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Meet Brad Buchanan

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Brad Buchanan.

Brad, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I’m an accidental rancher. Yes, I had the not so enjoyable experience of pitching alfalfa bales onto the back of a hay wagon when I was 17, but that was the extent of my previous agricultural experience; my introduction to ranching was coincidental, and a Godsend. In the late 90s and early 2000s I was fully absorbed in, what at that time was my latest obsession, training and competing with field trial retrievers. I’m a serial obsessive hobbyist that has taught me to fly, scuba, hunt, shoot, flyfish, keep bees, play guitar, drums and more. But the dog thing was deep and I was spending a bunch of time on the eastern plains of Colorado, an area I had previously considered nothing more than something to endure while I made my way to Denver. But spending mornings, afternoons and evenings on the short grass prairie and lush creek bottoms of eastern colorado provided me with a glimpse into the subtle, elegance and nuance of the high mountain desert that lies east of Denver.

My wife Margaret and I were the new parents of two children, Will and Grace, yes we named our kids Will and Grace, but we thought of it first before the TV show, as I have always thought these two traits are the most important to both survive and thrive on the planet, and I was spending too much time away with training and competing. So, we decided it might be a good idea to see if there was some property we could buy, and maybe it would have a house or something where we could all stay on weekends while we were working with the dogs. It took a few years but in 2006 we found 520 acres along the Kiowa Creek in Strasburg, Colorado. it was perfect, a house, a barn, plenty of trees and grass pasture, it had been a small cattle operation for 90 years. the house and barn were built in 1916. We moved in some used furniture and off we went. The rancher, Charles Robbins who had been there for years, got a kick out of these city slickers living on the small ranch but was inspired when he figured out we really wanted to learn about the place.

We hadn’t planned on having any cattle but within a year, it became clear that the cattle were an important part of the ecosystem. We had hip-high grass and weeds in places and we had alfalfa fields needing to be cut and baled. I knew nothing about farming but Charles helped us make our first bale of hay and instantly I was hooked. We bought 22 pregnant mama cows to “keep the grass pastures mowed”, I mean, how tough can this be? 12 years later we have over 900 head of cattle, over 8000 acres, and an online store www.flyingbbar.com where folks can buy local, grass-fed, humanly raised, carbon sequestering, lovingly treated Wagyu/Angus beef. It’s been a helluva ride and the greatest of our lives.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Hell no. My life has been a series of failures interrupted by apparent moments of luck and brilliance. I’m happily married for 24 years but not before being divorced. We’re financially stable but not before going broke at 26 years old and barely surviving the recession of 2008. We’ve lived through the bomb cyclone when we lost 30 calves, one of the most devastatingly sad three days of my life. But, every one of these breakdowns and there have been hundreds more of less significance that have led to innovation, creativity, learning, and hardening of our family’s steel. I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything. If there is anything to learn from our story it is that failure is progress, if you let it be that. And the only way to progress is to embrace failure. I love the new methodology that venture capital embraces; “failing fast”. its brilliant, fail as quickly as you can in order to get to success. We did pretty well on those counts, whether it was learning how to buy cattle, pick cattle, raise cattle, calve, graze, rotationally graze, intensively graze, mob grazing, slaughter cattle, sell beef, make a website, design a walk-in freezer, create freezer boxes to ship, learn to ship, yikes it makes me tired just remember it all. But in those moments we always did what’s next, even in the face of the most recent train wreck and in the end overcame those hurdles to get to success.

Please tell us about your business.
We’re the “Biggest, little ranch” focused on regenerative, humane, farming and ranching practices. The good news is that our particular approach to growing food is becoming more sought after, particularly in Colorado where folks are learning to ask questions about who and how their food is raised and what goes into it. We raise Wagyu/Angus grass-fed and finished cattle. We’re most proud of how we do it and the fact that we’re producing the cleanest beef you can find and our cattle are treated with animal welfare as the highest priority. Our cattle live their entire lives on pasture, and in the winter we feed them hay that we planted, swathed, raked and baled ourselves, so we know every input that goes into raising our cattle.

Since we started from scratch we were able to research every step of the way and create a process that we think works best, for the planet, for the cattle and for the folks who support us and buy our beef. Grass-fed beef is tricky. There are bunches of poser folks out there trying to jump on the bandwagon and it’s not good for the industry. There are no short cuts, you can’t put cattle in a feed lot and feed them grass and get the same result. And you can’t take a 12-year-old mama cow and slaughter it and call it to grass-fed, but it happens all the time. It takes time, our cattle take almost three years to get to weight, that’s 2 1/2 times longer than a grain-fed feedlot animal. But it’s worth the wait. Wagyu is the breed that produces the world-famous Kobe beef, but they take longer to finish and marble.

We’re proud that we’re doing it right. We don’t make much money yet but our business is growing, averaging over 20% increase in sales per year and our family is who we are because of the experience. I’m proud of who our children have become because they’ve been brought up on a ranch where there is no excuse or putting something off. When it’s ten below and the winds blowing at 2 am you still get up, suit up and go out to find that lost calf, or fix the water pump or feed the hay. It’s a tough life but a rewarding one and our kids, now 20 and 22 are strong, independent and loving life. I’m proud of where we come in 12 short years. We now ship our beef weekly, mostly to Colorado and a few surrounding states to families who use our online store as their grocery. It’s an honor to have their trust to provide the food they put on their dinner table. And I’m proud of my wife Margaret. Margaret and I lived in Park Hill for many years and we moved to the ranch to an entirely different life. Not only did she put up with it, she thrived. Margaret is the “cow whisperer” on the ranch and has the respect of our entire seven-person team of ranch manager, farm manager and ranch hands. Whether it’s knowing just when a cow is about to calve or talking a bull into moving from one place to another, she is the go-to person on the ranch. She also runs our entire customer interface process, from online order to delivery or pickup.

As I type this she is in the walk-in freezer helping a Denver family pick up their quarter of beef. I’m proud of our amazing team, Jonathan Tullar, our Ranch Manager and Lane Shutt, our awesome Farming Manager. Jonathan and Lane walk the talk every day towards treating our animals right and working to create soil that can sequester carbon. And lastly, I’m proud that we’re producing food that is very hard to find and we know folks are looking for. Our beef is the healthiest you can find, no steroids, no antibiotics, 100% Grass-Fed and we’re doing our part to sequester carbon by using cover crops, no-till farming and mob grazing. We support the concept of eating less meat, but making sure meat you eat is high quality, healthy and you can buy it knowing you’re supporting a family-owned and run farm and you’re helping to reverse climate change.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I would have started sooner. We took the leap and bought the ranch when we were 46. today at almost 60 we’re just getting really rolling and there is still so much to do. Our ranch is just one piece in connecting the urban and rural place, a priority that I think is of national and international importance and is certainly of local and regional import. To that end, my other full-time job is that I am the CEO of the National Western Center in Denver. www.nationalwesterncenter.com. This is the 250-acre project that is going to be the forever home of the National Western Stock show but also where Colorado State University is building an Animal Health facility, a Water resource Center and a Food and Ag facility. There they will do research and education leading to innovations in global food production and water.

In addition, there will be more than 1,000,000 square feet of Ag tech, Ag incubators and many other related uses. So, I get to live a life with one foot in the rural place and one foot in the urban center. they have so much to learn from each other. I did a TedX talk about it in 2014 and I’ve written much about it over the years, I think it’s the most pressing issue there is out there. It will lead to reducing the political divide that exists today and it will lead us to large scale innovations around climate change and global food production. So, for you the reader, I suggest you learn more, get involved and see how you can make a difference in every decision you make.

Pricing:

  • Dry Aged Wagyu/Angus Grass Fed Ground Beef $7.49/lb. (On sale right now for $6.99/lb)
  • Free Delivery for orders over $150
  • Eighth, Quarter, Half and Whole Beef packages – Feed the family for the whole year for less than you would spend at the grocery store
  • Dry Aged Wagyu/Angus Grass Fed Rib Steaks, New York Steaks, Roasts, Tenderloin Filets and more

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