For us here at Fingerprint Farms we raise all our beef out on pasture.  It means that they are always on pasture, even while we finish them.  Therefore, their primary diet is the forage (grass) they find on pasture.  Our pasture management program attempts to graze 1/3 to 1/2 of our farm during the growing season (the balance achieved is primarily driven by rainfall), and then allow the balance of the farm to produce forage for a full growing season.  During the non-growing season, we then graze the standing forage.  However, during the winter or in times of extreme drought, we will feed “hay” that we source from local producers when necessary (we do not cut hay on our farm) and  minimally supplement their winter diet with non-gmo protein as needed.  

For us here at Fingerprint Farms, we raise all of our meat birds and laying hens out on pasture. This means that as soon as they are capable of leaving the brooder and thriving on pasture, the birds are put out to pasture.  While on pasture, the birds consume copious amounts of grass, and also eat many insects that they find in the pastures.  The chickens are exclusively supplemented with a Non-GMO grain blend to balance out their diet. 

1.       While there really is not a precise definition of regenerative agriculture, we believe it requires the practitioner to view farm operations (and life really) holistically (i.e. we view the farm like an amazingly interconnected web that transmits information to all its parts from the slightest touch of a single strand).  So, we try to assess how each decision we make on the farm, in our store, with our marketing and sales activities, etc., etc. impacts the other parts of the web we live in. 

Most importantly, we believe that energy derived from the sun drives the entire system, it powers the growth of the plants; the plants feed the animals and insects, and produces energy that supports soil life; the animals tend the plants, provide disturbance to the soil, and deliver nutrients and living microbes in their manure required for life in the soil to flourish; this system then drives the health of  the insects, wildlife, bacteria, fungi, etc. on the farm, thereby enhancing the overall ecosystem. 

When this system is fully functioning, we believe it allows us to produce healthy food in alignment with God’s Creation.  In essence, we see each strand of the extravagantly elaborate web as a fingerprint left by God in this wonderful world we live in, and we strive to understand how we can manage the system in alignment with God’s plan for that creation. 

2.       While we humans have very limited knowledge about how this web of life truly functions, we follow in the footsteps of generations of other people who through scientific testing, direct observation, and actual practice have discovered clues (fingerprints) that help us manage our lives and steward the gifts we have been given in a way that will rebuild life in the soil, so that it can support life above the soil. 

To do this, we move our livestock frequently to graze the plants like they were grazed by free roaming herds and flocks before humanity intervened. This practice enhances the regrowth and diversification of the pastures allowing us to produce even more from the system, without chemical or mechanical interventions that destroy life on the farm (i.e. the insects, plant species, animal species, and microbial life that each form a strand of the web).  

Regenerative management also means that we refrain from applying fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, or herbicides that negatively impact soil life on our pastures. And thus far, we have never tilled or plowed or burned any of our pastures. While tilling, plowing, or burning may be required on occasion, these practices negatively impact the life in the soil, and we have yet to have a need to use these practices. 

By constantly grazing the animals and birds on fresh pastures, we can also avoid using prophylactic doses of antibiotics or wormers in our animals.  Of course, we treat sick animals.  However, we then cull the treated animals to build a genetically stronger animal that is not predisposed to disease (we have to be the predator in the system taking out the weak animals). 

In short, we strive to promote and rebuild healthy, living soil; raise healthy strong plants and animals; improve water cycling and retention in the soil; and encourage and promote diversity in the wildlife, plant, and insects and microbes in, on and above our farmlands.     

1.       We believe this phrase is a good way to describe an important distinction between how our products are produced in comparison to the products produced in an industrial animal production model.  While I have not met one, I am sure there may be some tiny number of farmers or ranchers who manage the animals on their farm or ranch in a manner that could be found to be inhumane.   However, the vast majority of farmers and ranchers work hard long hours caring for their animals.  They do this despite the fact that our modern society looks down upon or even vilifies the work they do, while the rewards of their labor are drained away from them them by feed lots, processors and large retailers.  To carry on, they must love what they do, and by extension, the animals they raise. 

2.       At Fingerprint Farms, we certainly love and respect the lives that support our life, health and livelihoods. And, we believe that the majority of the animals raised on farms and ranches live very good lives, being fed, tended, and treated so that they can be sold by the farmer.  A weak, starved, mistreated animal will not bring top dollar on the market.  Often times, it is when an animal leaves the farm or ranch that things get dicey.  Animals sold at sale barns or by contract typically end up in a confined, industrial feeding system designed to force growth and maturity on them as quickly as possible and at the lowest possible cost.  However, in the case of birds, the conventional management system means they live the entirety of their lives inside such systems.  We believe this is inhumane treatment of the animals. 

3.       On our farm, we raise the animals to maturity on pasture.  Essentially, the animals that will be processed by us spend the entirety of their lives on clean chemical free pastures being moved, fed, and watched over by us until the time they are processed; and our breeding stock get this treatment for the entirety of their productive lives.  Our chickens go out on pasture as soon as they are able to survive there and are kept there until they are sent for processing.  We believe this is a much more humane way to raise and care for the animals that provide us with food necessary for our survival and critically, to the maintenance of the ecosystem we live in. Without animals on our lands, the system will collapse just as surely as it will from the plowing, tilling, and chemical interventions used in conventional farm management systems.  Our job is to steward the land to support and enhance the lives of the plants, animals, microbes and people living in and on it.