Peggy & Richard Sechrist
The Sechrist Ranch
Fredericksburg, TX — Summer 2000
By Peggy Sechrist
Richard and I met through a Holistic Management training workshop and
when we decided to become a couple, we applied holistic management principles
to our personal and professional lives. Since Richard had recently taken
over the management of his family's 1100-acre ranch, we began in early
1994 the formation of the ranch goal in partnership with his three sisters.
The values exercises made it clear that the family desired to operate
the ranch organically due to a history of chemical sensitivities by many
family members. As you can imagine, that decision redefined most of our
management practices.
We then applied the holistic financial planning process, which led us
to the decision to carry our calves to slaughter and sell the meat ourselves.
Since we continuously strive to make management decisions that are congruent
with the values in our goal, we also decided to grass-finish all our calves.
We believed that the calves would be in better health and require less
input. Our experience has proven that to be true.
We have also had to learn the nuance of finishing calves on grass. There's
not much to it actually, other than changing our expectations and old
paradigms. The calves easily reach 1,000 lbs. (our desired slaughter weight)
in approximately 24 months. They just need a little extra time. We have
even had a few calves grade choice, although that is not our goal. We
chose to target the health conscious market and prefer our meat to be
leaner. Of course the holistic management biological planning process
is the key to healthy calves. As we expand our broiler enterprise, we
will even develop a grazing plan for our chickens.
A serious drought in 1995 and 1996 and continuous monitoring of our overall
operation influenced our decision to diversify into pastured poultry.
We began our broiler enterprise in January of 1998. That has been a profitable
decision. Our dressed chickens are selling very well and we are planning
to build a federally inspected poultry-processing plant to help us expand
this enterprise. We believe that we are in for a very long-term drought
and if we need to liquidate all our cattle, we will be able to keep the
ranch going very well with poultry.
The decision to market all our meat ourselves has been the most challenging
by far. We have lived through lots of trial and error and hopefully have
learned by it. We are selling our beef and chicken both retail and wholesale.
The wholesale food industry is not a very friendly environment and it
has taken us four years to learn the ins and outs, but we're beginning
to make some progress and hope to be able to build enough business to
help market meat for other organic livestock producers.
The ranch tour we are hosting on May 3 will go into more detail about
our production management as well as covering a lot of information about
how to direct market beef and chicken. You will also get a taste of our
beef and chicken for lunch.
There is no question that holistic management led us into this adventure
through the decision-making process. We're quick to say that it has not
been an easy journey. However, it has meant more to us than anything we've
done before. We're living and working as a team. Extended family members
are actively involved. We are blessed with deeply loyal customers who
express their gratitude for what we are doing every day. When we fall
exhausted into bed each night, we often say to each other, "Do you
want to do something different?" The answer is always "no".
Note: Author Jo Robinson has published a new book titled, Why Grassfed
is Best, which describes new research results that reveal the nutritional
benefits from eating grassfed meats. You may have seen this information
published in the Stockman Grass Farmer publication. It is valuable information
for anyone interested in direct marketing their grass-fed meat products.
You can order Jo's new book on her website, "eatwild.com".
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