ASHLAND, Ohio – Balancing careers and a passion for farming is a common narrative in Ohio. Many farm operations have at least one or both members of the family working off the farm.

Josh and Lindsey Welch, owners and operators of Sycamore Valley Farms, are succeeding in both capacities. Their full-time careers in education keep them busy during the day while raising and selling heritage beef, pork, and chickens on their Ashland County farm keeps them busy at night.

“We joke sometimes that we’re farmers trying to educate children during the day and adults at night about food,” Lindsey said.

Sycamore Valley Farms grew out of Josh’s desire for a small farm of his own. Lindsey didn’t have farming in her background, but Josh did. His family operated a traditional Holstein dairy farm.

“They probably milked 100 or 120 cows when they were at their biggest,” Lindsey said. “I did not grow up on a farm – so I joke, that this is my husband’s dream and I am living it with him.”

After moving to the farm they decided to fill a local demand for 100 percent grass-fed and grass-finished beef. “We wanted to start with something manageable,” she said. “Milking was not in the picture for me, so beef is where we started.”

Scottish Highland Cattle, a traditional or heritage breed known for their grazing ability and rich flavored beef, were their first choice.

After researching breeds most conducive to the 100 percent grass-feed beef model, they learned more about regenerative agriculture along with heritage breeds and came across The Livestock Conservancy website – a nonprofit organization to save heritage breeds.

Once on the website, “we started doing a bunch of research of different breeds that would be good for finishing out on just grass, but also breeds that were in trouble,” Welch said. “Highland checked a lot of boxes for us.”

The breed is renowned in Scotland, England, and Europe for their grass-finished beef, and strong maternal instincts. “They rarely need help calving,” she said. “Which we needed because we aren’t here, we’re at work and we can’t be around the pull calves all the time.”

Additionally, Highland cattle are also known for their longevity. “We have cows in their upper teens that are still calving and very healthy,” Welch said. “If we were going to invest in purchasing animals, we wanted animals that could live a long time and be very healthy without vaccines, and antibiotics.”

Helping support heritage breeds, raising something different and unique, strong maternal instincts, ease in calving, and overall hardiness – Highlands checked all the boxes.

Highland Cattle’s popularity has increased dramatically since Lindsey and Josh bought the land nine years ago. “They’ve come off of the Livestock Conservancy list,” she said. “They’re definitely in favor right now.”

Because they wanted to stay true to restoring heritage breeds, they’ve added Heritage Shorthorn Cattle to their herd of 70 Highland Cattle. “We wanted to look at what breed was not going to come off the list soon, and that was Heritage Shorthorns,” she said.

As beef sales began to grow, customers began asking, “Are you going to raise chickens? Are you going to raise pork?” Welch said.

Trying to meet customer demand for pork and chicken they again turned to the Livestock Conservancy list for the same reasons they committed to Highlands. After extensive research, one breed of pigs stood out: Gloucestershire Old Spots.

“Old Spots are super hardy and do well outside – we don’t have a barn for our animals so they have to be able to make it outside in the winter with just some hutches,” Lindsey said. “We also needed a breed that made great mothers and  don’t need us pulling piglets out.”

They keep 25-40 pigs per year, selling them for meat and breeding stock.

Adding chickens to the farm looked a little different. Sticking with their model, all the egg-laying chickens are a heritage breed. However, meat chickens proved to be a challenge.

Heritage breed chickens take longer to finish and don’t dress out to what consumers are used to. “I think we raised them to 15 or 16 weeks, and we sent them in and they still looked anorexic – they were three pounds, very small, very long,” Welch said. “People aren’t accustomed to eating a true heritage chicken. They are used to a very round bowling ball chicken that has big gigantic breasts on it.”

After raising a few other breeds, they settled on Rainbow Rager, not a true heritage breed chicken, as their meat bird. “They grow a little bit slower, forage well, get a little bit bigger than a traditional heritage breed would, and finish out a little bit faster,” Lindsey said. “This has worked well for us.”

Beef continues to be the biggest segment of their farm sales followed by chicken and pork.

“We sell quarters and halves so we can just sell a lot more beef,” Welch said. “I would say if I had to guess chicken would probably sell a little bit more than our pork – there isn’t a big difference in sales.”

At the end of September, the couple opened The Fold and Flock Farm Shop – a brick-and-mortar addition to an existing barn. The store features Sycamore Valley Farm meats, locally produced raw milk, homemade jams, and sourdough bread.  

“On top of our product, we like to support other small producers and other small farms in the area,” Welch said. “People can come and get things that they know are high quality and local to their community and know they’re supporting other small businesses.”

Sycamore Valley Farms meat is available online and in their store. “Our big motto is, Know your Farmer, which is one of the main reasons that we opened the store,” she said. “We want people to come to where their food is raised. We try to share that on our Facebook and Instagram pages, but we want people to come here and see our farm, see the animals, buy their food, and know exactly where it’s all coming from.”