Two couples, Bryan and Amber Bench, and Randy and Nancy Williams, have combined their skills and resources to form Nature’s Green Grass Farms. Their goal is to raise tender and tasty grass-fed beef using nothing but what nature provides. They have chosen Devon cattle as the breed for their Everton, Ark., operation. The interesting thing about Devon cattle is that they were brought to America for the first time in 1623. If this rings a historic bell, that’s because the Pilgrims landed here in 1620, so it was just a few years later that three Devon heifers and a Devon bull first hoofed it onto American soil. The herd that the Benches and the Williamses now have is descendants of these cattle. Bryan is proud to call Devons a heritage breed, pure, not crossed with another breed. A few changes have been made since the first four were consigned from Devonshire, England, to the colonies. For example, American stockmen have developed a polled strain of purebred Devons. Interestingly enough, this traces back to a bull born in 1915 in Concordia, Mo., not too far from here.
Bryan and Randy have been working with the Devon breed for three years now. Their goal was to sell grass-fed beef, and that’s why they settled on this breed. Randy said, “We were wanting to sell meat, and we wanted a tender meat. This has been known to have good flavor and be tender.”
Bryan added, “Devons primarily are a gourmet beef and they finish better on grass than other animals. Our animals will finish about 1,100 or 1,200 pounds. The smaller the animal, the less grass it takes to finish their body. They utilize grass better than, say, just a purebred Angus cow that’s had grain her entire life, and they will marble and finish out at a better tasting meat that’s tender also…It takes us 24 to 26 months to finish a calf.”
The couples own 340 acres and rent an additional 310 acres. Their 70-bred heifers and cows and numerous calves are moved daily from paddock to paddock, ensuring that they have fresh grass every day. It takes between 90- and 120-days before the cattle re-graze a paddock. Bryan said the style of grazing they do is considered management intensive grazing, or MIG. Randy and Bryan have cleverly positioned tire waterers so that cattle can drink from both sides of them in two different paddocks.
The bull is put in with the heifers year round. Because neither the bull nor the momma is extremely large, birthing is easy. Bryan said, “The calves normally hit the ground somewhere between 45 and 55 pounds. A 65-pound calf is a pretty big calf. We want them to calve on grass and we want the mothers to take care of their calves.”
Bryan and Randy use no grains or supplements. He said, “We will feed mineral, salt and hay, if necessary, but no grain, ever.” If an animal needs antibiotics, she ends up at the sale barn.
The Benches and Williamses are now selling grass-fed beef off their farm. Bryan said, “We do not slaughter ourselves, we have processors. We’ll sell either a whole calf, a half calf, or a quarter calf. We’re an Arkansas Health Department-inspected storage facility.” Customers can either come to the farm and buy direct, or pick up the packaged meat at the processor’s.
Prices are comparable to grocery store prices, especially if larger quantities are purchased. Bryan said, “It depends on whether you’re buying by the whole, half, quarter or by the package.”
Bryan and Amber have two small children, so her full-time job is being a stay-at-home mom. He supplements his farm income by working off the farm. Randy’s wife, Nancy, works off the farm, too, but Randy is a full-time farmer. He said, “I have a separate business here on the farm, which is a totally different business from this. On the same land, we also raise sheep and goats. We sell the whole animal.”
Regarding their grass-fed beef business, Bryan ends by saying, “Our cattle aren’t just grass-fed. There’s a difference between grass-fed and grass-fed finished. Some might turn a calf out on grass and let it graze for three months and that can be considered grass-fed. We want to make sure that animal is finished, has the correct marbling, has the correct tenderness and is going to have good flavor… We know what’s in our meat.”
