Basket Flat Ranch is located near you in Battle Ground, Washington. We are a small, local producer of natural pasture fed beef for the Portland, OR and Vancouver, WA region. We enjoy raising and grazing our herd on this beautiful piece of heaven, tucked away in the Cascade foothills. The landscape is rolling hills, with abundant grass and clover fields, and lots of trees all around us. All the pictures on our website are from our ranch at different times of the year.

A Superior Product

We raise our beef 100% pasture fed and grass finished. Our cattle receive a diet of fresh pasture and are supplemented with highly nutritious, local grass and clover hay, during the winter months. Our animals have access to fresh grass all year round and are not confined. Additionally, although we do not sell organic meat, we do follow organic practices. As such, we avoid the use of antibiotics on any animals, and our fields are fertilized naturally with cow manure & compost, instead of chemical fertilizer.

In addition, we raise Angus cattle with blood-lines that have strong tenderness, natural/lean marbling, and thick muscling traits. Our cattle are slaughtered at an ideal time frame for tenderness and size, always finishing them on fresh green pasture. Our farm fresh beef is also aged properly at the butcher, resulting in superior taste and tenderness.

The Diet

Basket Flat Ranch cattle enjoy eating a "salad bar" of red and white clover, orchard and rye grass, and other native grasses. Their diet does not include any grain and calves are nurtured on their mother's milk. The cows are regularly rotated into a new sections of pasture to optimize the growth and nutrition of the grass. When we have an especially dry Summer, and during the cold Winter months, we supplement their pasture grazing, with highly nutritious, locally grown, clover and grass hay.

Our Beef Breeds

At Basket Flat Ranch, we currently raise Black Angus cattle, as well as a few animals (Pinzgauer and Hereford) that have been crossed with our Black Angus. All of our beef have been specifically bred for their tenderness. Most of our animals are 75% to 100% Angus, and every animal we sell is at least 50% Angus. The combination of several breeds, with the dominant breed being Angus, has resulted in consistently high quality beef. Our beef is naturally tender, and leaner, but also has a healthy, natural amount of fat that the animals put on by eating a high quality, nutritious, "salad bar" diet of several grasses, and clover.

Our Philosophy

The goal of Basket Flat Ranch is to provide our family and the greater Vancouver/Portland community with delicious tender beef, raised naturally on grass pastures, free from pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, mRNA vaccines, and GMO's. We sell to discerning customers who value knowing exactly where their food comes from and who value knowing that the animals were treated humanely. We operate in stark contrast to industrialized farming, which has brought lower quality meat and the health problems associated with it to the average American dinner table. Our goal to provide an alternative to the feedlot beef cattle sold at the supermarket. We do this not only in order to raise the best-tasting, all-natural, pasture-fed beef and finished possible, but also for our family's health and for your family's health as well.

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Have you been wondering about the “grass fed” beef you may be seeing lately in the grocery stores at hard to believe prices? Well, it's often really difficult to know where this beef is coming from, or how exactly it has been raised. There are really no solid labeling rules for grass fed beef in the store, so it's easy to be fooled. Was this animal fed grass or pasture for a time, and then “finished” on grain? Did it even come from outside the United States, but you have no idea one way or the other? The nutritional differences, the flavor, and the authenticity of this “mystery beef” can be all over the map. It has even been reported in several news articles that many companies have been labeling beef “grass fed” in the grocery store, that was only fed grass some of the time, or had some grass pellets mixed in with their grain in the feedlot.

As a rancher, I know that pretty much all beef animals are fed grass or graze on some pasture at some point in their life. All around the country, no matter where you go, beef calves are typically born out in the pasture, most likely in the Spring time, and are raised, eating pasture, and nursing milk off their mothers for the first 6 months or so. It is at that point that almost 95% of beef calves in the USA are weaned off their mothers, and are hauled into confined feedlots where they are fattened up very rapidly on grain, and other feed by-products.

This is an accelerated process that almost always involves the use of growth hormones, and a lack of the normal movement they would get if they were out grazing on pasture. As a result, grain fed feedlot cattle are typically butchered at an age of less than 18 months, while 100% grass fed cattle, that graze on pasture their whole lives, are typically butchered closer to 24 months of age. This is because, real grass fed beef, that are not fed growth hormones or grain, will take longer to grow and fatten up naturally, and will still be at the peak of tenderness at 24 months of age.

This is also why there is a very real difference in the cost of real grass fed beef. Grass fed beef costs more money because of the extra time, and the extra grass land required to graze the cattle. The extra time is totally worth it both for the health benefits and the flavor of the beef.

Currently, the only way you can be completely sure your grass fed beef is the real thing, is to buy directly from your local rancher. The amazing thing to me is that we are pricing our beef very close to the grocery store price of regular grain fed beef, and 30-40% less than real grass fed beef you will find in the grocery store. While it may seem expensive in total, consider that about half of the beef you get from one of our beef shares will be some type of cut of beef, half will be ground beef, and then consider what the price of different beef cuts are in the store. If you do the math, we are super competitive, so there is no reason to think it is too expensive to buy real grass fed beef, or just to give up on the real thing and buy one “cheap” pack of grain fed beef at a time from the store. And often, it only seems “cheaper” because you are buying such a small quantity at a time. When you buy from a local, real, grass fed beef ranch, you are making a positive impact both on the beef market, and your families' health. You are getting the real thing.