Blue Ridge Cattle Co.

Shared from the Alabama Cattlemen’s Association:
New World screwworm is a live animal health concern, not a food safety or quality issue.

As a preventative measure, livestock producers are encouraged to implement all forms of fly control and vigilantly monitor herds to watch for signs of infestation including head shaking, decreased appetite, isolation, foul odor and open wounds. Increased surveillance is highly encouraged in newborns, postpartum animals and immediately after handling or moving livestock.

USDA has confirmed a case of New World screwworm (NWS) in a calf near La Pryor, Texas, roughly 50 miles from the border with the Mexican state of Coahuila. The affected animal is a 3-week-old calf with larvae present in an umbilical lesion. This is the first reported case of New World screwworm (NWS) in the United States during this outbreak.

If screwworm is suspected in your herd, report it immediately to Alabama State Veterinarian Dr. Tony Frazier at (334) 240-7253.

** We felt directly posting rather than sharing would reach the algorithm a bit better.

This message showed up in our inbox this week and honestly, it made our day.

One of the most rewarding parts of raising and selling freezer beef is hearing from customers after they’ve had a chance to sit down and enjoy it with their family.

We spend a lot of time thinking about cattle, feed, health, finishing, processing dates and all the details that go into producing quality beef. Messages like this are a reminder of why we do it.

Thank you to everyone who supports our small family farm. We never take it for granted. 🥩

Us: calmly explaining the plan, keeping everybody moving and trying to make this go smoothly.

The cattle: immediately rejecting the plan and doing the exact opposite.

Working cattle is basically organized chaos. 🫣
BlueRidgeCattleCompany.com

We’ve had a LOT of people reaching out recently looking for beef shares, and first off — thank y’all. The support for our small business truly means a lot to us.

Unfortunately, we are fully sold out for shares in 2026, with only limited availability remaining for a steer scheduled to process in January 2027.

This year we chose to operate strictly on pre-orders. The cattle market has been extremely volatile and feeder cattle prices are at all-time highs. Because we operate strictly on the purchase of feeder cattle rather than running our own cow-calf herd, we have to know exactly where those cattle are going before they’re ever purchased. In a market like this, we simply can’t afford to be left holding unsold cattle.

We do still have some individual cuts available at this time, mostly ground beef, and inventory is updated regularly on our website, so feel free to check there for current availability.

We know that may not be the answer some were hoping for, and we genuinely wish we could help everyone looking for beef right now.

We greatly appreciate every message, share, recommendation and customer that continues to support us. Hopefully we’ll see many of y’all when 2027 pre-orders open up! 🥩

BlueRidgeCattleCompany.com

Did you know?: Cattle learn routines quicker than people think. Consistent feeding, calm handling and low-stress interactions make a huge difference over time — even with our feeder calves. Keeps cattle calm, keeps us safe and supports a higher quality of meat, too! 🥩
BlueRidgeCattleCompany.com

People ask us all the time if Blue Ridge Cattle Company was named after the Blue Ridge Mountains. Truth is… no. It was named after a little road in Nebraska called Blue Ridge Dr.

That road led to the first house Dylan and I ever bought together while we were both active duty military. It was our first real home. The first place we learned how to be homeowners… and that old 1960s house definitely tested us more than once. 😂

That house saw deployments, hard seasons, and some of the biggest losses of our lives. It’s where we learned how to truly be husband and wife. It’s where we brought our first baby home. It’s where we stayed up late talking about dreams, school, the future, and what we wanted life to look like one day.

It also had the cutest little backyard — blueberry bushes, cherry trees, apple trees, pear trees, and a tiny garden that kept us busy learning how to can vegetables and make jams and jellies. We spent a lot of evenings out there talking about how one day we hoped we’d have more than a quarter acre to grow on.

And somehow, all those dreams that started in that little house slowly became reality.

When we were trying to name the farm, my brother Tucker randomly said, “Why not Blue Ridge?” — talking about the road we lived on. Honestly, I’m still shocked he came up with something both creative and sentimental. 😂 But the second he said it, we knew that was it.

So no — the name didn’t come from the mountains.

It came from the little house where this whole dream started. 🤎

The farm equivalent of a toddler standing too close to your face asking for snacks or if you have games on your phone. 😂

BlueRidgeCattleCompany.com

One thing people don’t always realize about cattle farming:

You’re constantly making decisions months ahead while prices, weather, feed costs, and markets change in real time.

Feed is bought before cattle are sold.
Processing dates are booked months in advance.
Repairs rarely happen at convenient times.

A lot of people see the final product but not always the planning, risk, labor, and uncertainty behind it.

Some years are better than others, but most farmers keep showing up because they genuinely care about raising good cattle, producing quality beef, and keeping agriculture moving forward.

There’s a lot more behind a package of beef than most people ever see — and honestly, that’s part of why we enjoy sharing the process. 🥩

BlueRidgeCattleCompany.com

One of the questions we get asked A LOT is whether or not we vaccinate our cattle — and whether cattle receive mRNA vaccines — so we wanted to talk a little about what we actually use and why.

The short answer is yes, we do vaccinate our cattle. Preventative herd health is a major part of raising cattle responsibly and humanely. Vaccines help reduce illness, stress, suffering, and in many cases death loss within a herd.

Some of the vaccines commonly used in cattle help protect against diseases such as:

1️⃣ Clostridial diseases (“7-way” or “blackleg vaccines”)
These diseases are caused by naturally occurring bacteria found in soil and the environment. Many are extremely aggressive and often fatal with very little warning.

Examples include:
• Blackleg — sudden death and severe muscle damage
• Malignant edema — severe swelling and tissue infection
• Black disease — severe liver damage
• Enterotoxemia (“overeating disease”) — rapid toxin buildup that can quickly kill growing calves

2️⃣ Respiratory diseases (IBR, BVD, PI3, BRSV, Mannheimia)
Respiratory illness is one of the most common health issues in cattle and can cause pneumonia, fever, poor growth, chronic lung damage, and death in severe cases.

Good herd health is about more than one shot or one product. It’s nutrition, minerals, clean water, pasture management, low-stress handling, observation, and preventative veterinary care all working together.

And because we get asked this often too: there are currently no commercially available mRNA vaccines approved for use in beef cattle in the United States.

At the end of the day, our goal is healthy cattle raised responsibly and humanely because sick animals suffer — and no producer wants that.

“Local beef is too expensive.”

Meanwhile, these were CHOICE GRADED Costco prices this week:
• Thin cut Ribeyes: $16.99/lb
• Briskets: around $9/lb
• Chuck rolls: $149.99 each

The reality is beef prices are up everywhere right now — local farms included.

Sometimes people see freezer beef pricing and think local farms are charging drastically more, but when you actually start comparing today’s retail beef prices, it usually tells a different story.

There’s a tremendous amount of work behind every pound of beef no matter where it’s raised — pasture management, feed, fuel, equipment, animal health, transportation, labor, processing, and everything in between.

And the truth is, many local farms are not making huge profits on beef. A lot of times margins are actually pretty tight, especially in a commodity market where cattle prices, feed costs, and processing costs can fluctuate significantly after customers have already locked in pricing with a deposit.

For us, buying local simply means you know the people raising your beef and your dollars stay closer to home by supporting local agriculture and local businesses involved along the way.

We’re thankful for everyone who supports our farm and understands the value behind it.

BlueRidgeCattleCompany.com