We closed on eighty acres outside East Texas in March of 2023. A trailer of Black Angus heifers, a Pyrenees pup in the cab, an LF brand I drew at the kitchen table the night before. Three years in, we've lost a few to things we'd rather not have lost them to, and the cameras out in the pasture spot a limping heifer before the hands have their boots on. The work hasn't changed. The eyes have.
That phrase isn't a marketing line. It's something we say to each other on hard mornings — after a stillborn calf, after a coyote got into the chicken pen, after a year that rained when it shouldn't have and didn't when it should have.
We don't pretend the technology is the point. The point is the animal — that she stays on grass, calves clean, and finishes on the same place she was born. The tech is here because four pairs of eyes can't watch the whole pasture at once, and because a heifer with a slight gait drag on a Tuesday morning is worth catching before she's down on Friday night. Built with our sister company, L1fe AI.
Real cowboys. Real animals. Real food. We work the land like we're going to have to answer for it — because we will.
A short history of L1fe Farms, told as a working timeline — with the roadmap that follows. Some of these are wins. Some are losses we learned from. Most are both.
Closed on the home place in March. Twelve Black Angus heifers from a Hill Country producer the same week. Brought home a Pyrenees pup named Atlas in a duffel bag. First night in the barn we slept with him on the floor next to the dock door, because that's what you do when there's coyotes within earshot and a dog who doesn't yet know which side he's on.
Drove to a Wyoming foundation breeder in June and brought home six Highland heifers in a gooseneck. Joined the American Highland Cattle Association the week we crossed the Texas line. Three months later we had eight — Bonnie freshened first, and we had a cream calf on the ground by the end of October.
Built the kennel and a 4-acre training paddock on the south end of the home ranch. June whelped our first litter in April — placements went to working operations between Decatur and Bryan by fall. No dog leaves until we've seen it stand its ground in front of a hen. None go to a yard with a fence shorter than 5 feet.
Sister company L1fe AI ran computer vision on every paddock that summer. The first week it flagged tag H-047 with a slight gait drag we'd have missed. Vet confirmed early footrot, treated it, she calved fine that fall. The system has paid for itself a dozen times since — and missed twice, which we wrote up and posted on the customer thread.
First public beef-share window for spring '26 harvest. 25% down books a quarter, half, or whole — you're buying a share of a live animal in our pasture, not a label on a box. Chicken cuts go out weekly through the queue. Eggs by the dozen when the layers are laying. Direct from our cooler in East Texas.
Plat under contract for a 2,240-acre high-plains ranch north of Cheyenne. Cold-climate Highland breeding pasture and Black Angus rotation — the first L1fe ranch designed AI-native from blueprint. Target groundbreak: summer 2026.
Two parcels under scout on the Big Island's north slope. Year-round forage, volcanic soil, the first L1fe operation outside the continental US. Poultry-led pasture rotation. Target groundbreak: 2026.
Everything else is negotiable. These four are not.
Every animal we raise spends its life on grass. No feedlot. No corn. No soy. The shares we sell come off the same paddock the cows were born on, finished on the same forage.
We've lost calves to weather. Hens to a coyote we didn't catch fast enough. A yearling to bloat on alfalfa we cut too rich. Each one is in the log. Each one made us better at the next one. We post the deaths on the customer thread — including the embarrassing ones.
The cameras flag what they see. The hands decide what to do. No model has the keys to the truck — and no model ever will.
Stewardship is a calling. We work the land like we're going to answer for it — because we will.
“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.”
— PSALM 23:2