Charles and Heather Maude are 5th generation ranchers in South Dakota running a direct-to-consumer beef and pork operation built on land their family has worked for over 115 years.

This tour covers the full operation - cattle, hogs, grain storage, equipment, and the irrigated river bottom at the center of a federal land dispute that drew national attention.

Watch this alongside the full-length podcast episode for the complete story behind what you're seeing on the ground.

Key Topics

• Direct-to-consumer beef and pork - how it actually works
• Cattle finishing and feeder calf production
• Farrowing crates - the honest case for and against
• Why feed quality determines meat quality in hogs
• Grain storage, forage systems, and matching stocking rate to grass
• The disputed river bottom and the federal land dispute

What You'll Learn

• How a small ranch runs multiple livestock enterprises on limited acres
• Why weaning date is a range management decision, not just an animal one
• What farrowing crates are actually for and why a skeptic changed her mind
• How monogastric and ruminant digestion produce fundamentally different meat
• What 115 years of private land management looks like - and what happens when it's challenged
• Why boundary disputes in the rural West are common, and criminal indictments are not

Connect with Charles & Heather

Website
Instagram
Facebook

Timestamps

00:00:00 — Introduction and context
00:02:00 — Cattle paddock: finished beef and this year's steer calves
00:04:00 — Weaning early — a drought and range management decision
00:06:00 — Grain bins: what they store and how they work
00:08:00 — Farrowing facility: why the crates exist
00:13:00 — Hog nutrition: simple stomach vs. ruminant digestion
00:15:00 — Pasture-raised pork: why quality and finish time differ
00:18:00 — Legacy equipment: grandfather's tractors and the 1948 truck
00:24:00 — The fence line: terrain, flooding, and where fences actually go
00:25:00 — The Forest Service dispute begins
00:27:00 — No written violation, no due process, criminal charges
00:28:00 — Working toward resolution: the Small Tracks Act
00:30:00 — Secretary Rollins, the temporary use agreement, and what changed
00:33:00 — The survey stakes, the crop damage, and the escalation
00:37:00 — What the land trade proposal was and why it was rejected
00:39:00 — What this case means for ranchers and private landowners
00:41:00 — Final reflections