The Circle O Story by Michelle Stokes:

"It has been almost 20 years from the time Rob and I met while attending college at the California State University, Chico.  Both of us were animal science majors and had jobs on the University Farm as herdsmen on various livestock units.  It was at this time that we discovered our shared interest in animals, the outdoors and having a ranch of our own one day.  I guess that is where it all began.  However, it has taken us a while to get to this point.  Shortly after college we were fortunate to begin working for Niman Ranch, a small natural meat company on the coast of California, as cattle operations managers. We were with Niman Ranch for over 14 years helping it grow into a nationally know brand.  During this time, hard work, many rewarding challenges, and various moves landed us in the high desert of southwest Idaho.  Along this journey we came to love this landscape, so we purchased a small ranch that we now call home, obtained our first cow as a calf with two broken legs and our goats which have helped to improve the vegetation on our ranch.  So, when Niman Ranch was purchased by an investment organization and with us having started a family, we decided it was time for us to operate our own livestock business fulltime.

                                   

This adventure began in 2007 when we moved to our ranching operation and became self employed raising cattle and goats.  In January of 2008, we took our cattle and goats for a road trip to perform a vegetation enhancement project on the ranch of our friends Bill and Nicolette Niman in the Point Reyes National Seashore Park in California.   After tasting the goat with several well known chefs, Bill partnered with us and helped us launch the goat meat business.

                                   

This is also the time when the Nimans along with ourselves, became involved in raising heritage turkeys.  As the vegetation enhancement project came to an end that summer and the goats and their kids were ready to move back home to Vale, Oregon, it was decided to continue marketing these goats as they had been well received by the restaurants and their customers.  So, with Bill’s help and the support of Preferred Meats as our distributor, we began supplying more goats to the Bay Area during the fall of 2008, and winter of 2009.  The great flavor, taste and quality of the goats have been raved about and we again will be offering our goats this season to customers who enjoy a good eating experience.

PREFERRED ASKED HOW THE GOATS ARE RAISED:

They are being raised the same way as last year’s kid crop.  They are on pasture from birth to plate.  The situation in the late fall and winter is that they are also supplemented with 1 to 1.5 lbs. of a grain mix of soy hull pellet and corn that we mix ourselves, free choice alfalfa hay grown by my next door neighbor and pasture hay we harvest on our own ranch during the summer.  They are out on pastures during the day.  We stockpile residual forage for this time of year then we graze livestock on the pasture until it's covered by snow normally in December/January.  At night they come into a 5 acre pasture that is secured against predators and this is where they receive grain and hay.  We don't feed any sub-therapeutic antibiotics, ionophores or synthetic hormones.  This is also one of the standards that is required to be Animal Welfare Approved. One of the great things about raising healthy livestock in this part of the country our freezing winter conditions breaks disease and parasite cycles. We don't use any pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers on our pastures.  This is one of the main reasons we started into the goats to clean up invasive plants without the use of chemicals.  We rotate our livestock through a rotational grazing system that puts the nutrients expelled by the stock right back onto the land plus gives the plants time to rest and re-grow.  Our soil has a lot of biological activity because it's not being poisoned.  Our animals have been endorsed by the Animal Animal Welfare Approved program. www.animalwelfareapproved.org . This program is the only USDA approved third party certification program that supports and promotes family ranchers who raise their animals with the highest welfare standards."

Read the full Rob Stokes interview HERE

_________________________________________________

Sustainability is what happens when animals are raised the right way. These goats are treated humanely, the environment benefits, and the final product is nothing less than outstanding. Preferred is proud to work with Rob & Michelle Stokes of Circle "O" Ranch!