Fostich Farms

Today I'm talking with Elisabeth at Fostich Farms.

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00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Elisabeth at Foss Stitch Farms. Good morning, Elisabeth. How are you today? Good morning. I'm wonderful. Thank you. Good. And you were saying you're where? We are located in central Missouri. So that would be where...

00:29
Our very small town is called Edwards, but it's the Ozark area in Missouri. Okay. So I've heard a lot about the Ozarks. I watched the series on Netflix or whatever it was with What's His Face and What's Her Face and all the crime and stuff. I'm sure that that is not true. So tell me about the Ozarks because I keep talking to people from the Ozarks or that area, but I don't actually ask about it. What...

00:58
What is special about the Ozarks? Well, a lot is special. It's a beautiful, beautiful area, gently rolling hills. There's lots of beautiful rivers, bluffs. It, contrary to that episode, or that series, the Ozarks, I think a lot of that is fabricated. Oh yeah. But it absolutely is a beautiful area. And we love it down here. We have...

01:28
We actually lived in this area for about four years and we moved down here from, we had a farm in Oryk, Missouri, which was like about two hours north. So we do, we love it down here. And also there's like the Ozarks. Okay, I was just curious, I've never been anywhere near it. It's very beautiful. Yeah. I've never been in that area at all. And I keep saying to my husband, if we take a road trip, we should head that way sometime.

01:58
Yes, so of course my parents always want us to take the road trip to Maine to see them So that takes precedence every time and that's totally fine with me because Maine is beautiful, too Okay, so tell me about yourself and about Fossage Farms, okay So we my husband and I both grew up on farms. We'd be considered like second or third generation farmers but we're

02:24
first generation using regenerative practices, which is what we kind of have focused in on our own farms. So after I left home, I continued farming on a small scale. I went to college, I'm an RN in the ER since 2002. My husband and I got married, realized that conventional way of farming really wasn't for us. It wasn't long-term.

02:51
what is healthiest for the land or our livestock. So we started researching alternative ways to raise our livestock. And so we started with cow-calf pairs and then we started with small scale meat production, just like word of mouth, things like that. And then, you know, as mentioned earlier, like we grew up on a conventional farm. So we used, our families use conventional methods.

03:21
And both of our families had small ruminants, so sheep and goats. And then also we had, my family had a dairy farm, Jersey cows. And then my husband's had Angus for the most part, cows. So okay. I love Jersey cows. I don't love them because of the milk that they give. I love them because their faces are so sweet. They are adorable.

03:47
love them. Every time somebody says Jersey cow, I'm like, aww. Okay. So did I see something about hair sheep on your Facebook page? Or was that somebody else? Yes. No, we love our sheep. So what we got into after we kind of moved toward the regenerative

04:16
are bred specifically for meat, so we do not shear them. So we pride ourselves on like excellent genetics. We have Sancroix, which is a breed that is parasite resistant. We have Catodin, which are excellent mothers. They have a beautiful, good hair coat that sheds really well. And then our rams are Lewis White Dorper genetics, and they actually are out of Oregon.

04:45
But this combination of genetics, which we've kind of fine-tuned, I guess, over the last several years, end up being really good mothers, no hoof issues, they're parasite resistant, and then when we wean them, they have excellent weight. Their weight is really healthy and good. So that's kind of the direction we went to. We also have...

05:12
Angus cattle and so what we do is we do rotational grazing. So our livestock, our sheep are moved behind the cows. Sometimes they're moved together, it just depends. About every three to five days and then it allows the lamb that they were on to rest and kind of return to its, helps the biological ecosystem kind of return to normal, helps microbial growth and then it...

05:42
Basically, we don't use any pharmacological interventions because we have animals that are never in the same area for any length of time. They're constantly moving. So that's what we focus on. We basically, like I mentioned earlier, conventional farming is fertilizers. I'm kind of letting the animals and livestock roam freely throughout your property and supplementing with grains.

06:11
finishing with grain and we don't do that. We are grass-fed from birth. They're grass-finished. If you want to call it finished, we don't really change their diet. We use rotational grazing system. Like I said, giving pasture time to rest, regenerate soil health. And so what we have seen over the years is that our

06:39
The land has really come back to life and our livestock are so healthy. We have return of life, beautiful native grasses, pheasants, quail, we are with plenty of deer. And then this allowed us to have what we call stockpile. So we have extra areas to graze, especially through the drought years that we've had.

07:08
our sheep have literally come out unscathed when we were in drought years, so. Fantastic. Every time lately I hear regenerative farming, the thing that pops into my brain is back to basics farming.

07:27
Because it feels like it feels like everybody's going. Yeah, it feels like everybody's going back to the way it was done over a hundred years ago and, and it's the best thing for the earth and for the animals and for growing things. So, so I keep thinking back to basics every time I hear it and I'm like, it's not basic, but that's how it, how it translates to my head. Yes.

07:55
You know, it really is. It's going more of a natural direction where you aren't, you know, feeding your animals grains and things like that. And they have, like I said, they have more of a natural diet and they are able, we do supplement with minerals, of course, and we work very closely with...

08:22
vet out of Bolliver, Missouri, which is he's like about an hour away from us, but he's specializing in small ruminants and He is you know, we make sure our animals are healthy and they have what they need based off our Geographical area as far as minerals go but over time, you know That will even improve as we continue to rotate and the ground gets healthier so Okay

08:50
So I have questions about hair sheep. I think I talked to somebody a few months ago about them, but I didn't ask this. Is it H-A-R-E or H-A-I-R? Well, for H-A-I-Rs, I think the way you spell hair. Okay, I didn't know what you were. I'm not a great speller, but I'm pretty sure that's, that would be it. Well, I'm sure if somebody types it in either way, it's gonna end and has sheep after it, it'll probably bring up what you're looking for.

09:19
Probably. So I know that their fur, hair or whatever isn't technically wool. You don't use it the same way that you would use wool from the curly haired sheep. Right. But can you use their hair to like, I don't know, stuff a blanket or a pillow? Does that work? I have heard people have different uses for when they shed their coats. And

09:48
Some breeds have a heavier coat than others as far as hair goes. And so you'll kind of see, you'll literally see a coat of hair in the pasture where they have shed. I have heard people, you know, place it on the ground in between their garden rows to help with, you know, weeds and things like that. I haven't heard of uses like

10:16
stuffing a pillow because it truly is a hair coat. And what we have found with really good genetics, we don't have a lot of, we don't even see them shed. It's just like, I don't know if you've been around horses, they're, you know, once a year they might, you brush them and they get real thick on the curry comb or whatever, and they shed their coat and it's, you wouldn't, you couldn't peel it off. You wouldn't even know. So, and so they're very, very different than

10:45
wool sheep in that sense because wool sheep it truly is wool and you shear it off and you have a big coat of wool that you can utilize for shearing. But these hair sheep, they're specifically bred for me and ours we want them to shed without any issues. We don't want them to have a big leftover coat on there. Okay. Yeah. And then the other question I have.

11:13
And I've said this a billion times on the podcast already because I, I talk about the same things all the time. Um, we love lamb as a, as a food source and we don't have it very often because it's expensive at the stores and we don't happen to know anybody raising sheep right now. But have you, have you compared your hair sheep breeds meet with, um, the other wool sheep breeds?

11:41
for the taste or the texture or whatever of the meat? So I have not. I have compared breeds of hair sheep, but I have stayed away from wool sheep as far as meat goes. I'm sure you could try it. I'm sure you could, you know. However, we have done white dorper, which are kind of the angus of the...

12:11
sheep world, if you want to call it that, and they are fabulous. That's half of the rams that we process are half white dorper. And the cod has also a very wonderful flavor. However, the sandcroy are a leaner breed, so they grow a little slower and they don't have as much meat

12:40
very good as well. So I've compared hair breeds but not wool versus hair. Okay, I was just curious if there's any real big difference in the meat itself. Yeah, I don't know. I know that as far as hair sheep, they are specifically bred for meat. So we look at, especially wean weights, we look at how much they weigh and how they're growing on grass.

13:10
not all breeds and not all genetics are equal, obviously, and you can have very poor genetics will not produce, you know, high wean weights and sheep that grow well and maintain their body weight on just grass. So we do look at that because we want healthy sheep on grass.

13:39
So, okay, so do you sell to sell your meat or do you just do it for yourselves? No. So what we have done and it started through word of mouth. I was working in Kansas City for a long time and I started, you know, we started with grass finished beef and then basically through word of mouth is how we've developed our customer base. We

14:09
We like to have a relationship with the customers who buy our product. We love that. Um, as a matter of fact, some of them come down to our farm and, um, see the farm and how the sheep are raised and how the beef is raised. Um, and so, uh, it's mostly word of mouth. Um, I have a Facebook page, the Fostage Farm Facebook page, but I do very minimal advertising. Um, I re I wish I could stay ahead of orders, but

14:39
Basically we lamb in the spring and I fulfill orders in the October timeframe typically and we also try to have a reserve throughout the year for individual cuts. We do use a USDA inspected butcher for our orders, especially when people want individual cuts and not a whole lamb.

15:04
And we sell all throughout Missouri, Kansas. We've done sales in Arkansas. My son, he actually kind of delivers our orders when they're large enough. But a lot of times we have just individual orders. Somebody wants lamb chops, and we're just thrilled that we can provide that to people. And so we're super thankful for our new and returning customers, and a lot of them are

15:34
our current and former coworkers and colleagues that both my husband and myself. Okay, cool. So tell me about a day, a weekend day on your farm because I ask people this all the time. They're like, eh, and they don't really tell me anything. So what can you tell me about a typical Saturday on your farm? Okay.

16:04
We have, I make a plan for the day. We will either be building our next area for rotation, which is we use poly wire and stakes. And so we kind of estimate how much we need to fence in. So we build our enclosure and then we will move the sheep or the cows, whichever we're moving. And that.

16:32
takes time, obviously. Water's a huge deal. We always make sure they have clean water. And if it's pretty far away from the house or from a well, we do have to haul water. So that's time consuming. But basically we are always planning for the next rotation. Even today, we're planning for the next rotation. Yeah. And then we...

17:00
It's kind of a, we have three kids, it's kind of a joint effort. We build our next rotational area. Sometimes we build two or three enclosures ahead of time. So we're, which is really nice because then all we do is just move them. But we'll move the livestock. We'll make sure they have fresh, clean water and mineral. I always check the health of the animals. That includes the.

17:29
cows as well because we've started calving actually now and then we lamb in the spring. And so we always check the health of the animals, make sure they're all you know looking good, their body score, and then so obviously that takes time. And then we have another area with our rams that are being, well we call them just they're just being grass-fed, finished, whatever you want to call it, but basically that's a separate area so we

17:59
have to move those as well and we always check their health and how they're doing as well. So it's a lot of fence checking, especially if for some reason that our voltage on our polywire is not the greatest. We have a lot of wildlife, so occasionally the polywire will get hung up on a barbed wire fence or a stick or something or a tree or fall. So there's a lot of fence checking, a lot of moving of livestock.

18:27
And then we have maintenance things like making sure we're head on, then roll and fixing the tractors and trucks. My that's basically what my husband does, but there's a, I focus on the animal health side of things and, um, that consumes quite a bit of our tour time. So, um, like I said, we don't do grain. Um, but if, if for some reason we have to

18:55
We see something that needs treated, which is pretty rare. We'll actually take like four, like a gated little corral thing and do it wherever the animals are at so we don't have to move them up. They are bucket trained. I mean, we could put gravel in a bucket and shake it and they'll come. So they're bucket trained, but they're not getting grain. So.

19:23
But as far as like their temperaments and stuff, they're super chill. And they know, I love sheep because they know they're shepherd or shepherdess in this case. So they're very, you know, good with familiar faces and stuff like that. So, like I said, it's just mostly building fences and moving and checking. And we also have other animals. We have horses and chickens.

19:53
I have milk goats and you know, cause we would like to be as self-reliant as we can. We like to grow our own food. We love to garden and things like that. It's a good plan right now. It's a great plan. So do you guys have herding dogs to help or is it just you guys pushing the cattle and the sheep? We have livestock guard dogs, which are a big Antolian Shepherd.

20:22
Pyrenees and acbash actually, that's their breeding. I will tell you that we would be dead in the water without them. They protect that flock and do not leave the sheep. We have several of those dogs that are with each herd of sheep. Then I call them my fancy breeding rams. They're actually up here close to our house.

20:52
because I don't have an extra dog to put with them. So we kind of rotate them around the pastures close to our house so that we can keep an eye on them. But we, because of wildlife and, you know, just coyotes and different predators, sheep have, you know, pretty much three issues, be your predators, your parasites, and your parameter, your fencing.

21:19
And if you can get that, if you can master that, you've pretty much, like my vet says, if you can master those things, you've won the war. And we worked really hard. And I feel like, you know, that we have a good system in place. I'm not going to say we've mastered anything because as far as like predators, especially, there could, but again, we have wonderful livestock dogs and we could not serve.

21:48
We could not have sheep without them, period. And they have significantly minimized our losses even with the cattle with calving, because we're pretty far out here. And there is black bear out here in Missouri and there's lots of coyotes and stuff, but we just don't have predator issues anymore thanks to those dogs.

22:12
They're doing their jobs. I love it. Right. And we also, I will say we do have a blue healer, but he only works with the cows. We don't stress those sheep at all. They are very gently handled. We went and did a beef quality assurance cow-calf certification on our farm, and we just try to handle everything as gently as possible. And like I said, if for some reason we can't, you know, this...

22:40
our blue healer needs to get in there and help with a cow being naughty. Then we'll use them. But we try to do everything just by walking and hurting them that way. They're very cooperative. I will tell you when cows and sheep are trained this way, they move themselves. They know it's time to go. So they just follow along. It's pretty amazing.

23:11
Well, you know, it's very, it's almost intuitive. I've been doing this my entire life. As a matter of fact, my very first degree, I was a vet tech and then I went and got my nursing degree. But I think it's experience, you know, you anticipate what can go wrong. And if you don't love it, you're not gonna get in tune with it. And I think, you know, I love it and there's nothing else I would rather do. And I'm.

23:40
I'm thrilled that to speak with you and to have customers that want our product, it's just exciting to me. But as far as skills, that's from experience and messing up. And it's very, very intuitive, I think. And like the animals know you and the livestock know you when you're out there and you spend time with them. They get your routine. They

24:06
They have a routine. They know when it's time to move. They, you know, it's pretty amazing. And it's also amazing to watch those livestock guard dogs take care of those sheep that that is incredible. So it really is. I, I have seen videos of livestock guardian dogs doing their jobs and it is beautiful to watch them just know that that's, that's their charge.

24:35
that they have to take care of the animals that they have been given to watch over. And they just do it. Yeah. And what's amazing is when we move them, when we move the sheep to a new pasture, they, one is in front, one is in the back. As soon as they get in, one stays with the sheep, one runs the perimeter. And it's like they clear the area.

25:00
And so, yeah, it's incredible. We've found very interesting things that they've, you know, taken care of or killed over the years. So, yeah. We don't really have a whole lot of scary predators here where we live in, I guess, southwest Minnesota. I know up north there's bears, but we have never seen a bear down here. We have coyotes who tend to hang out.

25:28
probably a good quarter mile away. They don't come on our property. Partly because we have a dog and she's, she's around all the time. So she's always using the bathroom outside. She's always yipping. She's always playing. So her scent is everywhere. And I think that's part of why the coyotes don't come on our property. And there, there are foxes in the area, but I've never seen one on our property.

25:55
I will tell you it was not about eight weeks ago, my daughter and I were up in a pasture pretty far away from the house and we couldn't believe what we were seeing. We saw a couple black bears and the two, one of the big, big livestock guardian dogs just took off after them. We've never seen them since. And I don't think, I think it was just a fluke. They're not in our, on our properties.

26:25
often there's no dens here or anything that I'm aware of. But it was pretty amazing that for the distance that they were, they sensed that and it was just amazing how he just bolted and they took off. We've never seen them since. I love your dogs. I do love your dogs. I'm glad they take care of your animals and they take care of you. Yes. We have...

26:54
It's interesting, we have skunks in our area. Oh, yeah. And in the spring, they amble out of wherever they're hibernating and they make sure that we know they're around because they stink. And then this time of year, they start kind of showing up again in the area because they're eating everything they can to get ready for hibernating again. And

27:18
I woke up at one o'clock in the morning the other night and our window was open. I was like, oh yeah, because somebody either hit a skunk or one walked through the yard and said hello. And so my idea of predator is not something that's going to kill my dog. It's something that's going to spray my dog. Make him smell for a couple of weeks. Yeah, I really don't want that to happen when she asked to go out at five o'clock in the morning. It was still dark. I was like, do you really need to go out or can you wait until it's light out?

27:47
And she looked at me and I opened the door to our porch. She stuck her nose in the doorway, sniffed, and she was like, nah, I'll wait. She walked right back in the house and laid down. I was like, oh, so we do know what a skunk is. Okay, that's good news. But we don't have any livestock. We have chickens and we're going to be dispatching chickens this weekend because they're old.

28:13
and they're getting lazy and we're feeding like a dozen chickens and we're getting two eggs a day. Oh no. So it's time for them to meet their demise and become chicken stock. There you go. And then we're going to get more chickens in the spring so we can restart our egg supply. It's going to be very weird buying eggs at the store. We have not bought eggs at the store in over five years. Oh wow. Yeah, you're going to have a, you'll have to get used to that.

28:39
Yeah, I mean, I don't eat a lot of eggs, so it's totally fine. But it's just going to be weird to be handing money to a cashier for a dozen eggs, because we have done that forever. Yep. So take it that your kids love being part of the farm. They enjoy what they're doing too. Yes, I think they do. I hope they do.

29:03
They know nothing else, honestly. They have been born and raised on the farm. So when my son turned 16, we kind of told him he's an official employee and he's been extremely helpful. So, and our kids are definitely heavily involved with from, you know, FFA to, I would say, I'm very proud of them, but.

29:33
They know a lot more about livestock than probably most of the kids these days. Yeah, and FFA is Future Farmers of America, right? Yes, it is. Yes. I interviewed a lady from FFA. She was great. Oh, great. Yes. It's such a wealth of knowledge they learn and opportunities for leadership and agriculture and things like that. And we have it through the high school the kids go to.

30:02
So both of them are involved with that. My daughter more so than our oldest son, he's a huge runner. So he does track and cross country, stuff like that. But she loves the animals, our middle child. So absolutely loves it. She actually helped with the state fair, took some of our sheep up there so that people could see them. And so it was a fun opportunity for her.

30:33
So very nice, very nice. So what what I'm hearing from you, what I'm inferring from everything that you're telling me and how it sounds and how you how it feels when you talk is that you have built yourself a beautiful life that requires some hard work. Definitely. It's very hard work. It's very labor intensive, but it is so rewarding.

31:03
Like I said, we absolutely, there's no greater joy than when people buy our meat and love it as much as we do and we know they're getting an exceptional product because it's, you know, there's probably nothing quite healthier, you know, honestly. And we don't, and we raise it in a way that the animals are cared for, it's affordable. You know, we're not, we don't have to, you know.

31:32
Mark up the price crazy. They're born here. We know how they're raised and it's it's just we love it. So and we do I think my favorite part. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I think my favorite part of having sheep if I had sheep would be lambing season like the rest of the year. I would not care but lambing season. I would be like, oh my god, babies. It is my favorite time of year. It is amazing.

32:00
that all our sheep are born outside in beautiful clean pastures with no assistance. We have twins. Our new mamas have singles sometimes. Sometimes they have twins. We have triplets. We've had quadruplets in the past, but it is absolutely amazing. And it's like popcorn because I put the rams in in November and then in the springtime around April.

32:29
we'd start lambing and it's just, there's babies everywhere. And it's incredible. That's why I say it's like popcorn, because they just keep popping out. They're just everywhere. And they're so healthy and strong. And that's what we've worked so hard for as far as the genetic side of things, is they're so healthy, so strong, and so vibrant and get right up and suck and the mamas accept them and it's just, it's incredible.

32:57
Yeah, and I'm sure that you have had moments where things haven't gone right and that has broken your heart. But I think that you have worked really hard so that things don't go wrong. Right, right. And you know, it's just, it's a, we know that that's life. And it happens. And I will tell you, you know, just even a little situation that happened this spring.

33:23
We had one mama that had triples, so she already had two babies, and I didn't see the third one because her placenta had landed on the third one, and the baby couldn't get up. So it did pass. And so it was sad, but I was like, you know, she still has two beautiful babies, and she's feeding the babies. And it's such a rare thing that that happens.

33:52
long as you are out there and kind of you know what to watch for you know when to intervene if Necessary but as far as helping them lamb pulling lambs, that's extremely rare Maybe afterwards just assisting with you know them latching on again extremely rare but we Went the more you do it the more you know what to look for I guess and when you have a pretty big volume you do have to be on it you have to be on top of things be out there, but

34:22
It's probably, like I said, my favorite time of year, but extremely rewarding to see all the babies. We worked hard just to kind of identify what could go wrong, and that's what we look for. Yeah, I saw a picture of one of the lambs. I think it was 12 days old on your Facebook page.

34:47
He has, he or she has the smushiest face. I just want to like lean in and kiss it through the screen. So that baby was actually 12 hours old when I took it. Sorry, 12 hours old. That's right, yeah. And so they are amazing because when you do, if there's any intervention, so this year we had a very minimal, we've had bottle lambs in the past, of course. They're your best friend forever. I mean,

35:16
The lambs always remember the shepherd or the shepherdess's face and smell. And they're the most affectionate animals. And people don't realize that. They think they're a dumb sheep. But they're so affectionate and so sweet. And especially with the kids and my husband. Yeah, they know who takes care of them. We have a group that were bottle fed over.

35:44
years that are probably some of the sweetest sheep. And it really is amazing because a lot of animals, if they are bottle fed, you know, they always kind of show a little bit of a deficit here or there, but not with sheep. They still grow very well, very nicely. They still catch up with the group. They're still able to be bred. So they're pretty remarkable animals.

36:13
I lied. I misspoke earlier. We have friends that do raise sheep. We were over at their place for something a couple years ago. They have seven kids. One of their younger boys was going to go get mom or dad. I think we went over to get chickens. He had walked up the road from where the cattle pasture is to see who had pulled in.

36:40
We had gotten out of the vehicle and right behind him trotting along was this probably three day old lamb going, going baa baa at him like it was barking at him. And I said, I said, that's a really interesting looking dog. And he said, it's not a dog, it's a lamb. And I was like, yes, I know it's a lamb. I was being silly. And he said, oh, he said, I thought you didn't know it was a lamb.

37:09
I said, no, honey, I know what a lamb is compared to a dog. I said, apparently my humor doesn't go over well on the farm. And as I'm saying it, my friend had walked up behind me for the whole thing and didn't, I didn't know she was there. And she tapped me on the shoulder. And she's like, yeah, she said farm humor is different than not farm humor. I was like, well, I tried and she's like, I thought it was funny. So, but it was his best friend that whole summer. Oh yeah. There.

37:40
It's pretty amazing. Love it. Yup, they're really fun. I would love to have sheep. I think that would be really fun. But as I've said a billion times already, we don't have any pasture for them to graze. So it's not going to happen where we live. But I love living vicariously through you and everybody else I talk to because I get to hear all the fun stories. Oh yeah.

38:05
And so does everybody else and everybody else is like, we have pasture, we could get livestock, that would be great. Yeah, it is wonderful. There's nothing better in my opinion. Yeah. All right, Elizabeth, we've been talking for 38 minutes and 13 seconds and I try to keep you to half an hour. So I'm gonna let you go, but thank you so very much for taking the time to talk with me this morning. Oh.

38:31
Thank you for letting me be a guest on your podcast, Mary. I appreciate it so much. Absolutely. I need all the people and all the stories I can get, or I don't have a podcast. So thank you so much. Have a great day, Elisabeth. You too. Thank you. Bye.