Blog #1 Introduction to Murraydale Farms Blog

Looking out at our cows from the chicken coop, chief of security Winston on the background.

Murraydale Farms is a paddock-to-plate beef operation near Swan Hill in Murraydale, Vic. Here is a little summary of our journey from the start until our first ever orders of beef boxes. We plan to provide regular updates as they happen so stay tuned for more.

Thank you for finding your way to our website, and for being interested enough to click on our blog. This is going to be a place where we can share our thoughts and happenings on the farm. We are extremely grateful for all the support we have received so far, and one of our goals is to reconnect people with where their food comes from. Modern agriculture forgets that the main purpose of farming is to grow food for people to eat, and here at Murraydale Farms we have you in mind when we grow our food. Below is a small summary of our journey, up until our first ever beef boxes being delivered. We hope you enjoy.

We started this journey in 2022 when we (Keags and Jess) purchased our first home, and with the acreage we had Keags really wanted cattle (with some tasty steaks in mind). After extensive research we decided on Black Angus, and purchased 18 cows and calves. Since then, we have purchased a bull affectionately known as Shaq from Heath and Amanda Nicholls at Bull Oak Well in Pinaroo. After more and more research into cattle breeding, and following on from how much we loved Shaq, we decided to breed our own herd, suited to our environment, registered under Murraydale Angus. We purchased our first registered cattle from Bull Oak Well, and then followed up the following year with some more cows, all with heifer calves, from Weeran Angus. Since then, with those acquisitions and retaining our top heifers for breeding, the herd has grown to 70 breeding cows, with yearling heifers, steers and our first ever Murraydale Angus bulls.

Growing up on a traditional cropping farm with a side of sheep, Keags has firsthand experience of how 'food' is grown, and decided that he didn't like it very much. Soil is left barren for more than half the year, kept that way by alternating glyphosate and paraquat with a cocktail of other chemicals to preserve moisture. He hated it so much that he purchased another washing machine just for his work clothes, in an attempt to keep any chemicals away from our growing family. It was that decision that led him to quit cold turkey at Murraydale. We just stopped, and decided to deal with the fallout. Once we did, the biggest adjustment turned out to be the concept of 'weeds', because when you stop trying to kill everything, you stop having them. We now prefer the term 'less desirable' plants, because any growing plant is better than bare soil. After selling some steers through the markets, though, we discovered that our cattle were lost in the pool with everyone else's. They were selling for the same price, to the same people. That didn't seem right, what we believed to be premium grass fed, no chemicals, no added hormones, MRNA free beef was being processed and sold with the ‘supermarket’ meat. So, we decided to do it all ourselves.

Paddock to Plate is something Keags has been keen on since childhood. Growing up processing their own lambs, he knew that straight from the paddock beats the supermarket every time. So much so, that during his university days in Melbourne, he would plan trips home around cutting up a few lambs and taking them back to sell to his footy mates as a side hustle. The idea has always been there - this was just the moment to act on it. We knew it would be a lot of work, but we began. While Keags worked through the processing and logistics, Jess built a website complete with a store where you could purchase our beef. Many late nights (once the kids were in bed) were spent on this, and eventually we launched the website and our first Beef Boxes.

And, the wait began…

We waited. One day, two, nearly a week. No orders. Was there something wrong? Did the website not work? We looked at our product and decided we should offer a smaller (10kg) and larger (20kg) option so people had more choice. The website was generating report after report showing traffic and items in cart, still no sales. So Jess went on and purchased our first ever 10kg Beef Box, and it truned out the website worked. The smaller option had removed the price barrier, and we confirmed the website was functioning. But there was something else. Education and trust. People didn't know us, or trust the brand yet. So we (mostly Jess) went to work on our Instagram, creating content around farming, cooking and everything in between to build the trust. And then the orders came, one after the other. We had already planned a giveaway for our local area and ran an Instagram competition. It slowed purchases in the short term, but it built our profile. Slowly people started asking us about it, were we ‘Murraydale Farms’? Our small following grew, and the orders followed.

All this going on and there was still farming to do. Our calves were weaned, our cattle destined for the beef boxes were put on our best feed - a mix of grasses and lucerne. We had planned to sell two cattle as beef boxes and keep one for our own freezer; in the end Keags added half a cow to the run and we sold it too. Overall we were excited, and nervous. The cattle were booked in and dropped off to the abattoir without hassle. We signed an agreement with a home delivery service, and all we had to do was line up the packing with the delivery company. It sounded easy. Keags was confident. Jess was nervous, and rightfully so. There were delays on processing, issues with freight to Melbourne, fuel price increases, sick kids and then a nervous wait for deliveries to confirm before we waited for feedback. We didn't have to wait long. The response was overwhelming. We had tried the beef ourselves and knew it was good, but there is something about hearing it from paying customers that fills you with joy. Questions started coming in: when is the next run? How often will you be processing? We were fielding them with big smiles.

I really wish we had a couple more ready to send for processing. It was a good opportunity to keep the momentum building, but this was always planned to be a scouting run. An opportunity to complete a run, learn on the go and then have the ability to refine the process while we wait for our 2025 calves to be ready. The next run will be in spring, that's when we'll have cattle at the size and condition we're after, on feed ideal for quality. Those topics are their own blog posts, and we'll get to them one day.

Thanks for making it this far.

Keags, Jess and Family

Murraydale Farms