Fall Update - Champlin Sugar Creek Farm

Hi everyone, 

As we near the end of fall and beginning of winter I wanted to provide an update from our fall season on the farm. 

2025 Bulk Beef Reservation Dates Now Available

We have now posted our meat availability dates for all bulk beef packages on our website.    We will have 1/4, 1/2, and whole beef available in 2025 in April (Sold out), August, October and December.   For each package you will see a drop down box to select the month in which you'd like to reserve your bulk beef.   Purchasing our beef in bulk is the most cost effective way to purchase but you will have to wait until those dates to get your beef.   If you're looking to purchase now you can order our smaller bundles or individual cuts from what we have in stock in our retail freezers.   To learn more about the ways you can purchase beef from us see our "Ways to Shop" page on our website. 

Wind + Tree + Cattle Trailer + Insurance Company = Pain in the butt 

We had a storm come through that included some wind but nothing crazy.   Later that day we notice a large tree that had gone down on an old pig building but the top came down right on top of our cattle trailer.   A trailer which we had just purchased a little over a year ago.   Thankfully, we had insurance on the trailer.   However, it took a number of months to actually get the insurance company to make an offer and a low-ball one at best.  Getting a good claim on a cattle trailer, or other machinery, can be a pain as there isn't anywhere near the resources available to get comparable prices as there are for cars and trucks.  So I spent a little time finding some comparable trailers and in the end was able to get the insurance company to offer $2000 more than they originally offered.  In the end, I was able to get a new trailer and only paid for tax/title/license out of pocket so I felt good about that but it was a hassle. 

3rd Crop Hay is Done

We typically take 3 crops of hay per year, once in a great while a 4th.   This year we had a lot of moisture in the spring time and ended up with more hay than we'll need for all our cattle over the winter.  Even with the lack of rain this fall we were able to stockpile some pasture and won't need al the hay we have.   So only 3 crops this year and we finished up near the end of August. 

Cattle Finished Grazing the Ridge and Move to the Valley for Winter

Our cattle are generally spilt into two herds.  Our yearling calves (stockers) and finishing animals (to be butchered in same year) spend from March through December each year on the ridge of our farm and then spend bulk of the winter months in the valley part of our farm.   Our cow/calf herd spends all their time in our valley pastures.   This year we wrapped up our grazing on the ridge at the end of November and moved this herd back to the valley.  

 Weaning our 2024 Calves

Each year around the end of November or beginning of December we wean our calves off of their mama cows.  Our calves are able to see/smell their mama's along the fence corral panels in our corral but this is still a very noisy event for a few days.   The calves and cows will beller for a couple of days until they're used to being away from their mom's.   We then put our calves in with our finishing animals from the ridge for the rest of the winter until they go back to the ridge for spring and summer grazing. 

Attended Acres USA® Conference

Starting in late fall and winter is the farm conference season.   In early December, I spent a couple days at the Acres USA conference in Madison, Wisconsin.  Acres USA is the oldest publisher on production-scale organic and regenerative farming.    This was their first year hosting the event in Madison, Wisconsin so nice and convenient for me.   The speaker lineup was one of the best I have seen in many years including some of my favorites such as Allen Williams, Gabe Brown, Joel Salatin, Will Harris and many others.   I attended a 2-day session led by Understanding Ag which was a deep dive on best practices on regenerative farming.   There's always something new to take away from the speakers as well as other attendees and I'm looking forward to continued work with Understanding Ag on our farm to continue to improve on our regenerative ag practices. 

Official Transition to Winter

I took the following picture on December 20th right before the first day of winter.   This is our group of calves and the finishers we'll be butchering in 2025.  We are now feeding hay and there is still some grass available in these pastures that the calves are digging through the snow to eat.   In this picture I've just hauled a few big round bales out and the cattle are coming to see what they have to eat.  It was the first sunny day we've had in a while and while they usually come running when I bring hay they didn't move after brining in the first two bales.  They were too busy enjoying the warm sunshine.  This time of year we're mainly "bale grazing" where we put big round hay bales out in our pastures and move them around.  The hay is full of nutrients, as if the cattle's manure, and we move them around the pasture over the course of the winter helping to continuously improve the fertility in our pastures and thus the stands of grass for the summer.