Are you tired of wading into a mess of dubious advice from folks who you’re not really sure actually know what they are talking about?
What about all the things that you will face on a dark, cold night that you haven’t even thought to ask?
We created The Stockholder’s Exchange as a way to serve you in your journey to care for your dairy animals better. And to help you build the pastures you want to finally convert sunshine into butter. That’s the dream, right?
What could possibly go wrong…? As it turns out, a lot. But some things are so beautiful that they are worth chasing even if the road is long and rocky and without a map. You know it in your soul — the fundamental truth of a cow chewing her cud and ruminating on the day contains a peace that surpasses anything else you’ve experienced. And that’s even before she has provided you with the most perfect food on earth.
You’ve been down a few of those roads now (or maybe you are just eyeing your future dairy dreams), and you’ve wisely figured out that there is way more than a lifetime’s worth of learning on this particular journey.
You don’t have the time or the resources to figure it all out from scratch, yet you can’t shake what has a hold of you. It’s what you want to talk about at parties, if you even go to parties anymore… yet you don’t know who to ask about all of your wonderings. Even if you still had a neighbor with cows, you know he will look askance at you if he sees your temporary fencing in the front yard or hears that you’d rather not treat something with antibiotics straight off.
How in the world am I supposed to rotate these animals around and get them water and shade and back to the barn for milking? Is my grass nutritious enough? Should I supplement? With what?
My cow is positive for Staph-aureus (or bovine leukemia virus, BLV), what do I do now? Is the milk safe to drink?
I’m raising my calf on the cow but now I can’t get any milk (or cream) for me? And how to I get her to stop nursing so I can dry off my cow?
How do I get my cow bred back if she is not settling after three AI attempts?
Since the beginning of time, people have counted livestock as wealth. When Job was repaid by God for his troubles, his livestock doubled. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange, founded in 1898 as the Chicago Butter and Egg Board, is today the largest options and futures exchange in the world. Among the commodities still traded to this day? Live cattle, feeder cattle and lean hogs.
We call this community The Stockholders Exchange because we are trading in knowledge to shepherd and grow real wealth. Livestock are the only asset that reliably appreciates exponentially. When is the last time your CD had a baby? Mutual funds don’t triple every year, year after year. Sheep can, and hogs even more so.
After heaven, the only reliable place to store your treasure is in the soil — and in relationships that endure. Everything else is perishing. But without knowledge, livestock perish. All the good intentions in the world don’t get your cow up from milk fever, but knowing how to give an IV and a bottle of minerals in solution will likely have her up within 20 minutes like nothing happened. There is only two ways that condition goes, and the other is certain death.
You can dig a hole and put a lot of money in it, but it won’t fix your soil. Only well-chosen amendments, seeds, livestock movements and wisdom does that. But education is expensive. And you literally do not have enough time or sufficient funds to earn all of that wisdom by the sweat of your own brow and bleeding heartbreak into the earth.
We have made a lot of mistakes, and we share what we learned without you having to sweat them. We have seen a lot of animals not make it, and we have had even more successes, and we don’t hold anything back. There are many things that we cannot and will not share on social media. But this place is private, and it’s ours. And we can say what we want.
In a world of black and whites and strong opinions and my-way-or-the-highways, this is a place of nuanced discussion, candor and grace. We aren’t all in the same context, or with the same resources, or skills. We don’t tolerate or promote group-think or bullying. Our only measuring stick of success is whether or not you feel more empowered to make wise choices for the animals and land in your care.
The only thing that is preventing you from accessing that wealth is KNOWLEDGE. We want our legacy to be your success.
We have been helping people with their pastured and holistic dairy questions for years. The calls during breakfast. The emails and hand-written letters in the mail. Semi-desperate DMs with pressing questions about a beloved cow’s mysteriosis. We really love animals. And we really love helping people have success with them. There is nothing quite like the joy of dairy success. And sheep and pigs and chickens and livestock guardian dogs and horses are our co-laborers. We’ve raised beef cows and goats, turkeys and broilers, heritage and hybrids. Cows are our focus, but we like to joke that if you can handle a lactating dairy cow you can manage just about anything.
We realized that what was needed was a place. A place where people could ask questions freely in a private forum and get answers in a timely and knowledgeable way. The kinds of things you’d ask over a fence or over coffee or while working cows — if there was still a neighbor or a dairy farmer or a relative who still did these things. A place to look for or list livestock that isn’t got every Tom, Dick and Sally posting underfed animals that you can’t look past, even though it’s not what you are looking for. A community of old-timey character, but virtual. And over time, our goal is to grow your local access to one another, as well. And you can get to know one another in person at our on-farm events, always offered first to Stockholders.
The Stockholder’s Exchange is that place. And the communication is a two-way street. The Forum is where you can ask anything at anytime and get a timely response — everything from pasture establishment and managed grazing to calving questions to husbandry challenges to natural (and integrative) treatments.
Inside the app is like the college classroom you wish you had or could go back to, and totally immersed in what you want to nerd out on right now. We post daily videos on a huge array of subjects with a perspective that you cannot find anywhere else. With Hue’s background in veterinary medicine, soil science and botanical treatments — he is the foremost expert in the world on the non-antibiotic treatment of infectious disease in bovines — and Suzanne’s practical wisdom on establishing pastures, bringing back the functional Jersey cows of Island fame and setting up grazing systems, there is literally never a day without learning.
And there is rarely a day without some sideways comment or a little bit of pushback against fads and industrialism. And sometimes we go a little sideways with each other — while we are totally aligned in our life’s mission and calling, we also don’t think exactly the same way about most things, and so listening to the two of us conversate is like having two friends with slightly divergent viewpoints but the same heart for restoration. (Just wait for the podcast, aka our lunch-table discussions in long form!) In our playful banter, you’ll find your own voice, your own way and your own confidence. And that’s the point.
We are advocates for an older form of agriculture, and at the same time completely willing to embrace new ideas and innovations so long as it aligns with our values of creating better lives for pastured livestock and the people who care for them.
Farming isn’t just about farming, and this is a place where we encourage each other in many respects. There is no ideological litmus test. No must-do-this-or-think-that threshold to enter. Dairying has a way of kicking philosophies to the curb and bringing forth practical solutions that approximate the ideal without dismissing the sometimes very real and very large obstacles between where we are and where we want to be. We go forward by recognizing what is working, what is worth keeping, and what has to be let go of.
You will come and go from The Stockholder’s Exchange encouraged and inspired. A continual refreshment of confidence-boosting knowledge and compassionate interaction. One pasture-based dairy farm that raises calves on cows and has 10x-ed our organic matter in our soils in five years isn’t going to change the world. But a sea of them? Well, now that’s something to see. We’ve got this. And it’s time to get moving.
A private members only store-front where you can access all of our hand-crafted kits (the stuff folks ask us for the most!)
These kits are straight out of our medicine room, an eclectic array of supplies both conventional and herbal, common and rare — most importantly, stuff that works and is there when you need it. No kit on the market comes close to these in their diversity and practicality. We hand-curated each of these to meet a particular need — and we couldn’t recommend anything else out there. We are offering these only to Stockholders for the time being because we are a small team and we didn’t know if we could keep up with the demand for them otherwise. Additional kits for other needs are in the works.
Nose Ring Kit
Calf Diarrhea Kit: Our custom and farm-tested calf boluses along with electrolyte powder to keep you from running to the store. A bonus respiratory tincture because untreated digestive disturbance usually precedes a respiratory problem in pre-ruminating calves.
First Aid Kit: All the basics and some stuff you’d never think of (like a Chinese herbal medicine to stop bleeding), standard supplies (IV line, needles syringes), activated charcoal, a hard-to-find and incredibly effective salve — this kit will have you feeling confident that you’re ready for challenge.
Freshening Kit: meant to go in tandem with the First Aid Kit, the Freshening Kit has additional supplies to support calving, post-partum and metabolic issues (ketosis and milk fever), and includes emergency items such as calving chains.
A lot of things! For starters, we are going to have a lot MORE content, and available fresh daily. Instead of two hour-long videos per month, you will get daily doses of pasture inspiration, husbandry tips, as well as in-depth on subjects that you literally cannot find anyplace else. We are in the process of creating topic-specific courses (this year: fly management and a tough-cows breeding guide) and our premium members will get those for free. We are focusing on more how-to’s and in-depth learning.
Yes, and no. We are now going to do shorter multiple WEEKLY videos. We recognize that it’s easier to consume educational materials in smaller chunks to fit into your busy lives. So this content will feel like a longer-form, more involved, more in-depth version of what Suzanne posts on Instagram. And it will all be archived by subject.
Yes! As soon as you become a member of the coolest club you’ve ever imagined joining, you get access to everything. All the hour-long episodes, Suzanne’s recorded consulting calls about common issues, as well as reading all questions and answers in The Forum since its inception — PLUS the new content we add multiple times a week.
Yes, although the focus is going to shift more to our app because we own the content there and can speak much more freely and without filter. We will go into much greater depth and speak more candidly than we have been able to on the public platform.
We have an S.O.S. section of The Forum that we do our best to keep up with. And emergency calls with Dr. Karreman are available for purchase, and they are included in the Premium Plus Tier of The Stockholder's Exchange membership. That said, we can’t be in all places at all times, and we want and highly recommend you do everything in your power to have a non-emergency relationship with a veterinarian (you don’t have to agree about everything…) so that in an emergency you have a relationship you can fall back on. All that said, a lot of local vets are primarily equine vets and many complex bovine (and goat/sheep/pig) cases are beyond the scope of their experience. Hue’s favorite way to work is to consult with your vet, which he does for free as part of a collegial relationship with other veterinarians and to up the understanding in his profession about bovines in general and natural treatments in particular.
Coming soon and only to Stockholders! We aren’t doing this to gate-keep. We are doing this because we absolutely love these animals, and we only have the heart to send them to folks who have invested in their ability to care for them well. Stay tuned. Join Stockholders. Get to know us. ;)
Many things are applicable across species. Sometimes sheep get milk fever, for example. If you are willing to make that jump in your head, great. We unabashedly talk cows most of the time even though we have pretty much every other class of livestock. If you can handle a lactating dairy cow, you can pretty much do anything.
