Customer Success Story - Fourche River Farm and Cattle Company
Fourche River Farm and Cattle Company is not your typical cattle operation. Greg and Lavonne Hickl and their daughters, Ellie, Erin and Emma moved to the farm five years ago from the corporate life in the city to the valley nestled in the Ouachita Mountains of central Arkansas.
The Hickls run about 80 head of Devon and Milking Devon cattle, 70 head of Red Angus and about 40 "old-style" Herefords. The "old style" Herefords are the shorter, wider body type prominent in the 1950s. Fourche River Farm's primary business is in Devon seedstock.
"We are grass-fed and feed no grain at all," say Greg and Lavonne. "We do rotational grazing and have been working on our watering system in order to do some MIG (management intensive grazing) and High-Stock Density grazing, beginning this spring. We would like to get to a point where we no longer need to feed hay, but have our own 'standing hay and forage' we can graze through the winter."
Fourche River Farm is typical of the "family farm" of earlier days, with not only cattle, but Large Black Hogs, some horses, chickens and a recently acquired family/guard dog, a German Shepherd. Moving to the farm to provide a more wholesome environment for the girls and to "leave a legacy," the Hickls have no regrets about their move. "We wanted to provide a better way of life and better food for our family and to teach our girls some of the life skills that have almost been lost in today's society," commented Greg and Lavonne.
The Hickls have been using CattleMax for about 2 years, hearing about it from a friend just after finding it in an internet search, and "we wonder what we did without," Lavonne says. "You can only keep track of so much information in your head . . . then you forget. CattleMax doesn't forget!"
Lavonne comments, "I like the Cow/Calf Worksheet and I like being able to move whole groups to a new pasture, all at once, or I can move individual cattle. I like the diverse customizable reports/lists that can be manipulated. Another feature I like is being able to keep track of animals not owned, like an AI bull, as a reference animal, keeping track of his information, even though we don't own him."
The Hickls recommend CattleMax users input any new information as quickly as possible, so it's not forgotten - and don't wait too long to enter new calves! CattleMax has been particularly helpful in keeping track of calves, especially if they're an embryo, AI or natural service calf. These are things that are very important to their purebred operation, according to the Hickls.
"When we started our farm, we couldn't find many pure Devon to buy, so we purchased the Red Angus and began an embryo program. Over the last few years, we have been able to purchase more Devon, as well as raise some of our own, so we no longer need as many Red Angus. We are currently selling some and would like to get down to our best 20-25 Red Angus," Lavonne says.
Check out the Fourche River Farm and Cattle Company website or follow them on their Facebook Fan page or Twitter.
