn't even
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  exist. And it was just from that what I want to call a flash fluid, all that water basically
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  come off that cropland into our pastures, into our waterway, and then it was gone. The other
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  thing that could have been a contributing factor is that there was a transmission line run through
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  there as well. Of course, that creates a higher EMF, so we don't know if it was kind of a combination
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  of both of those two made the perfect storm for the for the issues that we had with those young calves.
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  Have you actually seen how the EMFs directly affect the ranch and animals on the ranch?
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  I don't know if there's a direct connection or not. I haven't had enough time or enough
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  experience on that, but like I said, once we moved them off that section, that those issues
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  pretty much eradicated themselves. Yeah, and they seemed more
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  more susceptible to the younger like the younger calves, you know, just a few days old,
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  the immune systems can't handle it. The older cattle that have been around the ranch for a while,
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  they've adapted to it. I just appreciate you mentioning that because, you know, EMFs is still
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  something that's mostly talked about in tight health community. So can you talk about your experience
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  of that? Because there's so many people that still don't get it. It's physics in the fact that the
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  EMF waves are very specific wavelengths and, you know, organisms can handle other wavelengths.
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  And you know, it could be that these the EMFs are just disrupting the natural electromagnetic
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  field of animals, people. Are you guys utilizing any EMF blockers? Because I know they
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  there are some providers of very large like that will cover very large areas of land. Are you
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  guys utilizing that? Not yet. That's the great thing about being here is that we're all
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  experimenting. We're always open to new ideas. If it works and it's beneficial and it is in sync
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  with how the natural ecosystem works, then we'll do it. How long does it take from going from
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  conventional to to regenerative to getting certified, you know, or to just being able to say this
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  soil is now cleaner. There is no certification. We're with one program that sort of a certified
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  grass fed organization. They never came to the ranch. It was all natural programming. It was
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  all natural program that is used, I'm not even going to mention, but it's used in a number of
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  large grocery stores as to being their program. They never came to the ranch. It was all
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  for the phone. They asked us questions. We sent them photos. That's it. There's take your
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  money so you can put that label on there. Put the label on and they don't know whether we have
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  antibiotics in the cabinets, hormones in our cattle. They never even seen one head met us
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  or even seen the property other than maybe a Google map or whatever. So it is a very strange
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  program. We've got rid of all of our certification programs. Well, all of our organic certification
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  programs because we are so far beyond what they're doing that is not worth our money. I understand
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  what you're saying by that. You know, that you're so far beyond. How do you educate the person
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  that's only looking for those certifications? What questions should someone be asking when they're
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  trying to find ranches like yours that are above and beyond? When we market, we have people that
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  ask certain things and the very simple one would be, can I come see the ranch or the farm or whatever
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  it is? You invite those folks out and say, come on, because sometimes it's as quick as, oh no,
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  we don't allow outside visitors for whatever reason. But the other thing is it's just a person
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  could simply acquire about simple practices. What kind of species they're running? How do they
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  handle this or that? As far as how many cattle do you run for acre or whatever? You can kind of ask
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  some questions and then do the math on it and see if it's adding up. Just see if the numbers match
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  what. I guess if you're not well educated on that, it may be a little tougher. But for me,
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  when you market next to somebody and they said, oh, we're processing 400 head a year,
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  but they only have about 500, 600 acres, maybe a thousand acres. Well, your mindset says, okay,
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  they're not doing exactly what they're saying. If they're in complete control from conception to
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  finishing out that steer, whether you're grain feeding or grass feeding, doesn't matter,
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  you still can be regenerative. But if they're processing at 18 months old or if there's somebody
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  like us that may be 24 to 36 months of age, well, you're not going to run that many head on a small
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  amount of acreage, whatever that number is. So you kind of do the math a little bit. Just inquire
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  and keep asking those questions and make sure your mindset is okay with it. And then a lot of times,
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  now most people want to talk about their ranch on their website or Facebook or whatever their
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  social media is, you can go on there and find out a bunch of most time they'll have some kind of
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  family history on the farm or the ranch, probably gives you an acreage and then you can start
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  adding up in your head. Okay, well, they got this much chicken, they got this much pork, whatever
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  it may be lamb beef, etc. And you can kind of put the puzzle pieces together for yourself and
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  be like, okay, or you can show up. One farm may only be 50 acres, but you pull up and there's
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  a big distribution center there that's 10,000 square foot and they're feeding what a community
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  of 20,000. Well, that doesn't add up either. So a lot of it takes time. I know we bought my family,
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  my wife and I have bought from, we try to buy from local producers as well, especially before we
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  got started on our own journey of providing that here. It took us a little time, but we eventually
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  figured out who was legit and who wasn't. Go to the ranch, go to the farm, use a little patience.
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  As to the programs, if you're a giant corporate organization, those programs actually do help.
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  It takes them from not caring at all to caring a little bit. So if you're going to buy
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  corporately produced food, then those labels do help. We're so far beyond that. We're the tip
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  of the speeder. We've gone all the way back to, it's basically full cycle. We've gone back to
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  the way your ranching was, you know, 100 years ago. Let's talk about what caused the shift. So
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  your father, grandfather started the ranching business in 1961, right? So you're taking that over
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  from them, but you only really made the commitment you said in 2019. So what was the catalyst for you
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  changing what was done before? My father retired. Handed the ranch back down to us and I was involved
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  with the ranch, but not day to day. So when he handed the books and we started looking at the books,
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  that's when we started to change. His generation was the generation of
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  better living through chemistry. So it wasn't just him. In fact, compared to the way other people
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  were ranching, he actually had used less chemicals than most people. But it was still that
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  generation. That's how they were raised. You had your feed wrap, you had your wrap for all your
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  chemicals, and for your pesticides, and you had your wrap for all your fertilizer. And that's
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  the way ranching was. Where were you coming from, Barron? So what was your career before you were
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  ranching? The family, all in gas business. So looking at the books was easy and doing the math.
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  It's pretty simple. Business is pretty simple. On the ranching side of the deal, on the operational
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  side, we done a couple of different programs. We were working through the Nobel Research Institute.
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  I believe I'd Oklahoma there with some pilot programs on raising some beach steers and whatnot.
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  It's just kind of seemed like we were pumping full of vaccines and whatnot all the time. I mean,
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  you're doing modified live vaccines and some other ones. And then for some of the calves to be able
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  to handle that modified live vaccine, you had to give the cow the same one 30 days before the
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  calf was in utero or Tennessee. So I guess the calf could handle all of that as well. So it just
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  kind of seemed like we were just constantly poking them up, you know, with some dead and shooting
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  them up with something and caused a lot of stress on the cattle. Conception rates went down, you
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  know, reproduction rates went way down. I think one year we were down, what close to 60% reproduction
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  or conception rates went down 60% and then we had to start a whole new program as far as a
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  cabin because we were strictly just a spring cabin operation. Well, we couldn't sell 60% of the herd
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  the next day and then figure out how we're going to replace that or what we're going to do in that
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  short amount of time to get the numbers back up. So I believe we sold off some of those open cows and
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  then we just held some of them to create a fall cabin program. So some of those techniques and
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  different things that they were doing. Of course, the other thing that we found out was it felt
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  like the cattle or the grown cows, the mama cows, life expectancy went way down. I mean, you may
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  have one that they start cabin at two to three years of age. Well, by the time they reached seven
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  years of age, they were done, you know, they went free martin or they just wouldn't reproduce or
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  whatever the cause might be. And we just kind of starting adding everything up and what it was
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  costing us to put those vaccines in those cows plus the low amount of return we would get from
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  those cattle. That was one of the catalysts that drove that change as well. It was like, okay,
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  we basically decided to put the ranch into a reset mode and let's get rid of all the vaccines.
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  We had to wean them off slow. We just didn't just one day decide not to do anything. Of course,
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  you only vaccinate once or twice a year anyhow, depending on what you have going on. But we just
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  slowly weaned those cattle off those vaccines and first was the modified live and then it was
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  some of the other stuff like most common black plague, which is your most common, your cheapest
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  vaccine out there in my opinion. And then once we did that, we got off conventional wormers.
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  We were probably using conventional worm right that time. We got away from those as well.
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  Is that going the feed? Mount under the skin or there's a topical application that you pull
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  on their backbone, which from my understanding absorbs into their spinal cord and then transfers
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  that wherever it needs to in the body. It wasn't just automatic light switch of changing over.
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  So basically what I was talking about, we just kind of put the ranch in a reset mode. We went
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  through a few trials and nothing that was life changing or whatever. But eventually we worked
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  through it and I believe the cattle are stronger. We were able to lean them off of all the cattle
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  cubes that we were given them during the winter time and the cost of time went down quite a bit
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  just by not having to give them all those cubes during the winter that they became dependent on.
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  Once we stockpiled standing grass, we were able to cut back our hay feeding. We actually were able
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  to increase the herd size, but we were able to decrease the hay input, I guess you would say.
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  Yeah, the number of rolls we can number of rolls we've been. I mean, after that,
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  I mean, we were feeding 600 or something. It could be anywhere, 600, 800 rolls of hay per year.
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  Now we only feed about 230 and we're probably increased the herd size by about 50%. So just
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  those numbers alone increase your margins. Are you able to do that because of the climate in Texas?
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  Because most farms can't do that year right? You know, this year is going to be tough. We've
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  actually been through about three to four years now of extreme weather cases and it seems like
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  the last few years we'll get all of our rain just in about a 60 day window and then we get nothing
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  for the rest of the year. Hay production was a little bit lower this year. We don't have as much
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  standing grass, but you have to listen to your cattle as well. We're having a lot of our fall
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  calves being born right now and you know, those mama cows aren't slowing down. So that tells me
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  everything eventually will be okay. There'll be enough to support them and we'll just kind of
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  listen to the cattle and even though you look out there and it's nothing but powder and I mean,
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  there's there's grass here and there. It's not much to it enough to survive on June the water
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  and we've been sitting here pretty much moisture free since the end. So what is that five to six
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  months already? We've gone to 105 degree weather for what 30 days or better. I don't know if every day
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  was right at a hundred or over, but you know, you talk about 95 to 105 degree summer here. That's
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  what we're dealing with. We're set up since it's just been cattle on the property that when it does
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  rain, everything's fertilized. Everything's ready to go. We're just need water. It'll pop right
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  back. So a couple of good days of rain. You get a few inches, two inches here, maybe for a couple
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  weeks. Everything's green again. It bouts us back pretty fast. So what was that period of
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  from conventional to regenerative? Was that a three or five year period? Like how long did it take?
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  It was going. You think, oh, I just done this. Now I'm regenerated because I'm rotational grazing,
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  right? Then you may look at how are you controlling erosion in this area or it's probably endless. So
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  it's basically a constant learning curve from what we figured out or what I understand about it. We're
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  always trying to figure out a way to improve. You know, a lot of times you see programs where people
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  are condensing a lot of cattle down into one small section, you know, maybe putting 50 cows on two
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  acres or whatever. And then they just move them every day. That's okay. If it works for them,
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  that style doesn't exactly work here. It does do wonders for the grass because as soon as you
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  get rain, it might be three foot tall just within a few weeks. You do really condense that manure,
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  the urine, you know, I guess you create EMF as well by running on cattle on top of it. It creates
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  its own frequency, which I've understood and I've heard about people talking about how just
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  running cattle on top of it, like as a migrating herd, the frequencies help grow that grass. It gets
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  it stirred up, wakes it up and says, Hey, I got to go again. So, you know, at what level are you
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  regenerating? And I think as technology changes, people start learning more and they start seeing the
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  results of what they've been doing for five, six, seven, 10, 15 years, there's always going to be that
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  next level of how can I improve it? What can I do better? Your water source may be in one corner of
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  that pasture. The next step to that agenda, if maybe is to move that water source to the other
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  corner. So instead of having all your heavy traffic flow to one corner, now you've got it, you know,
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  your EMF traffic and your grazing patterns differ. So at what point do you quit?
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  I understand barren's motivation because he's looking at the books, it's his family ranch, and
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  you know, we're losing money. So how do we turn that around? But as ranch manager Ricky, you were
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  coming from a whole other industry, what shifted for you? I mean, was it more just like, I hear what
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  you're saying and I see how that could be a value and I want to just keep learning or I'm kind of
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  diving into this because I think within the ranching industry, within meat processors, within many
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  of these kind of older industries, we have these antiquated ways, these old thoughts of how to do
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  things and the shift away from these is really challenging. I'm just trying to identify what
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  what shifted in you to get you out of the old way of doing it into this. Well, technically,
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  regenerative farming is the older way, but you know, I mean, I had to bring it back. Basically,
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  there was no big shift. Okay, I had a job to do when when his dad run the ranch and so it was
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  basically following what his lead said to do. You probably don't understand is that I have another
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  small ranching operation that I've been running for getting close to 15 years now and it was
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  basically just a landowner that backed out wanted to have the cattle. He didn't have much to do
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  with the land. What I had to do was because of all my other interests, you know, I couldn't overbraze,
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  right? Most of the time, the old mentality is let's put his many head on a piece of property and
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  let's try to figure out how to make it work. One, we're going to talk about, oh, we got this
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  amount ahead and it gets a conversation piece for some people. I'm buying this amount of fertilizer.
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  Oh, fertilizer cost me this. I have stayed away from that basically the whole span of my career as
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  far as running cattle and and so I actually have done this on a smaller scale at another place
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  and had that history and I was using one vaccine because it was there was an issue there that was
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  pretty common on that property and the neighbors there. So I was already down to one vaccine and I
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  was down to just saw or a trace mineral lick. We run those cattle there for many years without
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  any trouble. It was very low input. I was feeding like 25% of a row per unit on that property
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  all winter. Basically, I just show up and only time I would put out a grass or hey would be when
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  it would snow or we'd have a big freeze or something like that. It was basically a landowner that
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  didn't have a lot of capital to operate on but he wanted to run cattle. So we figured out how to do
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  it. We kept our numbers low. We rotated just a little bit on a smaller scale and that is what
• 26:33
  my background is and that's how I knew when when Baron here said, hey, look, we got to make a change.
• 26:39
  I knew from the start just adding up everything that we were doing and how much time it was costing
• 26:44
  and how much labor it was taking. It's like, man, this doesn't make sense to me. So when he came in and
• 26:48
  said, hey, I think we need to try something different. I said, I'm all I'm all in. I've already been
• 26:53
  doing this for another landowner just right down the road. So it was an easy switch. It was basically
• 26:59
  the mindset of what the owner is actually wanting to do. I have to follow their lead and give them
• 27:04
  the best advice as we can going down the road. Now that you both are in it, you're deep in it.
• 27:11
  What's changed in you that maybe wasn't there previously? Do you notice like your own health
• 27:18
  improving? The quality of the meat that you're eating now is different. My wife is real health
• 27:24
  coaches. That was kind of a big thing for me as well as helping her achieve her goals and dreams
• 27:29
  or whatever as far as food intake. We went by as mentally processed as possible from the store and
• 27:36
  we want to buy something from rancher that we understood was pretty clean. So the best way to get
• 27:43
  that in life is just to do it yourself. And that was a big inspiration as well. And we lucked out and
• 27:50
  we have a good quality tasting beef. It's pretty standard. I mean, it's pretty consistent.
• 27:56
  The flavor profile of our beef is completely different, not completely different, but it's
• 28:01
  what tastes like beef. Different than what you get in the store or the grain fed flavor is different.
• 28:06
  How would you describe it if you were to try to put a name to the flavor of what most people experience
• 28:12
  versus what yours tastes like? Can you try to describe that? It's closer to a while. I feel like
• 28:17
  conventional beef is getting a very watery and very flat flavor. So I'm assuming yours is not
• 28:24
  as watery and it actually has a flavor to it. It's a beefier flavor. We already know from
• 28:30
  testing that as far as nutritional wise, it's really elevated compared to others. What are you seeing
• 28:37
  in the elevation? Iron is what 50 to 75% depending on whether it's grass-fed or, you know, grain-fed
• 28:45
  in the Omega 6-3 ratio is way off the chart in my opinion. It's closer to a wild game. The
• 28:54
  Omega, the fat profiles of our beef is similar to, actually in some cases higher than like elk
• 29:02
  that you'd get. And that's just a sign that their bodies have just shifted back to more of a
• 29:08
  natural cycle. We have a lot of weightlifters and we just had one that I guess she's now got her
• 29:14
  pro-card. She eats like five cups of olive beef a day rice and I think caught his cheese and egg whites
• 29:22
  and that's what her diet consists of. And basically she's been doing this for, I don't know, a year
• 29:28
  plus and she's won multiple competitions off of it and done really well with herself. And she just
• 29:33
  went from your, you know, your average walk down the street mom to a bodybuilder and has done it
• 29:40
  with our beef as well. So that was kind of icing on the cake. But yes, we have a lot of those
• 29:46
  type of people that buy from us. We also have another customer that buys, I think he buys 40 pounds of
• 29:52
  beef every three weeks and then 20 dozen eggs or something like that. It's some kind of weird
• 29:56
  needs beef eggs and rice and that's his condition. Are you getting that kind of feedback though?
• 30:01
  Because I know, I know some of the people that are probably buying from you are very functional
• 30:06
  with it where they're testing and they're checking things out. They're, you know, maybe even
• 30:09
  biohacking or something. Have you guys gotten any feedback of, hey, I was using this beef before yours
• 30:17
  and seeing these numbers and now that I'm using your beef, I'm seeing huge gains. Are you getting
• 30:22
  in that kind of feedback? I'm also coming in and say, you know, our kids won't eat beef and then
• 30:29
  she gives it our brown beef like they love our brown beef. We sell to a lot of homeschool moms
• 30:34
  and different groups and whatnot and and that was one of the big draws when they bought our ground
• 30:39
  beef. The mom would cook like two or three days worth and then they would reheat it. They said
• 30:44
  our kids would never eat beef from Walmart or H.E.B. That was our ground beef. Once they heated back
• 30:50
  up in the microwave, send a taste was way off and the kids just didn't want anything to do with it.
• 30:56
  She said, we can buy y'all's ground beef and heated up as many times we want and it's still
• 31:01
  the same, you know, flavor as it was the first time. So that was a really big positive. That's
• 31:06
  a big win in my books right there. That's not necessarily the fat ratio. You're just talking
• 31:11
  because of the nutritional profile is different between our process and the USDA processor that we
• 31:17
  use. The product is really clean. We have the same folks pretty much cut it. It's the same guy
• 31:23
  in his helper month in and month out that basically cut prep and package our beef and we have
• 31:30
  minimal issues with it and like I said, it helps with the quality of the beef. So regenerative farming,
• 31:37
  it's helping to retain the water. You're increasing the nutritional profile. It's overall healthier
• 31:42
  because you're not using as many pesticides. So are you guys using zero vaccines on the cows now?
• 31:49
  As forage and water basically. Is there anything that is inescapable? You're not using any added
• 31:55
  hormones. You're not using any antibiotics. Like you're able to cut everything out. Yeah. If cattle
• 32:01
  have a problem, we've shifted to herbal treatments, natural oils to control parasites, dewormers,
• 32:08
  et cetera. So it's possible for them to not even go throughout their going and to do it all naturally.
• 32:15
  Clearly as you're pointing out, you're saving money. So is it just because they don't know
• 32:19
  any different? There's so many incentives like I was talking about the Nobel Research Institute
• 32:24
  as a pilot program. Well, they're going to give you just a little bit of incentive to do it
• 32:28
  their direction so they can do their research and I'm not saying that to knock them for what they're
• 32:33
  doing. But that was the incentive of giving all those vaccines at one point and that was the
• 32:38
  result of it. I guess looking back, I'm kind of frustrated because they didn't really ask what
• 32:43
  happened at the ranch when we did all this. It's something changed at the ranch. But all we had
• 32:48
  was results of marketing and finished grades and all that kind of stuff from their feed lots,
• 32:55
  you know, at the end of the project. So looking back, I wish we could actually have a little input
• 33:00
  on that and said, hey, did you all realize what happened at the ranch is as the producer or did
• 33:06
  you just care about what happened at the feed lot and what the meat quality turned out to be?
• 33:10
  I'm really blown away. I've never talked to a rancher that's doing what you guys doing,
• 33:16
  like where there's nothing that's unnatural being used. This is incredible. What is it you think
• 33:23
  needs to happen in the industry for others to take not only notice to what you're doing,
• 33:27
  but actually start to apply it? I get that it's scary because you're, you know, you've done
• 33:32
  something a certain way or your family has done something a certain way for 20 years, 30 years,
• 33:38
  50 years, and then all of a sudden you're supposed to hit the brakes and do 180. That's scary. And,
• 33:44
  you know, your livelihood, your income all depends on this. And if it does work, you know,
• 33:50
  what do you do? That's a scary jump to me. That's basically what the vaccines and everything are
• 33:55
  to insurance policy. It's what it feels like. You know, you're basically when you, when you buy
• 34:00
  your vaccines and you get to your cattle, you have a notch you can sleep in an insurance policy
• 34:05
  that you're probably 90% covered. We still had cattle when we've vaccinated, we still had cattle
• 34:10
  not. Yeah, it's sold to everyone as this is a security, but it's not actually, it's an illusion,
• 34:16
  right? It's not actually secure. Yeah, so you can sleep better at night. The other thing you hear
• 34:21
  is that, you know, ranchers are barely getting by. And so you mentioned you came in, you guys were
• 34:28
  in a state of that where you're barely getting by. So where are you now? We're moving to 100% retail.
• 34:35
  Meaning 100% to individuals as opposed to having to sell to a feedlot or sale bar.
• 34:42
  What I hear a lot of times with ranchers, they have a good year and then they have many bad years,
• 34:46
  you know, so they're constantly kind of like making money, but having to hold on to it tightly,
• 34:50
  because they don't know what the next year is going to be. Are you now in a place where you can
• 34:53
  just kind of, you know, you just go do your thing and you're more than okay. That's what we're
• 34:58
  looking forward to is get away from the roller coaster ride of having a good year bad year. We're
• 35:03
  just trying to level it out a little bit where we're in control. When you market live cattle,
• 35:09
  local sale bar and stock yards, wherever, you know, basically they're in control. In 24 hours,
• 35:14
  things can change quite a bit. And so you may be holding for, you know, the sale of certain
• 35:19
  months, well, by the time you get there, the market's not there anymore or, you know, you may hit a
• 35:24
  home run one year and expect, you know, well, we're going to markets a little low and you may come
• 35:30
  back and get a surprise check and you're like, well, that's great. Basically the end goal is to
• 35:34
  level out the highs and lows and be able to understand what we're doing. And with the retail,
• 35:41
  you know, we basically control our prices. We know the value of each steer. Sometimes you have to
• 35:46
  overlook exactly what's going on that day at the sale bar and what those prices may be. But at the
• 35:52
  end of the year, you're still okay. We're getting paid every day as opposed to getting one check
• 35:58
  a year. That's amazing. Now, I want to pivot a little bit because when you and I met Baron,
• 36:04
  I was really taken by your perspective of ranching in terms of how almost the way you talked about
• 36:12
  it was almost spiritual. You know, the connection to not only the land, but you just, when you're out
• 36:18
  on the ranch and to the universe around you and just in how in tune you feel or at least how you
• 36:25
  describe to the world around you, can you both talk about that? I have changed in the fact that I've
• 36:30
  become to appreciate the fact that everything is connected. Like I believe that, but then you get
• 36:38
  out here and you experience and you're like, yeah, everything is connected. The land is a living
• 36:44
  thing with the personality. It's like being in a relationship. You got to get to know the land.
• 36:49
  So what we do here, all the things we experience, all the things we notice with the land here,
• 36:55
  may not work 50 miles from here because it's a completely different personality,
• 37:00
  completely different piece of land. So you really have to be connected and aware of how your land
• 37:08
  responds when it's dry, how your land responds when it's flooding, how your land responds when
• 37:12
  it's cold, when it has this many cattle or you understand the rhythm of each piece of property
• 37:19
  because it is a living breathing thing with a personality. I know Ricky, you mentioned your wife
• 37:24
  in the lifestyle and I think she homeschools your kids. Do you feel like you're kind of tapped into
• 37:32
  an ancestral way of living and co-existing? Can you talk about that relationship with your kids
• 37:39
  to the homeschooling to being outside and outdoors? Because I think this is something that's missing
• 37:44
  for a lot of people that are growing up in cities, right? I mean, and not feeling connected to their
• 37:48
  food sources. Just looking around here at the ranch, we have a lot of road frontage and there's
• 37:54
  a lot of times kids come riding around out here. It used to bother me, right? Because I'm like,
• 38:00
  what are they doing out here? They're going to leave their trash, you know, whatever missed you
• 38:04
  if they're getting into. And actually, I kind of, I look at it now, I drive by and sometimes there
• 38:10
  will be two or three kids just hanging out in the ditch looking at something and two of them will jump
• 38:14
  in like they're doing something wrong and won't hang out or whatever. And I'll just talk to them,
• 38:18
  see what's going on and just say, you know, hopefully I'll enjoy your time out here because
• 38:22
  being in the city all the time, not having the space, maybe they need a little more connection to
• 38:28
  earth or whatever. So now it's kind of inviting or enjoying to see them coming out trying to get
• 38:33
  some air and get away from all the hustle. But as far as like my family and myself, this is the way
• 38:40
  we live. I don't really think about it too much. We try to eat healthy. We try to put ourselves
• 38:46
  and our kids in a healthy environment. We try to put those experiences in front of them. My son's
• 38:52
  what 11 now and he's been going to markets with me for three years. And so there was one year he
• 38:59
  was there every Saturday morning with me at a market. And I think he missed 10 weeks in or whatever
• 39:06
  and I had customers come up. So where's your son at? Well, I was he not here today and it's like,
• 39:10
  oh, he had something else going on. But those people actually looking over to him be in there and
• 39:15
  he learns a little bit, you know, we use a program for, you know, a point of sale. So he knows the
• 39:20
  point of sale. So there's life skills that he learns, communication, all that good stuff that
• 39:25
  they're learning out here. And so to me as a dad, I just like, Hey, I want to let him experience
• 39:31
  what I think he needs to experience. So when it is time to step up and say, Hey, dad, I want to
• 39:36
  go do this. He already has a good start. He's like, I see you do this or, you know, he knows how to
• 39:41
  talk to people or I was a shy guy and didn't even know how to get out from behind my dad's leg,
• 39:46
  you know, to say hello to somebody, you know, he's already to the point and my daughter's the
• 39:51
  same way she's poor. They can be quiet at first, but once somebody talks to him or they get to
• 39:56
  know somebody, they're easy going and they can conversation and talk about things. And so for us,
• 40:02
  it's just a natural way. I mean, we don't really think too much about it other than we're very
• 40:06
  fortunate and very grateful for the opportunity to be in this position because there was one
• 40:12
  point in town when my wife and I first got married that we didn't have a lot of money between us.
• 40:18
  We didn't have the income. So we were forced to buy a certain house at this cost, but we had
• 40:25
  neighbors that were three foot out the window, you know, we could basically extend our arms out,
• 40:30
  you know, to each other, probably touch. Well, that closed in pretty quick. And we actually were
• 40:35
  there longer than we thought. So when we got out here, even though I was working out here, what,
• 40:40
  a couple of years, maybe two or three and still living in town, once we made the switch,
• 40:46
  especially my son, my son just like sprouted. What did you see changing him?
• 40:51
  Basically confidence in whatever they want to do. I think he was what five at the time,
• 40:57
  maybe going on six and there still was training wheels on his bike and lived in town. We got
• 41:01
  out here. He realized they didn't roll on grass like they were supposed to. He's like,
• 41:05
  Dad, we got to take those off. So that was like the first thing that I seen was, hey, it's time to
• 41:10
  set him free. Basically, just the confidence in doing things without worrying about what's mom or
• 41:16
  dad going to think about this. Mom may not always agree about it, but dad's like, if you want to take
• 41:21
  the chance on doing it, if I think it's safe enough, I'm going to allow you to go take care of that.
• 41:26
  Or, you know, I may set him out on a horse and go just say, Hey, go count these calves real quick
• 41:31
  in this piano. Sometimes he comes back with the right number. Sometimes he comes back with the wrong
• 41:35
  number. What is basically just the whole fact that he wanted to go try by himself, you know, and
• 41:41
  so that's a win. So that tells me anything in life that he wants to go do whether he wins or loses
• 41:46
  or he wins or fails, whatever, he has the confidence to step out there and try it on his own.
• 41:52
  So that's what I see. My daughter was actually born here at the ranch. So, you know, she was never
• 41:58
  in any other situation than what's here. She doesn't get out much other than ride around check
• 42:03
  cows. She's not involved in much of the day to day. Doesn't really understand what dad does
• 42:09
  all the time, but you know, eventually that'll come. So for now, it's just growing up, having fun
• 42:13
  with all of us and enjoy the fishing and the riding around. How big is the property? How many acres?
• 42:21
  Word about 3500 acres. One last question. Regenerative farming, you're doing everything natural
• 42:28
  with the cows, with the meat that you're producing. How is that translating to the other choices in
• 42:34
  your life? Are you now kind of more aware of like what chemicals are being used in the production
• 42:40
  of your clothes or in the environment or the other things you purchased? What else has changed in
• 42:46
  your life because of what you've learned on the ranch? Yeah, all of those things. Every day you
• 42:51
  just become more and more aware and especially being in the food business, you see behind the scenes
• 42:58
  a lot more and so you're asking a lot more questions and your diet becomes a lot cleaner. It's almost
• 43:05
  like you're looking through that lens around everything, right? Going to restaurants is really hard
• 43:10
  because you used to go to a nice steak restaurant and now that we're really into raising quality
• 43:16
  beef, you go to a restaurant like I know exactly where this comes from. I know exactly who processed
• 43:21
  this. It changes your lifestyle for sure where you used to travel, you just go and get the food wherever
• 43:28
  you want it to and you constantly get dialed in and you're getting dialed in more and more and
• 43:33
  you see you get pickier and pickier as time goes by about where you stop and eat because just like fast
• 43:39
  food, there's only a couple fast food places in my wife will stop and get something. Just do the
• 43:44
  fact that we know what oils they use or maybe where their source of beef is or whatever the case
• 43:51
  might be. So really limits you on where you go and how you move about and plan your day but
• 43:57
  it's very well possible. Everybody can do it. Best thing I can say is get started somewhere
• 44:02
  and do your own thing like we try not to reflect on what our neighbors doing. You said something
• 44:08
  about the spiritual side of things. Well everybody's on their own journey and you have to allow them
• 44:14
  to be on that journey because that's what they want to do and that's what they want to experience.
• 44:19
  We on the other hand won't experience this style. So we just want to stay on that path.
• 44:24
  I have to remember that we get excited about this stuff about finding new ways to be more
• 44:31
  in tune with the environment, etc. And I forget that other people aren't as excited as we are
• 44:38
  or as extreme or push ourselves to the limits that we push ourselves. So we have to kind of
• 44:46
  dial ourselves back a little whatever. So which is good. The best thing that we do is we invite
• 44:51
  people to range. Come see the ranch, come see what we do. You can look at trees and cows and
• 44:57
  yes, it still exists. So that's the best and simplest thing to do. The operation is pretty simple.
• 45:03
  It's a lot of work. It's a lot of time. You see some videos that, oh,
• 45:08
  regenerative ranching is easy or regenerative farm is easy. Well it kind of is but it really isn't.
• 45:13
  They're still, or you're trading money for time. But all in all, it's a pretty simple operation
• 45:18
  and for you, it may sound complicated like how in the world did they get to that point?
• 45:23
  Spend a day or two with this or even afternoon with this and we can show you around and see
• 45:29
  how things operate and how things are set up and you're like, oh, okay, I understand. It's really not
• 45:33
  that not that hard. You just got to kind of change your way of thinking of whatever you're doing.
• 45:38
  Just change your way of thinking a little bit. I appreciate that you guys are modeling what's
• 45:42
  possible. I mean, I'm truly impressed and blown away that you're running things. When you said
• 45:48
  bearing that you guys are on another level, you really are. I mean, that you're running
• 45:53
  cattle so naturally and so in tune with the earth is impressive and I'm grateful to have
• 45:59
  ranchers like yourselves out there. You're in Texas, but what town are you on?
• 46:03
  I've decided to walk to Hatchee. Go to the website and we'll have a way to tour the ranch.
• 46:09
  And will you share that website and how people can find you? It's raisedwildtexas.com
• 46:15
  And then on socials, you are raisedwildtexas. We're at raisedwildtexas on Instagram and raisedwildtx
• 46:25
  on Facebook. Well, hey, thank you guys. It's been a pleasure. Good deal. Thank you.
• 46:32
  Thank you so much for joining me on everyday ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode, hit
• 46:38
  subscribe so you don't miss the next one. You could find the show notes links and resources
• 46:43
  mentioned at eatpluck.com. That's eatpluck.com. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out
• 46:54
  of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well and keep it ancestral.