Small family farms are failing! Wyoming Rancher's amazing story

today on the Stoney Ridge Farm Channel we're off the farm and we're on the ranch with Mike from our Wyoming life in Gillette Wyoming and we've got a lot of super fans right back here hope you guys enjoyed the video hey Goldie Cody hey there folks this is Josh Stoney Ridge farmer welcome back to another video off the farm and on the ranch here with Mike from our Wyoming life Mike thanks so much for having me out here again I haven't seen you since 2018. I was just trying to figure out how long it's been since you've been here and it's been yeah it's been a few years things have changed obviously a ton I am here with Mike and first of all I want you guys to go check his channel out so your homework assignment is to check out Mike's channel from our Wyoming life there'll be a link at the end of this video watch all the way through because it's super interesting what Mike has going on you've taken something that was a social media thing and turned it into the ultimate farm income diversification tool I mean the ultimate the ultimate I mean honestly we started uh diversifying the ranch before YouTube even came along yeah um so Aaron and I my wife and I came here in 2008 yeah um helping out family that was pretty much it we realized that having more than one family living on the ranch and being supported by the ranch was impossible the deal yeah it's it's so hard so we decided to start doing farmer's market and that's where we got started in local food yeah and that's what led us down the road to YouTube we started making videos about where your food comes from and that's what brought people in now being able to take that and and turn it into a local food business that's now Nationwide yeah we started out shipping uh beef jerky we had people that said hey I want to try your beef beef jerky was the easiest way to do it now we ship about 3 000 pounds of beef jerky all over the U.S in a year three did you say three thousand three thousand pounds so uh now and also we we now we've moved on now we're selling beef and pork we ship that all over the U.S as well yeah and it's it's basically a matter of of taking people's interest in local food yeah and just building that because I think if one thing that covid taught us is that first of all you need as much toilet paper as you can grab yeah of course or socks or whatever you're gonna use and two is that local like local food is important yeah absolutely the average food item that's in your grocery store has 1500 miles on it yeah if the trucks aren't running there isn't food we've all seen it you walk in the grocery store it's like hey why are these why are these shelves available there's exactly why so having local food that you can depend on is super important that's what we're all about nice that's awesome man so what I'm here to do first of all is show you guys somebody that's really cool really interesting salt to the Earth people you guys run a non-profit also we do uh and our non-profit is all about local food as well uh it's about getting local food in the hands of low-income families in our community we do 235 food baskets per week that go out to low-income families we run a CSA program we have free little pantries food pantries that people at any time anytime can go and grab food from it's all about it is you know it's about not only showing people where their food comes from but giving back to the community we're extremely lucky to be to do what we do and being able to give some of that back is huge as well that's awesome man I think it's our duty as successful people people to be able to give back really and uh that's you you were hitting all the marks man it's great it's almost like I've done this before yeah I know that's absolutely great so um so that you guys moved out here in 2008 you've really stepped up your game I'm excited to see what's next and you guys should be excited to see what's next so go over and subscribe to Mike and Aaron's Channel our Wyoming life and you're going to see just how different it is ranching out here in the west versus the East uh with the Intensive grazing program that I have you just can't do that out here no in fact I can show you right here so here this is a Hayfield uh that's right behind us this Hayfield was harvested in July now you tell me that if you cut your grass in July what it's going to look like all the way in almost October yeah it's going to be Waist Deep yeah exactly this was cut back in July there it's got this much regrowth on it we get one cutting and that really does show even with uh you know we're cutting it with machines obviously we're making hay but if I send the cows out here to eat it they're doing the same dang thing and it's not going to grow back so we have to practice a little bit different type of rotational grazing than you guys would but definitely one one cutting one grazing on each pasture and we'll see you next year so a little different so in North Carolina where I live it's pretty common for one to one and a half acres per cow uh yeah oh my gosh isn't that amazing yeah that'd be crazy 35 40 acres per cow yeah and it depends on the year yeah um you know I've got friends of mine that and people don't believe this but I've got friends of mine that live in New Mexico and Arizona where it's 100 acres per cow I think they're eating Sagebrush and Cactus I don't know what they're eating now you you have to hey obviously seven months out of the Year probably six months out of the year yeah so we're feeding hay about 180 days is what we plan for so six months out of the Year we're feeding hay which means that we have to put that up during the summer months and and make sure that we have it the last few years like I mentioned we've been in drought yeah so we've been buying hay from anywhere we can get it and last year we bought um uh what 14 truckloads of hay yes about 200 250 tons out of Missouri and had it trucked all the way up here so you're talking about uh eighty thousand dollars worth of hay exactly yeah easily so being able to put up our own hay is huge um unfortunately we're at the the we were you know at the mercy of Mother Nature if we don't get the rain we don't get hay right exactly at I'm at the mercy of Mother Nature but not at that much Mercy I spent 10 grand on Hay this year we're rebuilding the land and we have no topsoil you guys have topsoil like four feet deep out here probably something like that it's not quite we have a lot of Sandy soils so a lot of our moisture moves right through and not a whole lot of topsoil to try to hold stuff together so a lot of uh a lot of native grasses but we're not doing much uh actually planting so what we're harvesting is native grass awesome that's why the beef from the West tastes different than the beast beef from the East so if you order beef from the Stoney Ridge it's going to taste totally different than the beef from here in our Wyoming life yeah exactly so let's go see your farm store check it out hey guys welcome to the farm store everything in here is raised on the ranch uh from the beef to the pork to the chicken beef jerky baked goods honey vegetables a little bit of everything we've got beef freezer which is full of all of our beef we finished five steers per month or every other month sorry we finished five steers every other month we also have pork and we raise about 30 pigs per year on the ranch so the best part of the pig right there yeah there we go and your wife is making errands making ice cream oh she's making all kinds of ice cream she does all the baked goods we've got our vegetables and eggs it's a little bit of everything I have such a sweet tooth man it's on I'll have to hook you up when you leave you get something for the road awesome but no it's great and people love it they come out here from all over the world and we have people stop by buy stuff here they can buy it online they can have it shipped directly to their door being able to provide local food to as many people as possible so you know great now you do this a little little bit differently you do this uh everybody doesn't have access to your online retail operation so right you run it through your patreon and people can donate as little or as much as they want to yeah so basically what we found is that if we said hey 250 000 people can come and order beef whenever they want we'd be sold out oh yeah right so patreon allows us to almost like a gatekeeping it's like it's like Sam's Club or Costco or anything like that you pay a dollar per month to be a patreon member which is really nothing yeah yeah and then you can come and order beef and pork from us you get a password you can go in order you can order as much as you want but it helps us just to control inventory more than anything because you can't keep up no we couldn't we're having that trouble now I mean we have uh we're out of stakes yeah people bought us out of stakes time consuming hard to keep up that's some of the challenge I'm running into on my farm is like how do I provide beef tea I've got 35 cows you know how do I provide beef you guys are beefing five cows every two months yep so that's a that's a lot of beef yeah man but upstairs Grand scale that's tiny bit tiny I mean it's a small operation I mean it's a very small business but that's one of the great things is that people are willing to support small businesses and you know supporting your local farmer is huge that's it that's super admirable uh supporting local farms even if it's not local to you right it can be local so the Miracles in the internet right yeah right no no doubt it's everywhere this is Jenny we have Jenny and Forest they are part of our useless animal collection and they hang out at the ranch they just uh take it easy they bring folks in to to talk about where their food comes from and and it's a little it's a little tricky but it's a lot of fun to have something different in Wyoming hey little buddy how you doing little buddy oh what a cute little man this is the tiniest horse it's a licking horse Leonard hey bud there you go buddy oh boy look at that so Mikey has also run a petting zoo out here too right yeah we do a little bit everywhere so when people come out to the farm store they actually get a little experience with the animals which is something that's really cool and I think I envy your operation really I think it's important to show people where their food comes from and uh having animals or anything else is definitely a part of that exposure it is Mike thank you so much for having us back here again I wish I could spend like five days out here so maybe next time we ran out the vacation rental house we never stay in the Airbnb I mean that's one of the biggest things we talked we were just talking about it like every every farmer and Rancher that I know um they have a side hustle yeah and then that's one thing that that I think that you have to do uh in agriculture nowadays is have a diversified income so we have the Airbnb that you can stay in you can play a few video games old antique pinball machines we have an RV park that people stay in and all this is about showing people where their food comes from but they also spend money while they're here so absolutely it helps support the ranch support local farmers I mean that's what it's all about that is what it's all about thanks man thank you dude I can't say how much and how impressed best I am with how you've taken this operation from Zero to Hero and really an admirable thing I I see what you're doing and I see what I'm doing and I need help I need more people you've got Ranch hands I've gotta I'm at that point I'm in an interim point where I've got to hire some help so you really pointed me in to set my sales in the right direction I'll tell you what it's it's if you have a mission like you can you can get a shot at Jeff Jeff is over here with us yeah and uh Jeff is a volunteer I mean he believes in what we do and that's what it really comes down to too is is having having something that people can get behind that they can they can flow behind we have people stop out here and they say hey Mike this is the best steak I've ever had in my life yeah and I say it's not but it is because you feel connected to that absolutely and you feel connected to the ranch you feel connected to us whatever it may be you'd be surprised how much psychology there is in everyday life and food yeah yeah well thanks a lot Mike I know we'll see you again in a couple years we'll be back here and you'll probably have all sorts of crazy stuff going on so guys check out Mike and Aaron parents Channel our Wyoming life it's a great Channel you got about 250 000 subscribers we're gonna send them to 300 so that'll be awesome yeah we're actually just away from 250. so if you can help us to 250 250. yeah so check out Mike and Aaron's Channel I'll be over there you'll get a little back side shots here and stuff it's going to be pretty awesome and look forward to Stoney Ridge farmer beef soon but before that you can go over to Mike and Aaron's Channel and get hooked up with some awesome Wyoming beef it tastes totally different out here so I don't know if it's a Sage Brush or what well they're not even say dress no who knows it's a grass just a different attitude it is it's the attitude you taste the attitude you can thanks Mike thank you sir take care have a wonderful day we'll see you next time on the Stony Ridge Farm Channel all right I'll get down to normal people height come on guys I know you want to show off I feel like what guys welcome to the farm store let's do it one more time bust in the door and then just turn yourself around Saturday Night Fever man this is the tiniest horse it's a licking horse foreign