Our Practices
We raise our animals in sync with nature and do our best not to work against nature. All our animals are on pasture and rotated. The beef and lamb are fed a 100% forage diet and are moved once a day with the hogs being moved weekly. Due to the digestive system of the hogs, they are fed grain as well as they cannot sustain and grow on grass alone.
In the winter time, the sheep and cattle continue their rotations around the pasture. We take special care in the fall to allow a couple pastures to grow taller than others to create a stockpile of forage for the sheep and cattle to graze through the winter. We don’t grow enough stockpiled forage to last the cattle all winter so they get supplemented with hay. We unroll the hay on the pasture which allows all the cattle to eat at the same time without being pushed around. This also allows us to spread their waste (manure and hay not eaten) to areas of less fertility easily. In the springtime all their waste will break down to create more fertile soil and promote soil microbial life. The sheep will eat stockpiled forage through the whole winter and rarely require hay.
The hogs however don’t have enough hair to combat our cold and rainy southern Indiana winters so they are put into winter housing. They stay in the barn from November until March. Our barn is an open sided building with a roof so the hogs still get plenty of sunshine and fresh air while staying warm and dry. We use a deep bedding method which means they get fresh bedding every couple of days added on top of the old stuff. This stack of bedding begins to compost quickly therefore generating heat giving the hogs a heated bed every night. This gives us copious amounts of compost to spread on the pasture in the summer. The hogs are also given hay to use as warm bedding and for them to continue to have forage in their diets. There is only 1 group of hogs per year that are raised completely in the barn, the others only spend part of their lifespan in the barn either at the end or beginning of their time here. When the weather turns nice again around late March-April the hogs are returned to pasture.
Our animals are all raised without any steroids or hormones. We only give antibiotics when absolutely necessary and it is not something regularly given on our farm. The constant rotations and use of deep bedding in the winter keeps our animals clean and healthy therefore taking away the need for many medications and antibiotics. We are not certified organic but never use herbicide or pesticides on our land.
We believe one of the biggest issues in today’s food system is the transparency of how animals are raised to the end consumer. We are serious about being 100% transparent about the way we raise our animals and want to create a brand that is trusted by all. Please reach out with any questions.
Sincerely,
Teagon Gogel
812-686-5306
gogelpastures@gmail.com
