Badger Creek Ranch

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Coaldale, CO
Badger Creek Ranch

Regenerative working cattle ranch and education center based on 7,000 acres outside of Salida, Colorado

08/27/2026

We’re looking forward to hosting the High Country Rancher Days tomorrow! Designed as an educational event for ranchers of all backgrounds, this event provides a wonderful opportunity to network with local ranchers while supplementing your knowledge on relevant topics. Tomorrow’s agenda includes a presentation led by Dixie Crowe (NRCS) on soil health and grazing planning, discussions about apprenticeships and more. The second day of the event will follow at La Dolce Vita Ranch near Guffey, CO. If you are interesting in attending, there is still time to register! Please reach out to directly to Monica Pless at (719) 221-3789 to register. We hope to see you there! For more information, please visit, https://extension.colostate.edu/event/high-country-rancher-day-1/

08/18/2026

This week, Deseret News published an article featuring the ranch and the Quivira Coalition’s New Agrarian program. Including discussions with our ranch director, Chrissy McFarren and our apprentices, the article dives into some of the challenges facing the ranching industry and the role apprenticeship programs play in supporting the future of regenerative agriculture. To read more, visit the Deseret News website at https://www.deseret.com/the-west/2026/08/16/ranching-cattle-west-new-agrarians-program-regenerative-agriculture-quivira-coalition/

Photos by Isaac Hale for Deseret News

08/11/2026

We are thrilled to co-host the High Country Rancher Days later this month, an event organized by Park County & Chaffee County CSU Extension. This two-day educational event for ranchers is a wonderful opportunity to connect with local ranchers and explore new strategies to boost your ranch’s resiliency. Beneficial for both new and long-time ranchers, topics will range from grazing planning, soil health, and land monitoring to range law and beyond. The first day of the event, August 28th, will take place at our ranch and the second day will be held at La Dolce Vita Ranch near Guffey, CO. For more information or to register, please visit- https://extension.colostate.edu/event/high-country-rancher-day-1/

08/06/2026

Around the height of summer, these beautiful pink flowers begin to bloom throughout ranch. Especially prevalent along roadsides, these flowers are known as the Rocky Mountain beeplant, but have many nicknames from stinking clover to skunk w**d. These beautiful flowers are magnets for local pollinators, providing nectar for bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies.

The beeplant has long been used to create dyes for textiles and pottery amongst the Diné and pueblo tribes. The plant can also be harvested for both medicine and food. In fact, its seeds were traditionally dried and ground into a meal for bread-making. Wildflowers like these are so important for our pollinators, which are crucial to supporting biodiversity in our ecosystems.

08/01/2026

We start off most mornings by bringing in the horses from the pasture. Our horses spend most of their time out on pasture, which we subdivide with temporary fencing to allow for intensive rotational grazing.

With over 70 acres per paddock, it’s sometimes hard to even spot the horses at first glance, especially when they’re tucked away on top of the steep hills. Thankfully, horses are creatures of habit, and they are quick to adapt to our summer routine. In fact, we’ll often find them waiting for us by the gate by the time we arrive in the morning.

07/29/2026

Meet Emily, a flower farmer working out of the ranch’s winter headquarters in Coaldale this summer. Emily found our place through Land Link, a program founded by Guidestone Colorado. Land Link is a fantastic resource that aims to address the crisis of land access for aspiring farmers, providing a network to connect land-seekers to landholders. This program has been such a great way for us to collaborate with and support local farmers. We have really enjoyed witnessing the abundance of beauty that she has brought to the garden space!

07/26/2026

We had a surprise visitor at the ranch last week. On our way back from moving cattle, we came across a small bear cub running along the driveway. The poor cub was alone and severely emaciated, so it was clear that intervention was needed. Using welding gloves, we were able to transfer the cub into a dog crate, feeding him berries and soaked dog food until a Colorado Parks and Wildlife officer arrived. It’s so fortunate that we found the cub when we did. His malnourished condition suggested that he had been on his own for quite some time. The cub is now housed in a wildlife rehab facility and we are so relieved to hear that he is doing well and steadily recovering his strength.

07/14/2026

Here at the ranch, all of our cattle are grass-fed and grass-finished. That means that our cattle are out on pasture, eating grass for their entire lives.

In the large-scale commercial beef industry, the majority of cattle are finished in feedlots on grain-based diets. Since cattle are naturally evolved to graze on large open spaces, feedlots can greatly reduce their quality of life. On top of that, at least 80% of feedlot cattle are given growth hormones to enhance weight gain.

The nutritional profile of beef is closely linked to diet. For example, a grass-fed diet will typically result in leaner but more flavorful beef than their grain-fed counterpart. You may even notice that the fat on a grass-fed steak often has a slightly yellow appearance. This is unique feature of grass-fed beef, caused by the beta-carotene in grasses. Although all beef is nutritious, grass-fed beef in particular boasts more omega-3 fatty acids, as well as higher levels of Vitamin A & E.

We are so grateful to be able to provide a high quality of life for our cattle and for how this mission also allows us to provide nutritious beef for our community.

07/05/2026

This summer marks our fourth year of using Virtual Fence (Vence) collars for our cattle. We are so thankful for our partnership with the Property & Environment Research Center (PERC), which has graciously provided funding for these collars for the last two years.

Over the past few years, we’ve found that this technology has helped us monitor our cattle more closely while reducing our impact on the land. Each collar transmits the animal’s location while allowing us to reinforce existing fence lines or create new virtual ones.

These collars have helped us locate missing animals, identify grazing patterns, monitor sick animals, and even limit grazing to protect sensitive riparian zones.

06/30/2026

Compost is an incredible natural soil amendment. Made through recycling organic materials such as manure or kitchen scraps, compost improves soil health by providing slow-release nutrients and increasing water retention. Although often used for smaller-scale gardening, composting can be just as effective when applied on a larger scale. For ranchers or farmers with large quantities of organic waste, composting offers a great opportunity to reduce waste while improving soil health.

Last year, as a part of our composting workshop with the Quivira Coalition, we spread organic compost on a demonstration plot in one of our pastures. This week, now a year later, we gathered soil samples which will be sent to a lab to see how the soil has changed over the past year. The soil will be tested once again next year to look at the longer-term benefits of spreading compost on rangelands. This demonstration project was in collaboration with Quivira’s Soil to Supper program, which aims to support producers in applying sustainable ranching practices.

Address

PO BOX 21
Coaldale, CO
81222

Telephone

+17198372962

Website

http://www.badgercreekranch.com/, https://linktr.ee/BadgerCreek

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