Our Family
Berthold Family of 4 Cattle
We're the Bertholds. We (Allen and Lacy) both grew up with rural backgrounds, and after living in town for several years during and after college, we couldn’t wait to get back to that life and give our kids (Adelyn and Dane) the same opportunities we had growing up.
In the summer of 2017, we purchased our property approximately 10 miles East of College Station (TX), and love every minute of living out here. Since the move, we have made several improvements to the property, all with the intent of raising beef cattle in a sustainable, environmentally friendly way. Through this journey, we have learned more about the industry than we ever thought we would. It has been a wonderful experience and we have no regrets.
We still have our full-time jobs, which leaves after work hours and weekends to manage our farm. We do not manage many acres or hundreds of cattle and instead focus our time and energy on our few acres and few cattle, aiming for the highest quality product.
We hope to hear from you sometime and are willing to answer any questions either about us or how our cattle are raised.
Our Cattle
How They're Raised
Not only do we want to provide you with the highest quality product possible, we also want to ensure our cattle have everything they need to reach their fullest potential, and in an environmentally friendly way. We raise our calves following Texas Beef Quality Assurance (https://texasbeefquality.com/) guidelines. It is important that cattle are handled 1) under a low stress environment, 2) are properly taken care of, 3) have the highest quality forage possible, and 4) always have access to clean drinking water.
To begin, our young calves receive all the appropriate vaccinations to ensure they stay healthy, just like you and me. Also like us, calves will sometimes become ill and need attention. Often times they get over sickness on their own, but sometimes they need a little extra care. If necessary, we will pen sick calves to provide them supplemental feed, providing a little extra nutrition helping them get healthy as quickly as possible. If this does not help and it is absolutely necessary, we will administer sub-clinical antibiotics but beef is guaranteed antibiotic free at the time of purchase. Again, this level of treatment isn’t always needed.
Out in the pasture, calves rotate through a 6 paddock system which allows paddocks that are not currently being grazed to rest, regrow, and flourish. We subdivided our property using a single wire electric fence, which restricts grazing to certain areas. After ~5 days, cattle rotate to a new paddock, leaving a good root system in place so forage can recover. When calves are ready to move, they see us opening a gate to the new paddock and cannot wait to get into the new, lush, ungrazed areas. This grazing system happens year round.
To ensure cattle have high quality forage all year, we manage our pastures very intensively. During the warmer months (April – October), various species of Bermuda and Bahia are available for grazing. Once these species begin to go dormant in the fall, we plant a cover crop of cereal rye and gulf ryegrass. These species allow cattle to graze green grass when there otherwise wouldn’t be any. Additionally, these cover crops help to maintain the soil integrity because, after all, everything starts with good soil quality.
Once a calf has reached target weight, we place that calf in a separate paddock where they will have free choice pasture but are also fed a finishing ration for 60-90 days with the goal of increasing carcass yield and quality for the purchaser.