M-Rockin-C Ranch

Our Story

M-Rockin-C Ranch, owned and operated by retired US military veteran, is raising egg laying chickens, pastured boiler chickens and has grass-fed beef (Brangus, Angus and American Wagyu) for sale. We are currently expanding our operations to include rabbits, turkeys, hogs, goats, and bees for local harvested honey in Houston County, Texas. All my poultry and livestock are free ranged and live on pasture supplemented with non-GMO feeds using no antibiotics or hormones.  My goal is growing all the livestock in an environment outside where they can live normal lives eating bugs and grass; enjoying the sun and rain and through holistic management creating more sustainable pasture land for the future.

Mission

“From the Farm to the Fork” is the heart of the system. My primary goal is raising high quality beef, birds, rabbits, goats, hogs and local harvested honey from my bees that is delivered to our clients with no middleman.

• No antibiotics – No hormones – No GMO feeds. Period!
  • We use a healthy environment of pasture, sunshine, fresh air, and space to prevent sickness and provide our animals with a functioning immune system.
• Holistic – Rotational land management – improving pastureland with proper land management (no overcrowding)
• Products from pasture-raised animals are healthier for you to eat than those from grain-fed animals we aim to provide you the best quality possible.
• Come taste the difference of humanely raised and environmentally responsible farming.

 

Boilers – Meat Chickens

We have 50 to 80 Cornish Jumbo Rock Boiler chickens on pasture starting every three to five weeks now. These are great hybrid meat birds which will reach a live weight of 6-12lbs in just eight to ten weeks. What does this mean for you? You get on average a dressed-out bird that weighs in at around five to eight plus pounds with rich succulent thick breast meat, huge drumsticks and wings that actually have a good amount of meat on them.

Grass-fed Beef

• We have a select number of just weaned Brangus yearlings available 350-600+lbs.
• Also, just now available American Waygu just weaned yearlings between 300-600+lbs. Very limited stock!
• Call or visit our online store to reserve your best tasting beef ASAP! 

Egg Layers

Need eggs our ladies are from several breeds and hybrids of chickens in order to give you the best eggs and size ranges possible. We are currently collecting 10-15 dozen per week. Mar-Apr 2023 our next batch of girls should begin laying these are the white leghorns and ISA Browns which should boost our production close to or above 25 dozen per week.

1. Easter Eggers – can lay a variety of egg colors, from blue to green, olive and sometimes even pink. These girls can lay 3-5 medium to large eggs per week.
2. Barnevelders – lay 3-4 dark brown to light brown large eggs per week.
3. Buff Orpingtons – reliable supply of 4-6 large brown eggs per week.
4. Black Australorps – can lay more than 5 light brown large eggs every week. The Australorp breed holds the world record for egg production 364 eggs in 365 days!
5. Welsummers – lay 3-5 large dark brown egg per week.
6. Barred ‘Plymouth’ Rock – 3-4 medium to large light brown eggs per week.
7. ISA Brown – 5-7 medium to large brown eggs per week.
8. White Leghorn – 5-7 medium to large white eggs per week.

Goat Meat

• We have a breeding stock of Nigerian Drawf goats.
  • We have three kids… and two other nannies are expecting. Cabrito will be available Mar-Jun then will transition to Chevon if not bought prior to that.
    • Cabrito (1-2 month old – milk fed only) usually 10-25lbs. Should be available Apr-Jun 23.
      • All cabrito is goat, but not all goat is cabrito. Cabrito is the veal of the goat world. A goat is milk-fed and slaughtered young, usually around a month to three months old. “Once they’ve eaten grass, it’s not cabrito.”
    • Chevon (over 4months under 9months) usually 25-50lbs. Available if not sold as Cabrito.

Rabbit Meat

• We have a breeding stock of Californians.
  • We have baby rabbits. Fryers will be available Mar-Jun. We should have a steady stream of rabbit meat after this to fill any order that you want.
  • “fryers” baby rabbits generally around two to three months of age and weigh only 1.5 – 3.5 lbs. Available Mar – Jun ’23.
  • “roasters” rabbits around six to eight months of age generally weighing in around 4lbs. Available after Jul ’23.

Coming Soon…

• Turkeys: Raised by special order request only! Secure your poult early these sell out fast at the breeding farms. We have to buy early to get them on pasture for your Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner table.
  • Commercial breeds 16-22 weeks to harvest
    • Broad Breasted White
    • Broad Breasted Bronze
  • Heritage Breeds 24-28 weeks to harvest
    • Narragansett (Heritage)
    • Bourbon Red (Heritage)
• Goats: We will also add a Boer Billy and 20 Spanish Nannies. Great hybrid with lots of meat and hardiness for our southeast Texas weather and parasites. (Pending purchase in ’23)
• Rabbits: We are looking at several heritage breeds currently. The rabbitry is built and soon will have our breeders hard at work producing top-quality meat for your dinner table. We also offer these as pets. Looking for rabbit fur? Call us!  (spring 2023)
  • Blanc de Hotot
  • New Zealand White
  • Californian (breeding stock are here!)
  • Satin
  • American Chinchilla
  • Rex
  • Silver Fox
• Hogs: In mid-2023 we will have four of our five heritage breeds available. (Pending purchase)
  • Red Wattle known for its earthy, vegetal and herbaceous meat with a hint of cinnamon.
  • Guinea Hog known mostly for its charcuterie (cured meats).
  • Duroc provide dark red meat with lots of flavor
  • Mulefoot provide red marbled meat
  • Our Kunekune hogs are one of the slowest growth heritage hogs but well worth the 14-18months of pastured living which gives their red marbled meat such great flavor. We hope to have them available by spring 2024.

Why buy local and why pastured raised matters…

Moving our animals daily provides fresh pasture in order for our holistic system to produce the highest-quality poultry and livestock products. My bees forage local flowers within several miles of our property, and we collect this nature made nectar of the Gods for your enjoyment and benefit.

Products from pasture-raised animals are healthier for you to eat than those from grain-fed animals for many reasons. Animals get more readily available nutrients from fresh pasture plants than from grains, so their products contain more vitamin E, beta carotene, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and omega-3 fatty acids. Vitamin E and beta carotene, the precursor to vitamin A, are powerful antioxidants that, among other functions, help our bodies cope with toxins. Conjugated lineoleic acid prevents many types of tumors and breast cancer in post-menopausal women.

Grass-fed meat is naturally high in vitamin E, according to Welch researchers, and this potent antioxidant keeps the meat from spoiling. This finding contradicted the hypothesis that meat from grass-fed cattle, with its more abundant and easily oxidized omega-3 fatty acids, would spoil very quickly. After two weeks of storage, grain-fed meat was brown but grass-fed meat was still red. (“Control of beef meat quality,” by Nigel Scollan, Annual Report and Accounts 2001, Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research)

Pastured broilers have higher concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids than grain-fed broilers. Eggs from pasture-fed hens have more folic acid, vitamin B12, vitamin E and carotenes – especially lutein and zeaxathin, which reduce macular (center of the retina) degeneration – than grain-fed. Turkeys benefit even more than broilers from pasture, because they naturally tend to forage more. Milk from sows on pasture has more vitamin E and selenium than grain-fed, as does pork from those piglets. Putting rabbits on pasture results in healthier, tastier, more tender meat, according to a study funded by a Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education grant. (www.sare.org)

One reason pasture-fed animals – and their products – are healthier is that the animals eat more on pasture because they like it. This is their natural behavior. On the other hand, confined, grain-fed animals are subject to unnatural, stressful environments, such as overcrowding and excessive ammonia in chicken houses. Likewise, when feedlot cattle are taken to slaughter, their hides are often caked with dried manure that is difficult to remove and may contaminate the meat with E. coli 0157:H7, the bacteria that can harm people. Grain-fed beef animals have a much higher concentration of acid-resistant than of non-acid-resistant E. coli 0157:H7. The acid-resistant bacteria are a greater concern for people, because they survive more easily in the acidic contents of the human stomach, where they can cause disease. This research was done first at Cornell University (Diez, Bonzalez, T.R. Callaway, M.G. Kizoulis, J. Russell, “Grain Feeding and the Dissemination of Acid-Resistant Eschericia coli from Cattle,” Science, 1998, vol. 281, pgs. 1666-1668), then repeated at the USDA Meat and Animal Research Center in Nebraska (Scott, T., T. Klopfenstein et al., 2000 Nebraska Beef Report, pgs. 39-41, published by USDA).

The improved health of pastured animals has an additional advantage: Antibiotics and other drugs are used less in these animals, so fewer antibiotic-resistant bacteria develop. A study reported in Applied Environmental Microbiology (Langlois, B.E., K.A. Dawson et al., 1998, “Effect of age and housing location on antibiotic resistance of fecal coliforms from pigs in a non-antibiotic-exposed herd,” 54(6):1341-1344) showed that pasture-raised pigs had less antibiotic resistant bacteria than confinement-raised pigs. On February 15, 1998, the entire Danish poultry industry voluntarily stopped using antibiotics as growth promoters. This “did not result in major disease problems in the flocks.”

The Institute for Environmental Research and Education showed a gain of one-half ton per acre per year of carbon on land that is converted from tilled cropland to grassland. Native or planted grasses remove CO2 from the air by photosynthesis and store it in the soil as organic matter or rotting plant parts. This process, known as sequestering, reduces greenhouse gases. Grassland ecosystems evolve with animals and produces a natural flow of nutrients.

The environmental impact of livestock production is reduced with pasture-raised animals: Less fossil fuel is required to raise, harvest, feed or spread manure. With grain-based systems, more animals are kept than otherwise could be supported by the farm without purchased feed and supplements. The resulting excess manure applied to the limited land area of a farm overwhelms the soil ecosystem, and leached nutrients pollute the surrounding areas around these types of farms.

Earthworm numbers in the soil of a permanent pasture system are much higher than in one rotated with field crops. This is just another good indicator of the positive environmental impact of pasture-raised livestock.