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We seek to follow natural laws governing the relationships
between grazing animals and the grassland. Just as great
herds of bison and flocks of birds moved with the availability
of fresh grass and insects on the prairie, our management
practices follow this age-old pattern. Nature's strength
also comes through diversity. Our livestock are moved
across pastures in a high-intensity, short duration
grazing schedule always on the greenest pastures. Allowing
the pastures time to rest, re-grow and recycle nutrients
naturally.
Thundering Hooves cattle, lambs and goats are “finished”
(fattened) to a desired size and weight completely on
certified organic pastures of grass and alfalfa. They
receive no grain and spend no time in feedlots or confinement
facilities.
We do not administer indiscriminate antibiotics. We
believe “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound
of cure.” By providing a natural healthy diet,
a low stress environment with plenty of room to roam
and get adequate exercise, and allowing the animals
to choose when and how much to eat leads to contented
dispositions, greater disease resistance and healthier
animals.
We do not use any artificial growth hormones. Some
animals will gain weight more quickly than others. Although
we strive for consistency in our meat products, individual
variations in growth and muscle will naturally occur.
As nature takes the lead, we are willing to live with
the trade off of forced growth through hormones and
forced feeding schedules for authentic, natural occurring
growth.
Ruminant, or four-stomached, animals evolved by eating
a relatively low energy / high fiber diet of grasses
and forbs. With the aid of bacteria residing in the
stomach and additional mechanical break down of the
fibers (cud chewing), these forages are utilized and
turned into high protein muscle. There are seeds (grains)
present in the grasses at certain times of the year
on the prairie, but they bring entirely different dietary
results than our modern grains (see HEALTH
BENEFITS). It has only been in the last eighty years
or so - since the invention of the combine harvester
- and the resulting surplus of grain for our own needs
-- that our country has been graining ruminant livestock.
Millennia of evolution cannot be replaced by decades
of technology.
Thundering Hooves pastures are certified organic.
The need for organic certification has developed where
disconnect between the grower and the customer exists!
Our customers are vital to us. Although we use organic
principals in our production, we believe our approach
goes "beyond organic", meaning that we believe
our products are best when 100% Pasture Finished. In
this regard, we view education as a key component of
understanding our methods and valuing our products.
We encourage visits to the farm by appointment and seek
times for dialogue and listening.
Because the demand for our products is growing faster
than our four-legged herds are capable of reproducing,
we purchase 12-18 month old cattle from ranchers and
farmers whom we know share our views about sustainable
agriculture (see PRODUCER
ALLIANCES). “Finished” cattle will range
in age from 2 – 2 ½ years.
We also purchase weaned lambs (about 5 months old)
for finishing on our pastures. We have a small (growing)
goat herd but we have a producer alliance with another
boar goat breeder whom we’ve purchased young goats
from to meet the demand of our customers.
The definition of “Grass Fed” is some,
mostly or 100% grass fed. As more and more corporations
begin using the term "Grass fed" it will be
left up to the public to educate themselves as to what
it really means. No matter how the market place changes
in the coming years, "Pasture Finished Meats"
will retain a definition true to our principles and
valued among our customers.
Lou and Debbie Hesse are members of our Producer Alliance. They supply Thundering Hooves with sustainably raised, natural pork - No hormones, no antibiotics, a purely vegetarian feed, and no concrete floors. We are very impressed with the results!
The Hesse pig farm has a series of giant hoop-like shelters (nearly 80 feet wide and 150 feet long). These spacious shelters are open at both ends, and on one end open to a large outdoor space where the pigs are fed a 100% vegetarian feed grown on the Hesse's farm. When we first visited the Hesse farm,we were impressed with the cleanliness of both the farm and the pigs, so we asked them how often they had to replace the soft straw bedding on which the pigs are raised to keep everything so clean and odor-free. It seemed like it would be a massive job to remove all that organic material, and we wondered where the pigs would go during the cleaning. The answer both surprised and impressed us.
The straw bedding is never removed or cleaned during the 6-month life of the pigs. This sounds awful, but it's not. Rather, more straw is "blown in" every morning to cover the older straw with another half-inch of fresh straw to create the ultimate compost bin. (Apparently, the straw blowing in is the highlight of the day for the pigs, who run around and play in it as it falls.) In the winter, the heat generated from the composting action serves to warm the pigs. The proof of its effectiveness was not only in the cleanliness of the pigs, but also in the almost total lack of an odor...ON A PIG FARM! When the pigs are finally sold, all of the compost is loaded up and spread out over the fields. Not only does this system create zero waste or pollutants, but the rich compost replaces the need to apply chemical fertilizers to the fields - where they grow the pigs' feed. It is a very wholesome and utterly sustainable system that leaves the pigs happy, healthy, and clean, and left us most impressed.
From the beginning of Thundering Hooves one of our most popular products has been a Pasture Ranged Chicken. The flavor and texture of these chickens received constant rave reviews from customers. Yet due to several production and processing issues, we chose to stop raising them for a couple years. Even then, our customers never stopped requesting a Pastured Chicken.
So, in early 2007 we were thrilled to meet the Hennemans, a very nice Eastern Washington family who not only raise Cornish Cross chickens on their small farm, but also have a WSDA Food Processors Permit and a small, licensed poultry processing facility. This means the chickens can be processed on-site (eliminating the stress for the chickens caused by travel), and on a small scale (improving the potential to do a quality job with each individual bird). Our visit to their farm in March of that year and our philosophical conversations with them in the weeks following led to an arrangement whereby the Hennemans agreed to raise chickens for us on their grass pastures - under the same protocols we have used for the past several years. Our family will visit their farm periodically so that we can say to you with confidence that our high standards and strict protocols have been maintained.
To our way of thinking, it's not enough
to say that we have turkeys for sale. We invite you
to find out the story behind these special birds.
Our Pasture Ranged turkeys roam freely in the fields,
eating bugs, grasses, and vegetarian feed. The two varieties we raise are the Broad-Breasted Bronze and
the Unimproved Standard Bronze. The Broad Breasted Bronze turkeys
come to us from our local hatchery as day old chicks.
They are kept in brooder houses for 3-4 weeks and are
then moved out onto our pastures.
 We keep our own flock of Unimproved Standard Bronze turkeys and
incubate their eggs for 28 days. The hours old chicks
are moved to a brooder house and kept there for 4-6
weeks. From then on, these birds also enjoy the open
spaces of our pastures.
Both varieties of turkeys prefer
to roost a foot or so off the ground, and are free to
roam about as they please. Their roosts are periodically
moved throughout the field. They are very social birds
and are fun to watch."Show me the grass!"
We believe this natural diet and exercise, what Mother
Nature intended, will be reflected in our turkey's fabulous
quality and taste.
It is very important that turkeys are appropriately
finished. Turkeys are fully mature at 24 weeks of age.
Before 24 weeks their energy is going to growing, not
putting on fat. By allowing our turkeys to reach full
maturity before they are butchered they have naturally
juicy meat, not artificially injected with oils and
water.
Turkeys have been roaming North America for perhaps
the last 10 million years and are the only fowl that originated in the Americas. Archeological information indicates that the turkey was domesticated around 200 BC by the Aztecs in the Tehuacan area of Mexico. When the Spanish Conquistadors landed in Mexico in 1519, they discovered that Turkeys were already domesticated. The Spanish, on their return home introduced the turkey to Europe, where they quickly spread and became a popular meat bird.
In 1625, after about a century of breeding in Europe, the turkey was reintroduced to Eastern North America from England by the Pilgrims. These ‘new’ birds bred with the indigenous turkey of that area to produce the bronze colored bird. This hybrid type was itself taken back to England where a game keep named John Bull began to select for a broader breast. He later emigrated to Canada and brought turkeys with him, selling them in North America as "broad-breasted" turkeys.
The further development of the modern Broad Breasted Bronze is credited to another Englishman, Jesse Throssel, who moved to Canada in 1926. He had been selecting turkeys for hatchability and meat production for many years. His hatchery in B.C. was successful and ultimately he sent some of his birds to Oregon and California where they were they met with great favor. This was the true beginning of the modern turkey industry. With the development of the Broad Breasted Bronze, which dominated the market until the 1960s, most other turkey breeds began a slow decline to near extinction, where they reside today. Then, ironically, with the development of the Broad Breasted White turkey in the 1960s, the Broad Breast Bronze has now become a rare turkey, as well.
The
broad-breasted feature of the white turkey was popularized
for producing large amounts of white meat and remains
the industry's standard bird to this day.
All turkeys, actually a variety of pheasant, are estimated
to have 3,500 feathers at maturity. Wild turkeys can
fly short distances at speeds up to 90 km/hr and can
run at speeds up to 40 km/hr. (Not long ago, we actually
had a flock of about 30 wild turkeys calmly walk through
our driveway on the farm one morning. They didn't stay,
but we see them occasionally in the area.) At any rate,
the Unimproved Standard Bronze turkey has had no significant
cross breeding and can mate naturally. They are the
purest of the Bronze line in terms of their heritage.
They have beautiful shimmering dark charcoal plumage
with green-bronze metallic highlights in the sun.
It's not in the spirit of the "survival of the
fittest" that Unimproved Standard Bronze turkeys have struggled,
for indeed they are quite hearty and adaptable. Nor
for the lack of their quality or taste, for they produce
a generous amount of flavorful dark meat. It is more
that their market fell as bigger birds bred for larger
amounts of white meat grew in availability and popularity.
As the demand for certain birds rises, inevitably the
ability for other breeds to remain profitable declines.
Just as many breeds of cattle have been deselected to
represent our meat needs, morphing into largely just
a hand full of breeds. Who can name more than a few?
Hereford, Angus, Holstein? What about Semintal, Charlois,
Guernsey, Devon or Dexter? No one wants to visit the
same ten animals at the zoo. But how many of us only
eat three or four kinds of meat in our life time, and
the same narrow breeds at that. When a market place
presents limited choices, the declining gene pool used
for breeding new flocks leaves us vulnerable to potential
genetic problems, or diseases. For example, the industrialized
white turkeys of today are unable to reproduce themselves.
This is of great concern to those advocating food security,
genetic biodiversity, not to mention preserving native
North American animal life and history.
To the dismay of a growing number of people aware of
the plight of unimproved turkeys, there are extremely
limited numbers of breeding flock left in the country.
The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy estimated
that in 1987 there were "less than 300 breeding
hens" found in America with the possible exception
of a limited number of turkeys used by hobbyists and
show goers. "Status: RARE".
Simply put, the more people purchase breeds like the
Unimproved Standard Bronze, the better we can preserve
them.
It is said that Queen Elizabeth was eating a goose
celebrating the harvest festival with her troops. When
she heard the news that the Spanish Armada had sunk
on its way to attack England, she celebrated by ordering
a second goose. When the pilgrims came to the New World,
they celebrated the harvest festival as well, but geese
were not plentiful. So they roasted turkeys instead.
Traditionally, in England, swans, peacocks and cranes
were often roasted for special occasions. However, it
was Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens' "A Christmas
Carol", who has been credited with the Christmas
turkey tradition after purchasing the large prize winning
turkey for his Christmas dinner.
The caruncle is a natural reddish-pink fleshy growth
on the head and upper neck of the turkey. The snood
is a long, red, natural fleshy growth from the base
of the beak that hangs down over the beak. The wattle
is a bright red appendage at the neck. The beard is
a black lock of hair found on the chest of the male
turkey. L-Tryptophan- an essential dietary amino acids
found in turkeys. It makes some people think they feel
sleepy after a roast turkey dinner. (One might also
ask how much they ate, and whether they are trying to
get out of helping with the dishes. But that's another
story.)
- A whole turkey will feed approximately one pound
per person. A 10 lb. turkey serves about 10 people.
- A turkey can be frozen for up to 1 year. Once it
has been thawed, don't refreeze it again until it
has been cooked.
- A cooked turkey can be stored up to 4 days in the refrigerator
or up to 3 months in the freezer.
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Nature
Knows Best