L1fe Ranch · Goshen County, Wyoming · Phase 1, 2026

The high plains, engineered.

2,240 acres under contract on the Wyoming high plains east of the Laramie Range. Phase 1 is a 560-acre engineered operation — fifteen rotational paddocks, 260 head of cattle, three Roost units, a free-range layer flock, heritage hogs, and the working Pyrenees kennel.

Total plat
2,240
Acres under contract
Phase 1
560
Acres · operational ops zone
Paddocks
15
~32 ac each · 32-day rotation
Cattle
260
200 Angus · 60 Highland
Solar
2.4
GWh / year · net export
Water
3.8
Million gal · primary reservoir
§ 03 · The compound

Eight structures.
One plinth.

The eighty-acre operations compound sits on a single board-formed concrete plinth. Eight primary structures designed for a thirty-year service life — 304-grade stainless cladding, weathering steel, structural glass. Nothing painted. Nothing that needs repainting.

Ops barn · 220 ftStainless cladding · full PV roof
Tower · 60 ftCor-Ten base · glass crown
Equipment pavilion140 ft · open-sided · PV roof

The residence faces south.

A single low matte-white residence sits at the eastern edge of the plinth — four hands plus a cook and family. South- facing windows catch the morning sun across the Laramie Range. A deep covered porch. A metal standing-seam roof. Same materials palette as the rest of the compound; no surprises, no decoration.

Ops barn
220 ft
Stainless · arched PV roof
Observation tower
60 ft
Cor-Ten · glass crown
Equipment pavilion
140 ft
Open-sided · full PV
Crew residence
4,800 sqft
4 hands · cook + family
Foaling shed
60 ft
Climate-controlled
Solar field
4 ac
Ground-mount · 1.4 MW
Reservoir
2 ac
3.8 M gal · stainless rail
EV charging
8 pads
Inductive · autonomous fleet
§ 04 · Power & water

Off the grid by design.

The compound exports more electricity than it consumes. A four-acre ground-mount solar field plus rooftop PV on every primary structure produces 2.4 GWh per year against an operational draw of roughly 480 MWh — the surplus runs back to the cooperative grid. The reservoir holds 3.8 million gallons with a three-year rolling drought reserve.

Solar field · 1.4 MW4 ac ground-mount · 2.4 GWh / yr
Reservoir · 3.8 M galBoard-formed concrete · stainless rail
§ 05 · The herd

Two hundred Angus.
Sixty Highland.

The Wyoming herd is two registered lines on one rotation — a production line of 200 Black Angus and a foundation line of 60 Scottish Highland. The Angus do the volume; the Highland are the cold-climate genetics anchor and the reason we can run the rotation through January without supplemental feed.

Angus, by the eye.

Two hundred head sired off three bulls — every cow on the rotation handpicked off ranches in the Powder River and Sandhills before she ever set hoof on the Wyoming plat. We grade by frame, foot, and disposition before we grade by marbling.

Highland, on principle.

The Highland line is the foundation herd we brought up from East Texas — same Wyoming founding stock the home ranch was built on. They winter outside, calve unassisted, and forage on dormant grass that would put a feedlot animal in the ground. Sixty head is enough to keep the genetic line healthy on a closed rotation.

§ 06 · The poultry

Three thousand layers.
Three days behind the herd.

Three Roost units — a thousand layer birds each — trail the cattle by exactly three days. That's the regenerative-succession interval: long enough for fly larvae to mature in the cow patties, short enough that the birds arrive while the grass is still pressed but recovering. We collect roughly 2,400 eggs a day off three thousand healthy hens.

Inside each Roost a single row of stainless perches holds roughly 1,000 hens at night. The unit rolls forward one length per day onto fresh grass; the predator-guard skirt locks the flock in at dusk. No cages, no concrete-floor poultry house, and no two nights on the same patch of grass.

§ 07 · Ducks & hogs

A small flock,
a smaller herd.

Two more species share the rotation. A flock of forty Pekin ducks works the reservoir edge — water-bug control, soft-shell egg layers, and the kind of animal that earns its keep just by being on the property. A foundation herd of twelve Tamworth hogs roots through the lowest paddocks after the cattle and the Roost flock have moved through.

Forty Pekins on the reservoir.

Pure-white Pekin ducks live on and around the 2-acre water reservoir. They clean midges, lay a few hundred eggs a week in the bunker on the south bank, and earn a winter heated pond pump on the coldest nights.

Twelve Tamworths, rooting.

Tamworth is the cold-hardy heritage hog — bacon breed, ginger-red, pasture-foraging, and tough enough to winter outside in Goshen County. Twelve sows and one boar work the lowest paddocks on a slower rotation than the cattle, eating roots and overlooked forage that even the Highland herd walks past.

§ 08 · The dogs

Four working Pyrenees.

Predator control is a dog, not a fence.

Four working Great Pyrenees live with the flock, year-round, outside. Coyote pressure is real on the high plains — so are mountain lions in the Laramie foothills — and the Pyrenees lineage has been doing this job in Europe since roughly the year 1000. Two adults on the cattle rotation, two on the Roost flock. We breed and place dogs out of the home ranch in East Texas; these four were the first sent north.

The dogs are part of the operation, not pets. We name them. We bury them on the property. We don't take them off.

§ 09 · Inside the operation

Polished concrete.
Electric everything.

Step inside the operations barn and the equipment pavilion and it looks more like an aerospace hangar than a working ranch. Polished board-formed concrete floors, matte-stainless chutes, an open clerestory throwing soft daylight across the center aisle. The whole fleet — cattle handling, equipment, monitoring — is electric, inductive-charged off the photovoltaic roof.

Ops barn interiorPolished concrete · matte-stainless chutes
Autonomous ranch UTVInductive charging · open-cage cab
§ 10 · Surveyor's grid

One taut line
from corner to corner.

Painted geometry, stainless tensioner.

Every corner post is white-painted box-cut steel set in board-formed concrete. The wire is single-strand high-tensile, tensioned through a polished stainless fitting. The whole grid was surveyor-laid on day one — not added paddock by paddock over a decade — which is why every line is dead straight from corner to corner across all 480 pasture acres.

§ 11 · Wyoming winters

Engineered for −25°F.

Wyoming winters are not a problem to be solved — they're a non-negotiable design input. Snow load, wind shear, ice on the PV arrays, frozen water lines, cattle wellbeing on dormant pasture. The compound runs through January exactly the way it runs through July: same hands, same software, same standard.

The herd doesn't go inside.

Angus and Highland alike winter on dormant bluestem. No pole barn shelter, no concrete-floor wintering yard. Their coats grow thick by November and we feed cured native hay from the south paddock if a stretch gets below −20°F. Their breath is white. Their water is heated. They don't move less in the cold; they move more.

§ 12 · Phasing

Three phases.
Seven years.

The full 2,240-acre operation comes online in three phases. Phase 1 is the engineered compound and one full rotation system. Phase 2 doubles the cattle and adds a second rotation system on the western bench. Phase 3 fills the parcel.

Phase 1 · 2026

Break ground

560-acre primary zone, 8-structure compound, 15 paddocks, foundation herd of 260, three Roost units, 40 Pekin ducks, 12 Tamworth hogs, four working Pyrenees, 1.4 MW solar, 3.8 M gal reservoir. Operational by end of Q4 2026.

Phase 2 · 2028

Western bench

Add 12 paddocks on the western bench, second water reservoir, second equipment pavilion. Herd grows to 500 head. Roost flock doubles. Solar field doubles to 2.8 MW. Second crew residence.

Phase 3 · 2031

Full 2,240

Complete the parcel. 30+ paddocks across three rotation systems, herd at 800, five Roost units, dedicated processing facility on-site. Full self-sufficiency on power, water, feed.

§ 13 · One ranch. Two on the way.

Wyoming is one of three.

East Texas is the working ranch today. Wyoming follows in 2026. Hawaii follows in 2026. Same standards, same software, same handshake — three climates, one operation.

See L1fe Ranch Hawaii Back to The Land