There are not a whole lot of things that compare to a stroll through the woods during a snowfall. Leaves and twigs make only muffled attempts at speech beneath ones boots. Even the cattle move about with a newly found grace, slipping ghostlike through the brush and limbs.

Here a young calf stops to study me as I study him through my viewfinder. In the background a young cow pauses in the snow to watch us both.

This photo is actually from last winter, when we had one or two snowfalls per week for much of the winter. It was during this time that I discovered our cattle had developed quite a taste for buckbrush, Symphoricarpos obiculatus,an invasive woody that is cited in forage handbooks as being 'worthless for cattle.' Galloway cattle take such verbage as a challenge, evidentially.

Actual studies were done in Denmark, I believe it was, or Norway... hmm, I'll have to dig through my files...but someone actually studied grazing preferences of several breeds of cattle. Galloway were shown to graze and browse a far wider variety of plants than all other breeds in the study. We certainly appreciate their commonsense approach to dining around here!

This year it was January 11 before the group in the woody/buckbrush pasture received any hay...they had been relying almost exclusively on the buckbrush. And actually they are still consuming it, now they just have a little hay to mix with it. I've watched them eat it, and even the smallest little calves are crazy about it. They grab the outer 4 to 5 inches of the branches, the ones that have the berries on them, and appear to just bite them off, sometimes requiring a bit of a yank to get the job done. It must not be too difficult, however, as they can really browse a clump of buckbrush as if they were filling up on grass.

Welcome,

You are standing at our virtual farm gate, you might say. Come on in and explore the world of grassfed beef production, Galloway cattle,and the finer points of grazing ecology.

So, who are we, anyway? We are Bill and Judy Decker, and we own and operate Renaissance Farms Ltd in east central Kansas.

We began producing grassfed beef using purebred Galloway genetics in 1998. Currently we run our operation on about 240 acres, half of which we own, the remainder being leased. We have a nice balance of cool season grasses, which flourish in the spring and fall and can be stockpiled for winter grazing, and warm season native grasses, mainly big and little bluestem, switchgrass, Eastern gamagrass and indian grass. These native species sink their roots deep into the soil and can grow even when the summers get hot and dry.

We live in a 35 inch rainfall region, though much of this rain can come in deluges that are separated by several weeks in between. The soils on our main pastures are a clay loam, and were once farmed several decades ago, which contributed to a major loss of top soil. 'Highly Eroded' is the classification in the soil guide.

Temperatures cover all the bases in this area. In summer we have seen the temps hit 109, and in winter have seen minus 12. Sometimes a 24 to 36 hour period can yield a 50 degree temperature swing!