Environmental sustainability is more than just a buzz word for our operation - it's a guiding principle. We understand that managing our land and animals in a sustainable manner is the key to our business.
We feel extremely privileged to manage large tracts of native grassland which represents an ecologically important ecosystem and home to a wide variety of wildlife and plant species. Using this land for grazing represents the best possible use as we are able to generate high quality animal products from poor soils and rough topography while at the same time maintaining biodiversity and pristine wildlife habitat. Our grazing management plan focuses on improving rangeland condition and as such benefits both the plant and wildlife species found there. As one example, we entered in to a voluntary agreement with Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) to implement Rangeland Stewardship BMP’s such as deferred grazing on native rangeland and limiting access to riparian areas with the goal of providing suitable duck breeding habitat.
In addition to rotational grazing, we have implemented a number of other environmental BMP's including water site developments, bale grazing, seeding of permanent cover and riparian fencing.
We think it is important that our cows work just as hard for us as we do for them! As such, we look to for energy efficient ways to feed cow (or cows to feed themselves!) including stockpiled forages and annual crop stubble to extend the grazing season and bale grazing to greatly reduce our energy requirement to feed cows. This means that instead of having to start a tractor to feed every day during the winter, bale grazing sites are set up during the fall, minimizing tractor use during the winter.