When this Idaho-based rancher family’s six children reach the age of nine, they become bonafide cowboys and girls.
Thirty-nine-year-old Bedke, lives with his wife, Jacquie, and six kids in southern Idaho. The massive ranch is roughly spread over 100,000 acres and belongs to Bedke’s father, uncle, and cousin.
“The ranch belongs to my family,” Bedke told The Epoch Times, adding that it’s not easy keeping things going in the current times.
“Input costs are a lot higher, and they continue to get higher with all the inflation that’s happening. Everything’s more expensive,” Bedke added. “It’s too bad that there’s not more family ranches that are able to make it. It’s a great way to have a family, a great way to raise kids, and a good way of life.”
Involving Kids in Work
With such a massive ranch—which is a mixture of public and private land, says Bedke—the beef herd has plenty of space to roam. Turning out starts in spring, when the cows are released into the mountain range where they wander and graze freely throughout summer in different pastures.“We don’t have to stay out there with the cows,” Bedke said. “They are pretty self-sufficient. They‘ll just go around and eat grass, and we’ll move them a couple times through the summer into the next adjacent pasture just to give them fresh feed.”
Recounting one of the challenges, Bedke said that at the onset of fall when it’s time to round up the herd and bring them home for the winter, the cows are often loath to comply, having grown to like their independence. Collecting the entire range takes several days, and there are tens of thousands of acres to navigate.
At this point, the couple’s children—five sons and one daughter, aged from one up to 12 years—enjoy accompanying their dad to help gather cattle. The hands-on father puts at least one or two of the kids on a horse and takes them along with him.
“They'll spend the day out on their horse gathering cattle and pushing cows like the rest of us,” he said, adding that it’s good for kids to spend time with their dads.
“I always try to give them something they can do that is helpful, so they’ve grown up feeling like they’re part of it and have a role in the operation. I don’t usually start taking them out for those long days until they’re at least eight or nine. Sometimes, I'll take the younger ones on shorter outings.”
Since venturing out onto the range means driving quite a distance in a pickup with a trailer and space is limited, Bedke can’t bring more than a couple of people with him at the same time. So he’ll go home to see the family at the end of the day and bring another, or others, the next day.
Forging Customers’ Connection to Food
Bedke’s Instagram page, Rancher Ryan, gives a window into the day-to-day workings of life on a ranch. The Bedkes also promote their family business of grass-fed and grain-finished dry-aged meat, Hat Brand Beef, through social media. Holding the conviction that people are craving more of a connection to their food, to the farmer, and the rancher instead of the sterile anonymity of the grocery store, Bedke has had a very positive response.To stay viable, Bedke says, every generation needs to adapt to the changing market. As people are wanting to know more about where their food comes from, Bedke decided that it’s a great time to step in and be open about the whole process.
“That’s why we started our own beef business, currently selling direct to consumers and being transparent,” he said. “We started our business page, Hat Brand Beef, where we show more in-depth about how the meat is produced. And we also show how to cook it and share a lot of recipes.”
As a real rancher, what are his thoughts on industrialized farming methods, and the use of steroids and hormones?
“I feel there’s a lot of misinformation out there,” he says. “There are things injected into cattle that can be unhealthy. But the large majority of cattle—at least in the United States—is raised in a way that is healthy and doesn’t have problems.
“There are some injections you can add that enable you to be more profitable without sacrificing any health benefits. So, I don’t buy into a lot of everything labeled free, organic, all-natural. That all sounds really good, but most of that is just marketing.
“What’s most important is that the animal is raised as far as possible without stress, is kept as healthy as possible, and has as much as they need to eat at all times, whether that’s through hay feed or grazing. That’s going to give you good-tasting meat, that’s good for you.”
Honoring Family Tradition
It’s hard to imagine that this hardened rancher was once part of the corporate world, working as a salesman and a sales manager for a residential security system company in different cities for five years. Bedke’s parents wanted him to attain an education, and he earned a bachelor’s degree in finance.While he wasn’t considering sales his long-term career, at first, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be back at the ranch, either. It took marriage and parenthood for the young couple to return to rural life, where they could spend more time with their kids.
The eldest of five, Bedke said that his big family has been living this way for more than 140 years, and that his forefathers shared a collective intent to keep the property intact rather than splitting it up.
“My family recognizes that ... because we want to keep it intact, and want to be able to pass it on,” he said. "In my family, we have made the conscious decision to pass it to one child. As far as the ranch goes, that’s what we'll do.
All his kids enjoy school, Bedke says, play sports, have friends, and are involved in their small community, in church events and suchlike. Regardless of whether they want to become ranchers when they grow up, the Bedkes will encourage them “to go get an education of some sort.”
The key to keeping up traditional ways of living and working, Bedke says, was handed to him by his forefathers.
He said: “My father and uncle, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather led the charge that every generation has to adapt to the times, grow in different ways, and tweak the way they do business as they go along.
“So far, our family has been able to do that. I want to keep it up, and have a place for my kids to come back to, and still be a part of it.”
