Mountain View Cattle
Company
The Farm
(360) 732-4446
The farm is located on eighteen beautiful acres on the Olympic Peninsula in NW Washington in the small town of Chimacum (that's about 40 miles NW of Seattle). Our land is mostly flat grassland. Here we raise purebred Polled Hereford cattle.
We practice environmentally sound agriculture. We use our own "natural" fertilizer (courtesy the cows) and a minimum amount of commercial fertilizer to produce pasture that is nutritionally sound for the livestock. We do not use hormones. The cattle we produce must grow on grass. Those that don't meet our standards are shipped to the auction yard. Our goal is tasty nutritious beef as close to organic as possible. We have in past years run a herd of one or two bulls and 16-20 cows. In 2004 we drastically reduced our herd and presently our herd averages 8-10 including calves.
Our farm has a creek running through it, and we have received local conservation district awards in years past for our work in preserving and enhancing the creek. Our cattle have been completely fenced out of the creek since 1985 (when we bought the farm). Cattle and tractors/equipment cross the creek over a plank and timber bridge. We have planted hundreds of trees in several varieties, including native pine and spruce, cottonwoods, dogwoods, currant, Oregon grape, vine maple, etc. Our trees provide birds with shelter and food, as well as shade for the creek and the cattle. The shade provided by trees on the creek also helps smother out the canary grass naturally, which clogs many local streams to the point that there is no water flow resulting in flooding. And no water flow means no fish either! We have also established two tree lines running the length of our fields to the creek, forming a corridor for birds to travel down off the ridge above us to the creek. Because of the road between our place and the ridge, we cannot do a real corridor for wildlife and have deliberately not developed the area along the road to avoid luring local critters to their deaths on the road as they try to cross. The trees also provide windbreaks and shade for the cattle in their pastures, and help to keep mud and standing water under control by absorbing rainwater. The creek is now lined on both sides with trees we planted, and the plantings extend to the west along a natural swale into one field.
Predators (coyotes, city dogs, and the occasional bear or cougar) are a concern as far as loss of calves and cats. To prevent this we practice ecological predator control. By this we mean we have a 157 pound male Anatolian Shepherd that is boundary trained and patrols the property on a constant basis. Predators stay out and cattle stay in. Two-legged trespassers are also nonexistent. The dog is trained to accept cats as "his" and vigorously defends our barn cats from coyotes and stray dogs. He sleeps with the calving cows to guard them at night.
Rodent control is also ecological. Our cats are well-fed (via mice and us) and much loved. We have rescued some disabled cats that live in the house as well. The barn cats do a good job of controlling mice in the barns and fields. The cats work very hard on our place, and into the neighbor's fields as well. But they don't always appreciate a 150 pound guardian sitting behind them while they are trying to mouse!