Cattle and sheep are herbivores: they evolved to roam the grasslands in herds, consuming a wide variety of plants while aerating the soil and leaving their manure behind, in just the right amount. They were not meant to stay on the same patch of ground for too long, or their waste would overpower the surrounding ecosystem.

We rotate the animals through a series of small paddocks so that they graze off all of the forage evenly, applying manure (fertilizer) before they are moved to their next paddock. The previous paddock is given time to rest and re-grow with added vigour before the herd visits it again. By managing the grazing time of our herd on each paddock, we build the health and fertility of the land while eliminating the need to haul manure off farm.

We often graze the sheep right alongside the cows because they prefer different plants and graze in different ways. This ensures more of the plants are eaten in each paddock, using each unit of land for maximum efficiency, while maintaining a better ecological balance among plant species. Sheep will eat weeds that the cattle won’t touch and this comes in handy when we get a weed outbreak; we don’t need to worry about applying herbicides, the sheep will take care of it!

There’s another, gut-level benefit, too: because gastrointestinal parasites from goats or sheep cannot survive in the stomachs of cattle and vice versa, multi-species grazing may reduce internal parasite loads.

Finally, we’ve found that the presence of our cows helps to deter predators from attacking the sheep. While the sheer bulk of a cow may slow small predators down, however, we also have  livestock guardian dogs, who protect both the sheep and the cattle.

Our pigs and chickens also have a unique job here as the clean up crew! Throughout the growing season, and especially as the garden winds down, they gobble up all of the garden waste.

We are also involved in a neat program that links grocery stores with farmers that take the waste so that we can feed that excess to livestock as opposed to having it fill up our landfills. The animals are thrilled to have produce, bakery and dairy products added to their rations.

In the spring, we put the pigs into the shelters the cows and sheep used all winter that were bedded down with plenty of straw and hay. These packs of leftover hay, straw and manure can get pretty huge by springtime and we would normally use a tractor or Bobcat to clean up the mess. Instead, we send in the pigs and they have a grand old time rooting through the piles and turning it into rich compost, which eventually ends up fertilizing our gardens.

The pigs live outdoors year round in a six acre pasture so they are always able to forage for grasses, legumes and roots.

Both pigs and chickens are fed an extra special grain mix we grow and mill on farm that we also sell in our store.

giving them a very diverse diet that they love, and it all helps with waste reduction.

They’re not the kind of celebrities who make a big fuss, but our bees are the secret star of the Farm One Forty show. If bees were not buzzing about, busily pollinating every flower in sight, much of the food we eat and the diverse plant populations that feed our livestock and delight our souls simply would not exist.

It’s almost impossible to imagine a world without bees, but such a world is becoming possible. Many studies have shown a decline in bee health and population, likely due to pesticide exposure, loss of habitat and climate change.

The bees pollinate our pastures and gardens and we receive a double benefit as they provide the handy by-product of delicious, raw honey, which we use both as sweetener and as medicine.

On the grain farming side, we practice  a no-till method that utilizes the previous year’s residue as mulch, drilling seed straight into it. This cuts the amount of diesel used in planting and protects soil biology and structure. This in turn helps with water infiltration, reduces the need for synthetic inputs and decreases soil erosion.

Planting polycultures of three to as many as 20 different species in one field ensures that if one crop fails, the others remain viable. Planting a mix provides resilience to pests and disease and naturally fixes nitrogen through the addition of legumes, allowing us to decrease the amount of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides used. Within our seed blends, we strive to keep a living root growing for as many days out of the year as possible, so we often incorporate plants that will live on after harvest which stops nitrate leaching and erosion issues while continuing to feed the soil biology.

Our animals graze our grain fields, adding manure and urine and trampling the residue, creating natural fertilizer and mulch.

While it has become common practice to spray glyphosate on a crop just before harvest to dry it down (a process called desiccation), we opt to let ours die down naturally in an attempt to keep glyphosate out of the food we eat.

All of this adds up to reduced chemical use, which means less chemicals in your food all the way down the chain.