Our Navajo-Churro Sheep

Our Navajo-Churro Sheep

Navajo-Churros were the first breed that we committed to raising at Agarita Creek farms. Thus far we have only fifteen -- twelve ewes and three lambs. Like our Jacobs, we run both registered and unregistered Navajo-Churros. Unlike the Jacobs, because of a difference in registration philsophies, we hope to be able to register all of our unregistered Navajo-Churro sheep.

We have bred most of our ewes this year to Santo, our herd sire, who we purchased from a breeder in Missouri. He is a majestic animal with beautiful color, and we cannot wait to see his offspring. Several of our ewes were also exposed to Miguel -- and we await lambing season to see whether this exposure resulted in Miguel fathering any lambs.

One might wonder, if this was the first breed we chose, why are the numbers so low relative to our numbers of Jacob Sheep. The answer is one of geography. Most of the large breeders of Navajos are in Arizona, Utah, and the Pacific coast. We have shown our willingness to travel far for sheep, but have been unable thus far to take a trip so far west. Perhaps next year.

Our Navajos are a bit wilder than our Jacobs, and exist more or less in their natural environment, where they thrive. We hope to grow our Navajo flock to forty or fifty in the coming years, through both breeding and acquisition.

Our Jacob Sheep

Our Jacob Sheep

We did not intend to, in our first year, acquire forty Jacob Sheep. We did not intend to immediately become what we believe to be the largest breeding operation of Jacob sheep in Texas. It just worked out that way; largely due to the liquidation, and our purchase of much of, the Stack/Millennial Way flock, from Arkansas. That purchase, after we have already acquired many Jacobs, was simply an opportunity we could not pass up.

We bought our first Jacob ewe with four Navajo-Churro ewes from a California breeder, who was moving to Georgia, in early 2008. These five sheep were our first entre into the world of livestock. The four Navajo-Churros from that initial purchase, have thus far failed to breed (they had not apparently previously been bred), and we have learned that our Jacob from that purchase, who has become our pet, Tillie, is a relative mutt, but it started us on the path of admiring, and aquiring Jacob and additional Navajo-Churro sheep.

At present, we have thirty-four Jacob ewes, two Jacob rams, and three Jacob ram lambs in waiting. They hail from California, Missouri, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas. Their aquisition has put many miles on our new Dodge Ram pickup. They are registered and unregistered, although our emphasis and recent growth is in our registered flock. Most of our ewes are, hopefully, bred for Spring 2009 lambing. We hope to both selectively build our flock and sell many of our initial lamb crop.

We plan to continue to run two flocks. Our "breeding" flock will be our registered Jacobs, and we will intend to breed something really special from our sheep -- two and four-horned, black and lilac, small and large. We will also continue to breed our unregistered flock for meat production, hoping to develop a market for Jacob lambs in Central Texas. We also obviously plan to develop a market for natural colored Jacob wool, black, brown, gray, and other colors, here in the beautiful Texas Hill Country, which we now are very fortunate to call our home.

Our Dexter Cattle

Our Dexter Cattle

As with all of our livestock, this is our first year with Dextle Cattle. We started with C-C, a registered heifer from a breeder in Navasota, Texas. C-C is red, horned, and is small even for a Dexter. She was born in September, 2007, and will be bred with a small Dexter bull for calving in Spring 2010.

Our second acquisition was Hilda, a registered Dexter cow who was the champion mature Dexter cow at the 2008 Houston Livestock Show and Exposition, and is bred to the champion bull. Hild is a dun color, and horned. Hilda came to us through Block Creek Ranch, near Comfort, Texas, which owned both her and her sire. Their calf, born December 13, 2008, is dun bull calf that we have named Levon.

Our third acquisition was named Tara Cotta when we bought her, but we have changed her name to what was probably intended, Terra Cotta. Terra is, we believe, pregnant and should calf Spring 2009. She is a dun cow, with no horns. Terra is the most personable of our cows and that, combined with her lack of horns, will make her our family milk cow.

We plan to grow our Dexter herd in the coming years, through artificial insemination with outstanding bulls. We will continue to breed for dun and red colors. Two of our cows have the recessive "bull-dog" gene, so we are breeding them to gene negative bulls. Hopefully, we will be able to breed this recessive gene out of our herd in the coming years. It is only adverse physically to a calf if both the cow and sire possess the gene.

Dexter Cattle

Everything that is old is new again. And such is it with Dexter cattle. Dexter cattle are an old Celtic breed of cattle bred since at least the very early 1800s in Ireland. There is much mythology about the breed's origins. What we do know is that it originated in Ireland, along with the Kerry, with whom it was grouped indiscriminately for many years, was brought to the U.S. by the very early 1990s, and has always been predominately black, although we know from paintings that the dun color has existed from the 1800s, and that red is also, at least now, the predominant color in a minority of Dexters.

Dexters are a dual purpose, small, family cow. They are a beef cow that is coveted because of its smaller cuts of lean quality meat, which scores high on taste test of heritage and conventional breeds. They produce milk high in butterfat content at the highest rate per pund of any known breed. They are docile, calve easily, and are highly adaptable.

There are multiple breeder associations for Dexters in the U.S., and these associations, together with the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy have increased the focus on the Dexter as a breed and have caused its numbers to recover in recent years. The benefits of the Dexter are obvious. They are small, highly efficient, and are, therefore, a great breed for the small farm. They were never "bred up" as were other breeds in the U.S. which generated commercial interest, and have none of the birthing and other problems associated with such breeds. They are truly dual purpose, yielding succulent beef and yielding high amounts of quality milk. These attributes have made the Dexter an increasingly popular choice, especially on relatively small farms.

Jacob Sheep

Jacob sheep are an ancient domesticated breed of sheep. Jacob sheep have been bred in England in their present form for over 350 years. But their historical antecedents may go back, as some people believe, to the Old Testament, to the spotted sheep of Jacob, father of the twelve Hebrew patriarchs -- the leaders of the twelve tribes.

In what is now Syria, young Jacob worked for his uncle Laban -- his wage being that he was given all of the spotted animals. Jacob placed spotted branches around nearby watering holes, believing that this would cause the ewes to conceive spotted lambs. In a dream, God instructed Jacob, with perhaps the more sound advice to breed only spotted rams. Jacob created an almost entirely spotted flock in what must be one of the earliest documented examples of selective breeding.

Jacob Sheep came to the U.S. via Britain, in the early 1900's for use zoos and animal parks. Greater numbers began to be imported in the 1950's and 1960's. By the late 1980's, the Jacob Sheep Breeders Association was established. Along with the American Livestock Breeds Association and the Jacob Sheep Conservancy, the JSBA has been instrumental in establishing this rare breed in the United States. In fact, during the 1970's the breed almost became instinct in its home of Britain. It was, ironically, American Jacobs that helped restore the breed there.

So why raise Jacobs? Well, first, there is the story and lineage, whether actual or wistful, with that first flock of documented spotted sheep in the Old Testament. There is the naturally colored fleece, prized by hand spinners and weavers. And then there are those horns -- sometimes two, sometimes four, and sometimes even six. Like most animals that have been spared "breeding up," they retain their survival characteristics, lamb easily, are generally resistant to parasites, and are well adapted. In addition, they recently came in third place in a taste test of many heritage sheep breeds. They are a versatile, unique breed that is a distinct pleasure to observe and raise.

Navajo-Churro Sheep

Like Spanish Goats, the Spanish explorers also brought the first sheep to America, beginning in the late 15th century, with Cortez and Coronado, and continuing through the late 16th century, with Don Juan Ornate'. The Navajo-Churro Sheep of today descended from the flocks brought over by the Spanish, and nurtured by the Native Americans. The name Churro is the corrupted version of the Spanish word "Churra," meaning simply "sheep."

The Navajo have had several challenges. They have survived the climate of the desert southwest. They have endured near extintion in the Indian Wars, as the U.S. Cavalry was instructed to kill the Indians' livestock, as part of their efforts to defeat Indian civilization. Kit Carson, purportedly resisted, but eventually followed orders, leading the Indians to hide their prized churras in caves. They have endured a forced reduction at the behest of the U.S. government in the face of the dorughts of the 1930s. By the mid-1970s, when they were rediscovered by those interested in conserving heritage breeds, there were less than 500 Navajo-Churros left in the United States, mostly on reservations.

With the assistance of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, the Navajo Sheep Project and, ultimately, the Navajo-Churro Sheep Association, numbers have recovered. There are now over 5,000 registered Navajos, and approximately 200 breeders.

So why breed Navajo-Churros? To understand, first you have to see these majestic animals; their nobleness; their stance and carriage; their multi-colored fleeces. Beyond this, there is, of course, adaptability to harsh climates -- hot and cold; dry and dryer. There is their innate survival and mothering instincts bred out of many commercial breeds. There are the multiple horns -- on ewes and rams. There is the range of natural colors of their fleece, highly sought by spinners and weavers. There is their lean and tasty meat. They have been singled out by Slow Foods USA as a healthy, natural food source that is endangered. They are actually triple purpose -- yielding high quality milk and dairy products for a growing sheep's milk market. One no longer has to look to Europe for fine sheep's milk cheeses; they are available right here from an animal that an animal who has been here since the first European explorers; an animal prized by our Native Americans who have made them such a large part of their culture that they have proclaimed, in an annual festival, that "Sheep is Life." Sheep is life indeed, and anyone who prizes antiquity, history, adaptability, and authenticity in an animal cannot help but appreciate the nobleness of the Navajo-Churro Sheep.

Heritage Livestock

At Agarita Creek Farms, we are committed to open-pollinated and heirloom plants and heritage breeds of livestock. When we decided to raise livestock, we immediately decided to raise heritage breeds. Why? It is quite simple really. We are what are called contrary farmers. As we began to learn about agriculture, the overwhelming and obvious lesson was that modern agriculture, and its mechanistic approach, had created the problems that family farmers have been living through now for over half a century. We are convinced that many problems with modern livestock, from parasites, to disease, to problems in birthing offspring, can be traced to the "breeding up" of animals in the past century for more "economic" meat and milk production. While not widely held, our view had been adopted by others before us. We quickly discovered the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, which not only shares our view as to the source of many problems in livestock breeding, but is dedicated to preserving American heritage breeds of livestock.

We are initially raising three breeds of heritage livestock, in an effort to preserve these breeds in Texas -- Jacob and Navajo-Churro Sheep, and Dexter cattle. We chose these breeds because of their adaptability to our Texas Hill Country conditions, the lack of "breeding up" and the resulting retention of natural insticts and survivability, and the histories of each of these breeds.

In the future, we will add heritage chickens, ducks, turkeys, donkeys, and perhaps other animals to our domain. Our principles in selecting breeds for these species will be the same -- animals adaptable to our environment, who exist in their more or less natural state, and who share noble characteristics. We invite you to read further about each of our breeds, and to learn with us as we evolve in the future.

What is Going to Have to Pass for a Mission Statement

In business today, it is considered essential to have a mission statement. I think this is largely a good thing, and I think it is wise for us as individuals, spouses, parents, and families to do this from time to time again. January, with the beginning of the year, seems to be the natural time to do so. Shorter days on the farm also make this the best time to contemplate what we are doing, what we will not do, and the reasons why for both categories.

We are beginning farmers and ranchers -- not quite "Green Acres" (I just got that double entendre; it went right over my head when that show was on when I was a child), but close. Bev grew up here, on land that included this farm, but her Dad (as was probably both wise and prevalent at that time) made sure all three of his daughters went to UT and got non-farm jobs in cities. For my part, I stayed as far as possible from farming and ranching for my entire pre-farm life.

We are here, not because we know what we are doing, but out of expediency and a desire to enrich our lives. Expediency, because we were fortunate enough to be "given" the land (I put the word given in quotes because we have found that just maintaining the farm takes a big chunk of our non-farm income) and had to find something to do with it, and some way to help pay for it through its own operations. The lifestyle part of the equation is probably not unique to us at all; many people probably share our desire to get more connected to the land, do something tangible with our hands, and try a lifestyle different from that which we experience as young and then not so young professionals in Houston.

So what is it we hope to accomplish? First, we hope to become more self-sufficient, in many ways. We want to sell more food than we buy, rather than vice-versa. We want to raise our own vegetables, fruits, sheep, cattle, and ultimately chickens and goats. Self-sufficiency is a common sentiment, particularly in these tough economic times (which did not even exist as we determined to move forward). But for us it goes beyond just a balance sheet concept. This farm and ranch, like many, had embraced mono-culture and a commodity approached to agriculture that became prevalent in the second half of the past century. Self-sufficiency, in terms of producing vegetables, eggs, chickens, cheese, etc. for the table disappeared. Instead, it followed the models of the corporate farm -- embedded in specialization. The thinking was probably more innocent than first appears. Specialization can work on a local scale. The cattleman can focus on cattle, and trade what he has (or the dollars that he made in pursuing his trade) with local dairy, poultry outfit, truck farm. That makes sense. The problem is the logical extension is to specialize, usually a oxymoron of sorts because in most communities that means specialize in whatever commodity is prevalent, and buy everything else from the HEB or the Wal-Mart. This model puts the family farm in competition with agri-business, breaks down the self-sufficiency of the local economy, and the local nature of the market and, ultimately, destroys the fabric of the community.

These are, of course, our opinions; no one has to share them. But our opinions explains why we have elected a different path.

A very good farming writer, Gene Logsdon, who is a hero of mine, calls himself a "contrary farmer." He calls himself that because he does not buy into the industrial model as it applies to farming. He sees defects in the application of the model to agriculture (and indeed to life and business in general), some of which I have set forth above -- although not nearly as well as does Gene. I commend Gene's books, as well as the books of others, to anyone who wants to pursue, or is interested in, family farmer in this century.

What we believe is that family farming should not be a mono-culture. That commodity crops should generally not be grown by the family farmer, unless he and his family intend to eat them, as an alternative to buying them (which generally is not even a good economic decision in our experience). He should not raise the sheep, cattle, or goats that the corporate farmers, or their inadvertant family farmer followers, raise. He should address the micro-market of folks who are hungry and thirsty for what he really has to offer that the corporate farmers and their family farm followers do not -- something unique. In our opinion, family farmers should be growing what is not readily available at a low price -- heirloom vegetables, specialty fruits and nuts, and, if he sells animals for meat, he should sell antique breeds of livestock not bred up during the past century to be carttoon versions of the livestock people originally raised and sold in this country.

We believe that this farmer should know and sell directly to his customers -- through farm stands, through farmer's markets, and through community sponsored agriculture ("CSA's"). We believe the US government has made the word "organic" meaningless, and organic certification should not be the goal for the family farmer, but that the farmer should, nonetheless, refrain from the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers on anything that he expects a human being to eat. (Ultimately, we think the same should apply to animals. But buying local animal feed we think should be a higher goal than buying organic animal food; so sometimes one has to choose non-organic hay, grains, and other animal feeds for the sake of buying locally).

We believe that the self sufficient, diverse, family farmer of a century ago should be the model that we all strive for. Not forsaking technology, or what we did learn in the past century of farming, but forsaking the mechanistic model of farming that family farmers bought into, until they could neither buy or buy into anything else.

We believe the family farm of today and tomorrow should minimize inputs other than labor, which will probably be increased. We believe that one should hold off buying equipment to the extent and for as long as possible. We believe most equipment would be more logically shared by several family farms. How many rusty combines sit in sheds on farms all over this land?

We believe in treating customers and animals alike with dignity. We believe in treating customers honestly. We believe the most important role of the family farmer is probably reeducation -- of himself, of other family farmers, and of consumers. Everyone has gotten to where they don't expect much, and either don't know any better or have forgotten.

These are trying times. Farmers and farm operations will fail; probably on a large scale. Most small farmers will probably either have to keep, or get, day jobs -- proving additional money and subsidizing their farm "lifestyle." We have no illusions of quitting our day jobs to focus exclusively on this labor of love.

This mission statement, like any, is and probably should be a work in progress. But this is where we stand. We invite input -- like minded or contrary. It takes all kinds and all minds. God bless.

Winter at the Farm

Winter, I am finding, is a strange time at the farm. There is much clearing to be done for Spring planting. Eventually, with much work, everthing returns to its empty, clean state, which is a bit cathartic. Seeds and plants are ordered, delivered, and ready for planting. The sheep and cows become more and more dependent on us for food. The cycles change -- diametrically opposed from what they will be in just a few weeks when grass and plants overrun the place, and the animals do not need us -- but the farm does. Cycles are comforting. It reminds me of school. Fresh starts each season.

The spring wildflowers are green, healthy, and ready to flower as soon as the warm weather takes hold for more than a passing few days. The cabins continue to progress, and look to be ready for the Spring season. Lambing is just around the corner. Lambing to be followed by shearing. Shearing to be followed by months of harvest, fighting back weeds, and trying to sell the food we have cultivated. Our time for thought, and planning, will soon disappear into urgent activity. It has been nice while it has lasted. I will learn to look forward to this time of year on the farm.

Hello from Agarita Creek Farms!

Hi, this is Tom Carnes from Agarita Creek Farms LP in Fredericksburg, Texas. Agarita Creek Farms is a ranch, which raises heritage breeds of livestock recognized by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. At this early stage in our operations, we raise Dexter cattle, Jacob sheep, and Navajo-Churro sheep. We are also a farm -- raising feed for our livestock and also operating a market vegetable garden. Lastly, we provide farm stay tourist accommodations -- currently in the form of two German-style log cabins, each with two bedrooms, and each with approximately 1200 sq. ft. Each cabin is two story, and has a full kitchen and all modern amenities. To communicate with our customers, or those that might become our customers, we have done two things. We have posted an Agarita Creek Farms page on Facebook, which can be accessed through Facebook directly or through my account (/thomaspcarnes). Secondly, we are forming a "Friends of Agarita Creek Farms" page on LinkedIn. We intend to post our periodic blog -- happenings on the farm, announcements, and special offerings -- on LinkedIn and Facebook to our "friends." This will enable us to be in regular contact with our friends without sending out blast email, hopefully making us nimbler and improving communication.

In short, we hope those that are interested join one or both of our user groups. We think this technology will simplify business communications, focus them on ones who want to receive them, and enable us to better serve our customers. We hope you will join us.