Houston and Kenda Giles share a dedication to all things natural. They farm 120 acres just north of Carthage, Mo., and raise grass-fed dairy and beef cattle, chickens, pigs and sheep without using steroids, hormones or antibiotics.
Houston described how they came upon a more natural lifestyle. “We became interested in natural foods several years ago, when Kenda’s father was diagnosed with cancer,” explained Houston. “She did a lot of research and found that nutrition was a big factor in cancer healing – eating more organically grown food. We decided we wanted to know what’s in the food we eat now, not at the end of our journey.”
At the time of her father’s illness, Houston and Kenda lived in suburban Texas with their two sons. In 2005, the opportunity presented itself to move back to Southwest Missouri and the couple seized the chance to move home. “We decided we wanted to buy a small farm. Even though I had no hands-on experience, Kenda had grown up on a dairy farm, so we bought my father-in-law’s farm,” explained Houston. “I was still working full-time, and the whole family helped out when we started. Now, it’s mostly just Kenda and I, with both our sons at Pittsburg State, but the boys still help out when needed.”
Getting started was challenging for the family, as the land was in row crops and grass needed to be established. “We grow a variety of perennial forages including fescue, clover, timothy and whatever else happens to come up,” joked Houston. “We rotate the animals as needed, usually once or twice a day and group them pretty tight. The beef cows and sheep graze together, and the laying hens are in the pasture as well.” Houston stated that the dairy cows are grazed separately to better manage them for milking.
The Giles farm consists of a variety of breeds from Guernsey, Shorthorns, Scottish Highland, Brangus, British White, some crossbred commercial cows and Murray Gray bulls.
The Giles Ranch is truly a partnership between Houston and Kenda. “Kenda focuses more on the marketing and customer service, and I am more involved in production and operations, but those always overlap,” he said. “We’ve been pretty blessed to be able to focus just on the farm now. We get little bits and pieces of everything, and at the end of the year we look at how we did. We’ve been able to grow a little bit every year.”
