Every great steak has a story behind it, and we always hope it’s a story we actually want to know. At Maize you know our goal is to build a food system where it’s always a good story. At Beauvine Enterprises in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, the good story starts with a dream, a little land, and four cows.
We spent a morning on the farm with Rachel Hartline, who runs Beauvine with her husband Beau. Over a walk through the pasture (and a few handfuls of treats for the herd), Rachel shared how the farm came to be, why they chose the cattle they did, and what it means to her to be both a farmer and a physician in a rural community.
It Started with Four Cows
Beauvine didn’t begin as a big operation. It began with a purchase of land and a very small herd.
Today the home farm covers about 130 acres and carries around 130 head of cattle, babies included. That works out to roughly one animal per acre, with a few off-site pastures the herd uses during the summer.
A Dream That Kept Pulling Them Closer to the Land
For Beau, farming was never a new idea. It was a homecoming. “Beau grew up on a farm and in agriculture, so that was always a dream of his. And I think he’s been happier every move we’ve made more rurally and more agriculturally, and that makes me happy, too.” Rachel puts the appeal simply:
“It’s just good to get your hands in the dirt, you know, see things grow and make the land better.”
Why Galloways?
Walk out to the Beauvine pasture and the first thing you’ll notice is the cattle themselves: shaggy, sturdy, and undeniably cute. They’re Galloways, a breed you don’t see on many Wisconsin farms. That was a deliberate choice.
“They’re just not a super common breed. But we picked them because they’re very hardy, and because they mostly birth well on their own without a lot of help, and they finish well on grass.”
For Rachel and Beau, choosing a breed was really a decision about what kind of beef they wanted to raise. Rachel notes that a lot of the modern breeds take a lot of corn input and things like that, and we just didn’t feel like that is the kind of meat that we want to make. So at Beauvine they chose a breed that does well on grass.
That philosophy carries through the animal’s whole life. Every calf at Beauvine is born on the farm and stays there.
Learning the Language of Cattle
Unlike Beau, Rachel came to farming without an agricultural background. Asked what surprised her most, she pointed to the hands-on skill of working with animals.
“I didn’t grow up rurally or in agriculture at all. So I feel like the skill set I now have with animals is different than what I anticipated. How to maneuver around them and move them. I think that’s been my most significant learning curve.”
Part of that learning curve is understanding what motivates the herd. As we watched the cattle crowd toward a fresh section of pasture, Rachel laughs, “They’re here ’cause there’s fresh grass. They don’t care about me, but they are excited about the grass.”
They also have their favorite snacks. Potatoes and pumpkins go over well, and alfalfa is probably the best treat of all. One animal, Rachel recalls, especially loved apples.
And the Galloway mothers? “They are very fierce moms,” she says. The cows that aren’t attentive enough to their calves don’t get bred again, which keeps the herd’s natural mothering instincts strong.
Caring for the Land
Raising cattle on grass is as much about tending pasture as tending animals. At Beauvine, the herd is rotated often to fresh sections of grass, a practice that gives the land time to rest, encourages healthy regrowth, and helps protect against erosion.
Rachel and Beau also look for small ways to work with nature. Their big winter project this year was installing bird boxes along the fence line for swallows, which are excellent at eating flies. They’ve also overseeded grass and alfalfa on top of the prairie that was already growing on the land.
Beauvine is a member of the Wisconsin Grass-Fed Beef Cooperative and follows its protocols with every animal. Their cattle are never given hormones, and they avoid the routine use of antibiotics.
A Farmer and a Physician
When Rachel isn’t on the farm, she’s caring for patients as a physician in the Dodgeville area. For her, the two roles strengthen each other.
“One of my favorite things is the shared sense of community. Probably like 50% of my patients are farmers or involved in agriculture. I think it helps them trust me when they know I’m out in the rain and the snow, no matter what, feeding my animals, and I know the same struggles that they know.”
Bring Beauvine to Your Table
Behind every cut of Beauvine beef is a family, a herd that’s never left the pasture, and years of thoughtful choices about how food should be raised. It’s the kind of story that’s worth sharing with the people you feed.
Chefs, grocers, and wholesale buyers can connect with Beauvine Enterprises directly on Maize to see their products and wholesale pricing.
Maize is an online community and wholesale marketplace connecting small farms with the people who cook and serve their food. We can build a connected resilient local food system, when we do it together. Thank you Beauvine for the work you do to move this dream forward.
