Grassfed Life

What do you do if you have one view of agriculture, and your family has a different view of agriculture? And what do you do if your family owns land and farms on that land in a way that's different than the way that you would farm? How do you navigate that situation? On one hand you have a big asset at an arms length. The asset being potential land to farm. On the other hand, you realize that farming on that land in way that you believe is right might directly contradict the method of farming on that land currently. Not an easy situation to navigate and one that we will be discussing today. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

So far this season we have covered everything from pastured poultry to pigs to cattle to sales and marketing. We've covered a lot, from the basics to the specifics. And based on the feedback it's be helpful. Also, along the along the way we have received a lot of great questions from you all. Questions like - How do I go about selling chickens to customers and not worry about people trying to sue me should they get sick from one of my birds? Today we will answer that questions, and many others spanning topics such as freezer inventory management, thoughts on the American Guinea Hog, and poultry feed management. This episode is an episode, designed by you, the listeners. If you have sent in one of you questions in the past, thanks, this episode is dedicated to you. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Last we we heard from Brandy Simpson, Darby's wife, on what starting a farm was like on the other side, the non-entrepreneur side, the spouse side. Today we'll continue to round out that view, because this week Brandy is back, and joined by Darby, as they talk more about startup, their relationship, and holding it all together. How did they both handle money being tight, and set expectations. And what was the key to making it all work. There's a lot in here, enjoy this one, part two of the mini-series focusing on startup and relationships. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Today's episode is a special one. It is part one of a mini-series focusing on farm start up, but from the other side- not the side of the farmer, instead from the side of the farmer's wife. It's a conversation with Darby's wife Brandy and what it was like to be the farmer's wife and transition into farming in that role, as a mom of two young kids, and as someone who viewed their future not on a farm. Think of Brandy as an avatar - the generic universal representation of the farmer's wife. As you listen to this episode, think about what she is saying, and think about what the other person in your life might say or be thinking. Have you thought about that? Because you really need to. As you will here in this episode a farming future wasn't the future that Brandy had envisioned for their family, and I think it's safe to say that it wasn't even in the proximity of the expected future. And then one day it happened, the idea came up... If we go back to when Darby started farming, it was at a time when he was up to his eyeballs in stress and frustration over his current job. And he needed a change, a change that was going to happen through farming. But he hadn't told his wife yet about what he was thinking of doing. What was she going to think? In a lot of stories you only get one side of the story. The side coming from the person that had the idea, and made it happen. But that all doesn't happen in a vacuum, there are always other people involved. In this case, Darby had a wife and two very young kids. He wanted to farm, she didn't. It was his dream, not hers. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Today we are still talking about pastured poultry, but we will look at it from a different viewpoint... the viewpoint of why pastured poultry might not be a good fit for your and your operation. We will explore that view by looking at eight negatives associated with pastured poultry and how you might be able to overcome those negatives. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

This episode is a special episode that addresses a question submitted to us by listener Ben Grimes of Dawnbreaker Farms. Ben's question was a simple one, but the answer wasn't simple or straightforward. Like many things when it comes to farming there's a lot of nuance and variability involved. Given that this episode is effectively two parts. Part one is Ben's questions along with an interview with Ben help add some supporting details and context. Part Two is Darby's answer to that question. If you are listening to this the first time, then it makes sense to listen to the hole episode chronologically. If you are coming back to this episode for a second time, and you just want to hear how Darby would tackle Ben's question, then you can skip ahead to 41:00. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Today's show is Part 2 of our series on cattle. This episode is all about the ins and outs of stockers, cattle that you purchase, raise on farm and sell. It's a great operation for a beginner and one way of raising cattle that is very different from a cow/calf operation where you breed and raise your own cattle on farm to sell. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Let's say you start raising chickens on grass, pastured poultry. You're rotating the chickens around your land and as you do that the chickens leave behind nitrogen rich fertilizer packets at every stop. Something that the grass will respond to but growing, a lot... The more that you do this, the more grass that you grow. Now you are stuck with a lot of grass, and it's getting to the point where the grass is too tall for the chickens... You have a grass problem. How do you manage that grass? You can mow it. That's one solution. Not everyone's favorite solution, but an effective solution that for sure works. But mowing grass is a cost tat the end of the day. You can't mow it and sell the mower. You burn fuel and need to put new fuel in it next time. It's simple a tool that you put inputs into to manage pasture. On a long term resiliency and fragility scale a mower based system is fragile, it's a problem. What if you take that problem, a too much grass problem and turn it into a solution. Maybe, or you get an animal to mow it for you... specifically a ruminant like a cow. Today Darby lays out the basics of what raising on cattle on grass is really like. He discusses his cattle operation, how he selected his breeds, what advice he would suggest for beginners, and how much land you actually need to raise cattle. And it may surprise you, because it's probably not as much as you think. Let's start at the beginning and talk about how Darby got started with cattle in the first place. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Think about your life and your work situation. Is it one that consumes a huge majority of your time? And is that by choice or because that's just the way that it's always been. If you don't like it, you can always change it. That's what this episode is about, designing a life that works for you. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

If you listened to last week's episode it was all about brooder management. Managing the chicks from when they arrive on the farm until they reach about three weeks of age when it's time to go out onto pasture. Today's episode picks up right where that one left off. We talk all about transitioning birds to pasture, and then managing the new birds on pasture. There's a lot of practical and immediately applicable advice in this one. And this one also finishes up our series of shows on pastured poultry management. We've now covered all the way from choosing a hatchery to getting the finished birds processed. Today's show ties up some of the loose ends at the tail end of the process, it's all about transitioning the chicks from the brooder to the pasture. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Today's episode is all about the ins and outs of brooder management taking you from the time when the baby chicks arrive in the farm in the mail to the day when they are transitioned out to pasture. In this episode we cover feed, environment, and setup of Darby's brooder. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

To start the show we'll go to an email that I recently received from one of you listening to the show... "Hi Diego I hope everything is going good for you in sunny California! I ordered 110 Cornish Cross chicks today. I am so excited to finally get my feet wet and stop analysis paralysis. I have made two hoop house style tractors out of cattle panels. I have located a non-GMO organic feed supplier. And I have set a date with a state inspected processor! Thank you so much for all your inspiration. Please pass on my thanks to Darby as well." Given that this person is just starting out, what should they focus on their first year? READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Today is the 4th of July. A day when America celebrates and commemorates its independence. It's a national holiday, which means that for many American workers today is a calendared day off from work. A day that you can always look ahead to and say, "I have a long weekend for the 4th, let's go then." For most, not all, most workers today is a money in the bank holiday. Along with Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and a few others, it's one of the bonus days off for Americans each year. It's holidays like this that many people plan vacations and other life dreams around. But isn't that a little sad. Having to compartmentalize all of your recreational time into the time off that your company gives you and the days that the government mandates. All of that work away from home for a paycheck, and a limited amount of time to actually use that paycheck with your family. It isn't how most people would choose to live their lives, but it is how most people have accepted living their lives. If you are in that boat and your not happy with it, what if you could try to create a work scenario that is more aligned with how you want to live your life. Instead of cramming all of your recreational and family time into weekends and three weeks a year, what if you could spread that time out over the whole year. Each day having the ability to do whatever that you want to do most. Not all day every day, but part of every day. That doesn't mean that you don't have to work. But you could do the work on your terms, in your preferred location, and on your schedule. Effectively making every day a working holiday. Being a self employed farmer is one way to do that. Today on the 4th of July, Darby, a self employed farmer will talk about living each day as a holiday, and Declaring Independence in Your Own Life, From What Society Tells You It Has to Be. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Many farmers like Darby work at least 60 hours per week - that's 7 days a week, from May through September. That's a lot of hours. It's much higher average workload during that time specific time frame than your average American. But we can't just focus on those numbers, because there's more to the story. Think about the off season. For many farmers the workload is seasonal. They spend a lot of time working in the summer and a lot of time not working in the winter. That brings the year round average of total hours worked down, probably closer to the national average for the average Joe American work. But there's a difference between the two workers, the average entrepreneur and farmer own is also working for themselves. Their efforts are directly going towards something more than just money, they are building a business. It's not just putting hours in for dollars; it's also getting something that has the potential to have more longevity than they have. Both in the near term and the long term as equity is built in the business and a business can often work 24/7 for a long time, effectively working when you can't. Meaning as the business owner you leveraged your hours now for longer term gain. Another factor to consider is - where are those hours spent? If you are farmer then they are probably spent on farm which means on your land where you live. You are spending a lot of hours working around your house. You aren't leaving each day to go to work, other than walking out the door. There's no commute. Which means you are around your family and any down time like breaks and lunch can be spent with them, or however you see fit. A far cry from the more family isolated hours of the average American worker. There's more to the hours worked per week, than just the hours worked per week. This is important to understand if you are thinking about getting into farming and these long summer work hours are scaring you. You need to look deeper; you need to look at where those hours of work are taking place and what those hours of working are going towards. Because what on the surface appears to be insane hours, how insane is it really? And at the end of the day is the average American worker the one who's really putting in the insane hours week after week, year after year? READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

We will start by going back in time by 8 weeks to April 22. That will be our starting point, Day 0 for the new chicks arriving on the farm. Delivered via mail, the newborn chicks start out their life on the farm in the comfort of the brooder. There they enjoy the warmth of an electric light as the play in wood shavings all day while they eat, gain weight and feather out. As we move ahead to Day 20, the chicks aren't as fragile as they once were, and they are now started to get crowded in their brooder. That means that it's time to move out, and the chicks head out to pasture where they touch grass for the first time, spending their first night in the open air under the protection of a chicken tractor. The chicks will spend the next 35 days here, each day getting moved to a fresh patch of pasture, leaving their nutrient rich manure behind. It's now late spring or summer, and despite their growth some will die along the way from the damp, the heat or the raccoon that got a little too close. The others will grow bigger and bigger eating bugs, grass, and the grain that you the farmer provides them each day. When the chicks are around 8 and half weeks old they will have converted all that food into body mass and each bird will weigh around 6.5 lbs. It's a pretty fast weight gain, in a pretty short amount of time - it's what the Cornish Cross were breed for. Now at just over 2 months old, the chickens live in the field, and their life in general, is almost over. Because that day has arrived; it's now time to process the birds - taking that living breathing chicken, and converting it into food for humans. When the birds reach this stage of their life you as the farmer have a couple options for processing them. One is to process the birds on farm. The other is taking the birds to a local processor. That's how Darby processes his birds, and today we'll pick our story right here at this stage. We'll zoom in on the day before, the day of, and the day after processing his birds. You'll get an inside look at everything that takes place between the chickens last hours on pasture to their return back to the farm as sellable meat in shrink wrapped bags. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

How do you communicate your message, the one that your customers want to hear, at a farmers market? Two ways: when you tell a customer face to face and with signage that you display. But not just any signs. As advertising legend David Ogilvy said, advertising isn't art, it's there to sell product. Given that, make sure that your signs that are clear, understandable, and easy to read from near, and afar. The whole goal of signage is to get people to come over to your booth and talk to you so you can then tell them your story. The sign doesn't sell the product, you do. The function of the sign is to get people to stop and talk to you. And if people can't read your sign then they probably won't stop to get the rest of your story. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Over the last few episodes we have talked about raising pork. Today we will be shifting that conversation over to cover what do you do with that pig once it has been raised. The obvious answer is you take it to a butcher who processes it down into various cuts. But this is where the questions come into play. What cuts should have the butcher break down the pig into? Should keep those cuts as cuts or turn that meat into value added product like sausage? Should you always process pigs into the same cuts, or does your market demand different cuts at different times through the year? And then how do you take into account the on the land management to ensure that you have enough pigs ready at different times of year to maintain demand for the individual cuts. Are you confused yet? It gets complex pretty quickly. In this episode, we'll dig into some of the different cuts of pork, and Darby's rationale for selling which ones, when. And this episode should help you balance what you are doing on the land with balance what you need to keep in the freezer. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Today we are continuing on with Part 2 in the mini-series on raising pigs on a sustainability minded family farm. This episode is all about equipment and infrastructure. Some things to think about before we get into this episode... Where are you starting from and where do you want to go? Depending on where you are starting from, and what you are starting with, that can really dictate what types of equipment and infrastructure you start raising pigs with. Similarly you need to know where you want to go with pigs. Is your foray into pigs experimental or is it something that you are for sure committed to from the long term? The answer to that question will dictate how much money you put into infrastructure and how permanent that infrastructure is. Do you own land or do you lease land? Do you have a wooded area or just pasture? These are all considerations that you need to think about when you start planning and designing your small scale pig operation. On other thing to think about is how much labor to have at your disposal? As we go through this episode keep in mind that Darby has a labor force of one, himself. So everything on his farm is geared towards making the job easier, faster, and more efficient so just one person can manage it. If he had staff, some of these systems might be setup differently. Remember context is very important here. Where are you starting from, what are you starting with, and where do you want go? There is no cookie cutter solution to any of this. Knowing that, we will take this topic on and today we will cover all of the basics that you need to get started with pigs literally form the ground up covering fencing, feeders, and waterers. We will also talk about and compare a starter setup with a more permanent setup. If you want to raise pigs, then this episode is all about what you need to buy to do it. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Today we will take a realistic look at how Darby raises his pigs on his farm and why. We will place a lot of emphasis on his context and how that directly ties to why he does what he does. As you will hear it's a balancing act. It's a constant balance between his moral compass and watching his wallet. Another way of saying that is there is always a more regenerative way of doing things, but they come at a cost. And things need to be financially sustainable in addition to being sustainable on the land. At its simplest for Darby this means putting pigs where they excel, and that's in the woods. We will discuss the nuts and bolts of raising pigs in the wood, and we will also look at other alternative methods of raising pigs and Darby will share his thoughts on those from both a management and an economic standpoint. If I had to boil it all down ahead of time, it all comes down to finding the intersection of what's best for you as a farmer, what's best for the land, and what's best for the pig. You'll hear how finding that balance isn't always easy. But despite the challenges of trying to be perfect, you will see how the system that Darby has setup is leaps and bounds ahead of the baseline, the CAFOs. As Joel Salatin says, "The problem is that modern American CAFO's are where amoral science and pure capitalism take you, and it's far away from nurturing and caretaking." With the CAFO system and $100M pigs being raised this way each year. It's hard to conceive of a scenario where this situation changes. The numbers are too big, the grasp is too tight. So if we want to see change, it's going to start here, with the people listening to this show. Change is going to start with you. It's going to start with the small farmer that have committed to doing things differently. Today you will hear about one of those small farms, that's finding a balance between an entrepreneurial and capitalist business and one that nurtures and honors the pigness of the pig. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

When you can get a $5 cooked and ready to eat chicken at Costco, how many consumers are going to pay $40 for the same amount of product, uncooked. Not many. In a world where we are still trying to get the public to accept the $20 chicken, the $40 chicken is insanity. Given that, let's work with what we have. Let's run with the $20 chicken and be OK with it. Let's use what we have as a starting point to get to more regenerative future. And let's taper our visions back to meet the customer who will ultimately be the one to cash flow that long term vision. Let me repeat that. We are the ones that need to back off. We are the ones that need to go meet the customer if we want to start in business long enough to have the customer start meeting us. As Darby will say in this episode, if the customer won't support our moral compass then we need to back off a bit until they will. That can be a hard pill for some people to swallow. But it's the reality of the world that we live in. It's a long game. The food system didn't get messed up overnight and we aren't going to fix it overnight. And we have to survive now, today, in order to make it to tomorrow and the long term vision that we want to see. Surviving today means selling what the customer wants and will pay for, today. That means start by building solid foundations of a good business first - meaning build a customer base, start generating cash flow, and starting building trust and relationships with your customers. As that trust grows you can learn more about what those customers want, create that in a way that matches up with your ideology, and lead them a little ways down the field. And it is those steps that slowly move agriculture in the direction that you want it to go in. Darby has a great analogy for this. Farmers have a big rope. And they are slowly pulling the customers forward towards the manifestation of the prefect regenerative farm. It's a constant pull and constant progress has been made. We are further along than we were 20 years ago, and 20 years from now we will be further along than today, but that's only going to happen if we are still in business tomorrow, and the key to that is selling the customer what they want and will pay for today. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

If you romanticized farming before, well this episode is going to take that romantic vision and drag it through the mud a bit. The goal isn't to discourage you from wanting to do any of this. It's just to make sure that you think about what you are getting into. Because while the life style can be great. And while there are many more good days than bad days. The bad days, can be really bad. And just to make things easy the bad days show up at the most inopportune times - Christmas, birthdays, late a night, when you are tight on cash, when you already have your plate full. In today's episode we are going to take a realistic look at the times when farming isn't so great. The days when farming sucks. Because those days do exist, so let's not pretend that they don't. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

"I am looking into starting my farming business soon, in nearly such a manner as you did Darby, while working a full time job in the city. I plan to start with chickens and have a few questions.... Did you start out processing your own birds? I ask because I live in Georgia and there is a 1000 bird limit per year before you have to go through an inspected slaughter house. While I don't plan to start out with 1000 birds per year, i was curious if it is worth purchasing the processing equipment to only be forced to use a slaughter house if my sales grow greater than 1000 in a few years." That's an email question that one of you send in... and that's what we will be talking about in this episode - processing poultry. In today's episode we will talk about How if Darby process his birds on farm or off farm and why? We will talk about the importance of knowing what your state regulations are. And we'll look at selling whole chickens versus cuts. Today, it's 10 years of Darby's experience with processing condensed down into an hour. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Darby has been at one particular farmers market for the past six years, but this year he is changing things and not returning to that market due to low sales. In today's episode we will talk about what he looked for in a new market, and how evaluated a new market. Darby will also talk about some of the differences between getting into weekend markets versus weekday markets, what his thoughts are on being one of many meat vendors at a market, the time required to get established at a market, and a lot more. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

500 baby chicks have arrived at Darby's farm thus beginning the cycle of raising broilers for the season. With the chicks on farm we will talk about what the next steps are. We also discuss the importance of choosing the right hatcheries and breed. Not just to make sure that you receive quality birds, but also to make sure that you receive quality birds in the shortest shipping time possible. Darby will talk about introducing the birds to pasture and how started with the Salatin style chicken tractor and then evolved away from that. And we talk about how Darby plans his successions of broilers. There is a lot of good advice in this one for those just starting out and those with experience. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

Darby has 500 baby chicks arriving at the farm next week. We talk about what he has to do to prepare for that. He is upgrading his in field feeding system, find out how and why. And Darby gives advice on starting out with grazing cattle. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod

This podcast can be helpful to all farmers, it targets the wannabes, the folks who actually entertain notions of living, loving and learning on a piece of land. Anyone willing to dance with such a dream should be able to assets its assets and liabilities its fantasies and realities. "Is it really possible for me?" is the burning question this podcast addresses. And this isn't just one episode that I talking about here. It's a season. I am going to follow pastured livestock farmer Darby Simpson through a full farm season to show what farming on pasture is really like. If you are listening to this and asking yourself is farming really possible for me? Then stay tuned because that question will be answered over the course of a season by someone who grew up being told that it wasn't possible, and later circled back into farming with no experience. Darby Simpson is someone who transitioned into farming on a part time basis while working full time in an unrelated field. Putting in well over 50 hours each week as an engineer and spending a couple hours each day in the car commuting back and forth. But despite those long hours, he started his farm, on the side. He did it while raising a young family, and keeping his sanity in the process. He did it by working hard and smart. And he did it in a very approachable way. He started his farming operation with only $500. With that $500 he bought 50 broilers and some equipment and he was on his way to farming full time. The first 50 sold and he never looked back. $500 in initial expenses started farming on the side, while working full time, and with a young family. A very relatable and applicable situation to many people listening to this show. If you are contemplating that jump into farming and making that dream a reality, but you feel like life is standing in the way, here is someone who's done it with life in the way. READY TO START YOUR OWN LIVESTOCK FARM? The Farm Business Essentials Online Course is here, and it's not just a piece of the puzzle. FBE is a complete step by step A to Z system to plan, market, and grow the farm enterprise that's right for you. Built by a farmer for farmers just like you - https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com Profitable Pastured Poultry Course: https://www.farmbusinessessentials.com/poultry Lots more free content at Grassfed Life: http://bit.ly/2D5gRJX Subscribe: https://apple.co/2hayYod