Crooked Oak Pastures

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Frederic, WI
Crooked Oak Pastures

We are Tyler and Brittany Tetzlaff and we grow pasture raised livestock, including cattle, chickens, turkeys, and sheep.

We are followers of Christ and we are excited to share this journey with you!

05/30/2026

3/6 ewes have lambed and they’re all doing great!

05/21/2026

This weeks farm happenings highlights:

20/52

1-2) Springy lambs. After much be waiting, the first lambs of the year were born. So far we have 3 males and 1 female. Fun fact about these ewe moms; one is the last of the first ewes we bought when we started our sheep enterprise and the other is the first ewe/lamb that was born on our farm. So these experienced moms don’t give us much worry.
3) Fall in the spring. The farm is filling up as the baby turkeys arrived this week. The girls are excited to have baby birds to hold in the brooder again since the chickens are out on pasture now. These baby birds will spend the new few weeks in the brooder before going out to pasture to turn into a great thanksgiving bird.
4) who dis? We officially have a driveway sign installed so you will know you are at the right place. Brittany’s parents had a metal sign made for us this winter and Tyler made up the wood mount this weekend. We got it installed at the end of the driveway and are happy with how it turned out.

05/20/2026

Lambing diaries continued!

05/18/2026

Birthday Lambs!

05/16/2026

(Not so) patiently waiting.

05/14/2026

This weeks farm happenings highlights:

19/52

1)Prep: With the forecast of nice weather this week, we got the chicken tractors drug out of winter storage and prepared for the first round of meat chicks. We take off some of the roofing so that the snow doesn’t cave in the tractors over winter. We have to reinstall the roofing along with the feeders and waterers.
2) Transport: we take our custom mobile brooder from the shed directly out to the pasture with the chicks in it. This saves us the extra work of double handling the chicks and we believe it’s less stressful on them as they are only handled the one time also. It’s a pretty efficient setup we have come to enjoy.
3-5) Delivery: it was a family event of splitting the chicks up into the tractors. All the girls wanted to help put the chicks into their new homes. They will now spend the next 8 weeks or so out on pasture forging around and helping improve our pastures.
6)Sore back: we also spent so me time picking rocks out of the silvopasture. This will help it not be so much like a mine field while brushing mowing it. Every little bit helps, and after a dozen or so buckets of rocks it’s starting to clean up. We will continue to pick any rocks that we hit with the mower and thin trees as need be, but after 4 years or so, the silvopasture is looking good this spring with more and more grass covering the ground.

05/10/2026

Happy Mother’s Day!

Please enjoy Ruben’s commentary during the update! ☺️

05/07/2026

This weeks farm happenings highlights:

17-18/52

1-2) Chick days. The first round of baby meat chickens came and the season has begun. The girls were quite excited they arrived and that they get to hold the baby chicks.
3) Dirt under the nails. We have been preparing the garden beds by pulling some weeds that have popped up as well as getting some cold hardy plants in the ground. This week the garlic has really taken off and is sticking up tall and green. We are now planted with garlic, onions, potatoes, peas, carrots, and beats.
4) Stocking up. The ewes are expected to begin lambing this coming week so we moved them off hay and onto fresh grass. This not only gives them great nutrition for producing milk. It also allows the ewes more room to spread out while they lamb and it gives the lambs a fresh clean environment to be born on. The girls are quite excited about the lambs coming, and they are prayed for everyday.

04/24/2026

This weeks farm happenings highlights:

16/52

1-4) Pasture improvement. We beat the rain and spent some time spreading fertilizer on our pastures. While we don’t want to rely on synthetic fertilizer to maintain our pastures, it is a tool in the toolbox to be used strategically. Our soil tests show our phosphorus and potassium levels are pretty low. This has an effect on our legumes in the pasture, most notably they don’t do well. We hope this shot of fertilizer will boost our legumes so that we can recycle those nutrients back through grazing. While feeding hay on pasture and pasturing the chickens also adds these nutrients, we don’t have the animal count to cover the majority of the pasture at once, so some outside supplement is used as well. The girls got to do some ride alongs, and the youngest didn’t last long before being lulled to sleep. The twins also took it upon themselves to make sure any stray granules got picked up and placed into the pasture.

5) Trash to treasure. Tyler and Brittany’s dad took an evening to drive northbound to collect a rather large selection of used walk-in freezer/cooler panels. These were leftovers from a local butcher shop. Tyler plans to piece together a small walk in cooler for hanging our large animals to age before butchering. Then we will also need to find a use for the rest of the panels, smoke house and deer stands are currently on the potentials list. It was a take all or nothing deal, so three trips later we had them all moved. Thanks to Brittany’s dad for the help loading with his skid steer.

6) Soil, Sunlight, & WATER. The girls and Tyler made their rounds about the pasture one evening to water our newly planted trees as we had a few days without any rain. This extra water when the trees are first planted helps them we tremendously and it’s also a treasured time for the girls to spend a fun evening with dad. The girls piled into the trailer with the water tank and rode along, though one of the passengers was once again lulled to sleep by the soothing sounds of the tractor.

04/16/2026

This weeks farm happenings highlights:

15/52

1-4) second best time. As they say the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, and the second best is now. It was our annual tree planting. Every year we have been adding various trees to our pastures to improve the land and leave it better than we found it for the next generation. 20 trees were added to the pastures. While small now, eventually they will be big and provide a lot of benefits for our pastures. This year we planted a new species, thornless honey locust. These trees are one of the few trees that actually add nitrogen to the soil, just like a legume. This will help our grasses grow and produce even more lush grass. Another benefit of these trees are their seed pods. These make a great food source in fall and winter for not only our animals but wildlife also. We look forward to seeing these trees grow and one day produce a plethora of pods.
5) propagation station. We are also trying a new little experiment that we have 0 experience in. We took some tree cuttings and are going to try and propagate them. We dipped each cutting into a rooting hormone to encourage the sticks to produce roots that will then turn the little stick into a plantable tree. We are not sure what the success rate will be, but if even one tree grows we will be money ahead. Plus it’s interesting to try something new and see what we learn, whether it’s a success, failure, or both.
6)Sap finished beef. We had some extra sap from the maple trees and we didn’t know what to do with it. We then had the idea to see if the cattle and sheep would drink it. It seemed like such a waste to just dump it out without at least attempting to use it. Come to find out the cattle love the sugar water sap. They will come over and suck the little tank dry in one sitting. This seems like a great use for it and I guess we can say the steers are maple sap finished. It’s unknown if the sheep have had any as they drink such little water normally that we haven’t seen them at the tank drinking, plus they would need to be quick to beat the steers there.

Address

451 300th Avenue
Frederic, WI
54837

Website

http://crookedoakpastures.com/

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