Thirteen Mile Farm is located on one of the oldest homestead sites in Montana’s Gallatin Valley. The abundant springs and protected location that attracted early settlers also make it a good place to raise lambs and sheep. Dave Tyler and Becky Weed sell sheepskin, organic grass-fed lamb, and a variety of wool products that have been certified “Predator Friendly” because the farmers have agreed not kill the coyotes, mountain lions, bears, eagles or wolves that are inclined to eat the livestock.

Becky and Dave didn’t exactly stumble upon this career path by accident. Even though neither of them grew up farming – Dave is an engineer and Becky is a geologist – they both have long-standing personal and professional interests in agriculture and land use. Dave says, “We spent a lot of time when we were first getting to know each other talking about small-scale agriculture and what is viable in today’s economy. It was just one of those ideas that we rolled around in the back of our heads for many years before we sat down and did anything about it.”

They moved to Montana from Maine in 1986, and bought the 160-acre farm a couple years later. Becky remembers, “We were both working full time, but we started farming on a very small scale while we were working in town.” It was another seven years before they decided to try and make a living as farmers.

“With the very first small flock of sheep that we started with – there was about a dozen of them – we weren’t very predator friendly. We hadn’t thought about it in great detail, and within a few weeks of getting the sheep we lost a couple to coyotes. Initially, we did what everybody else does: government trapper came in and shot one coyote and put out snares to try to catch others. That was when we began to think about predator control and consider the implications.”

Around that time, Becky heard about Predator Friendly Wool from a friend. She remembers, “Dave and I were a little skeptical. It sounded like some cute marketing gimmick. But we also recognized that the status quo in agriculture wasn’t really working. We knew that we didn’t have enough land to make it on a regular commodity basis, so we were on the lookout for alternatives. Plus, we didn’t like the idea of killing native species.”

Predator Friendly Inc. is a nonprofit that resulted from a conversation among ranchers, conservationists, a clothing designer, and a biologist, about providing incentives for livestock managers to avoid lethal control of predators. Predator Friendly woolgrowers use pasture management strategies and dogs, llamas and burros to protect their sheep. Becky says, “Since we restarted the flock in 1993, it has been predator friendly. With the llamas we really don’t worry about the coyotes very much, we actually like having them here.”

Becky explains, “Llamas are territorial creatures, as are coyotes, and llamas don’t like canines. They are curious about and/or aggressive towards coyotes – that’s disconcerting to coyotes that are accustomed to passive prey like sheep.”

Llamas are less effective deterring larger predators. Dave and Becky have had some trouble with bears and mountain lions coming out of the mountains for a sheep snack, particularly when deer and elk populations are low. Becky explains, “Predator populations, in large part, are dependent on natural prey populations. It’s just one more incentive for us to keep the rangeland in good shape. If the coyotes have small rodents to eat, and if the mountain lions can get deer, they won’t necessarily go after our livestock.”

Some of the other predators are harder to deter. “We did find with the mountain lions, in particular, that unpredictable visits to the pastures at night with big flashlights is effective,” says Dave. “Sometimes we’re on foot, sometimes we drive a pickup truck out there. Or we leave the pickup truck parked in random spots at odd hours of the day and night.”

“Wolves are definitely a much tougher problem than coyotes,” adds Becky. “We have no illusions about that. Right now we don’t have wolves in our immediate area, although they have been sighted as close as 25 miles away. We will likely have that problem to contend with down the road. There are ranchers that have found multiple guard dogs to be effective protection against wolves.”

Says Becky, “Although we desperately do not like losing our livestock to wild animals, we feel like it’s a privilege to live here. Part of that privilege is taking the responsibility of living with these different species, they are part of what makes this region special. It is challenging, but it has also made it a more interesting experience for us.” Non-lethal interactions with wildlife are also part of what appeals to customers. Becky notes, “When customers write in to our website and ask questions, they don’t really care how many times we change the oil in the tractor, they are interested in the stories of what it is like to live here with wildlife.”

“One of the ideas behind Predator Friendly is that we’re interested in educating the consumer about the real challenges of agriculture. Consumers have to understand that they are part of the deal; they need to carry part of the burden as well as reap the rewards of responsible agriculture.”

The Predator Friendly label has grown slowly. Says Becky, “It has taken quite a long time to build the markets, which is really the hardest part. Dave and I never considered ourselves marketers, and we have had to learn a lot.” Dave adds, “From time to time, we’ve tried to work with marketing professionals who felt that our marketing wasn’t up to snuff. I think that the advice that we have gotten has been poor and not worth the money.”

Thirteen Mile Farm sells Predator Friendly wool blankets, hats, scarves, and sweaters through its website and a few retail outlets. The sweaters, hats and scarves are made by Montana women on home knitting machines; buttons are made from scavenged juniper fence posts. They also sell the wool in less processed form: as yarn, as fleeces for spinners, even as batting for quilts.

“We donate some of our proceeds to the Predator Conservation Alliance. They are trying to look for ways that the agricultural community and the conservation community can co-exist. I respect their efforts to try to look for creative solutions,” says Becky who serves on their board, as well as that of the Wild Farm Alliance. Thirteen Mile Farm has also developed markets for more than sheep wool. Says Dave, “We ship the lambskins to a tannery in Wisconsin, and we have provided our certified organic fat to a soapmaker. We sell sheepskins, blankets, and other wool products through a few retail outlets, but mostly through our website and folks in the area that know us.”

The lamb meat is specialty marketed because it is certified organic, grass-fed and is raised without hormones or antibiotics. “We sell some lamb in local grocery stores and to restaurants in the area,” Dave continues. “Most of the lamb is sold to individual buyers within a 50-mile radius of here. We also ship some lamb overnight all over the country. Over the years we have developed a pretty steady clientele.” The sheep are considered “grass-fed” because their primary food source is grass and clover pasture, with hay in the winter. The only feed Becky and Dave buy is organically-grown barley for the lactating ewes.

Most animals grown for meat in the U.S. are primarily fed a commercial grain ration. This distinction means a lot to Dave and Becky, as well as their customers. “The grass-fed versus grain-fed meat issue is one of the things that really keeps us going,” says Becky. “Right now 70% of the American cropland is devoted to raising corn or soybeans and putting animals in feedlots and feeding them that corn. It is a bizarre system, which is not good for farmers or consumers.”

“We’ve become increasingly convinced, based on health research and our own experience, that grass-fed meat is better tasting and better for you. The animals are healthier when they eat grass, which is what they evolved to do. The gut of an animal that has a grain-rich diet is really acidic, which is a favorable environment for the strains of Ecoli which are responsible for most of the food poisoning events that we hear about around the country.” The omega-3 fatty acids and conjugated linoleic acids of grass-fed meat have been shown to have anti-carcinogenic and possibly cholesterol-lowering properties.

“I think that the combination of mad cow disease, foot and mouth disease, the way animals are treated in factory farms, and the effect of globalization on small-scale agriculture has led people to really start making connections between the food on their table and the ways animals and people are treated. They look for organic grass-fed meat on the internet and they find us. The transition in the livestock industry is slow, but it is accelerating.”

Of course, appealing to consumers’ taste buds is also essential. This past spring a New York City food writer called Thirteen Mile Farm because he wanted to do a comparison of lamb from around the country. Becky remembers, “I thought, oh geez, I don’t dare send our lamb in. But Dave convinced me that we should. We sent off a box with a leg of lamb and a pound of ground lamb burger. A couple of weeks later they called to say it was the best lamb they had ever had!”

Dave and Becky are clearly committed to being part of a shift from industrial agriculture back to smaller-scale enterprises. Becky admits, “The change is not going to happen over night, but it has begun. We have to remember that this feedlot system has only been around for a little under a half a century. It hasn’t been here forever. The only way to wend our way towards an alternative is for people at a grassroots level to start experimenting and trying things. We fully recognize that what we are doing right now is a miniscule mix in a big picture, but there is stuff like this happening all over North America; in fact, all over the world.”

Becky and Dave would like to see other ranchers in their area raising grass-fed livestock. “You can finish both beef and lamb on grass in this region; it produces very good grass. That is a market the state of Montana could really develop.” Their approach to farming has also attracted international interest. “We’ve had inquiries and visitors from Tibet, Mongolia, Croatia, and Germany – people who are either involved in the practice or are developing predator friendly ways.”

And consumer interest is growing. According to Dave, “We’re seeing a 25-35% increase in business every year for the last couple of years. It has just really started to blossom. We’re still having trouble controlling expenses so that the bottom line looks good, but it’s looking better all the time.”

For Becky and Dave, the bottom line also includes the kind of life they lead as ranchers. Says Dave, “There are days when you spend all day outside. I have spent a lot of my life sitting in an office looking at walls or staring at a computer screen. A day outside looking at the beautiful mountains around here is worth a lot.”

Contact
Thirteen Mile Lamb and Wool Company
Dave Tyler and Becky Weed
13000 Springhill Road
Belgrade, MT 59714
406.388.4945
becky@lambandwool.com
www.lambandwool.com