Background History

Hidden-Vue Farm has been in the Nortunen family for four generations and in 2007 it will be a Century farm.  The farm has been a dairy farm for many years including Jim farming it for 35 years.  In 1999 Jim quit milking and sold the dairy cows and started raising replacement heifers, and started a small beef herd on the side. 

In 2003 Jim’s son David moved back home to farm and the focus changed from dairy replacement heifers to the beef herd.  After it was determined there was too much risk and not enough reward in the conventional market we decided to look at different options in niche markets.  Later in 2003, after much research and reading several different articles in the Stockman Grass Farmer the decision to start raising Grass Finished Beef was made. 

Goals           

Unlike a lot of companies today, Hidden-Vue Farm only has one goal.  “To produce the best quality grass finished steaks available.”  Regardless of whether we finish the cattle ourselves or sell the calves to select finishers.  Regardless of whether the steaks are eaten by family, sold to friends, or sold to major markets including Minneapolis, Chicago and New York.

The overriding goal remains the same.  We want the best grass finished steak available.  To us that means a tender, juicy, healthy steak every time.  To achieve this goal we feel we will need to do two things; one, use the absolute best genetics available, and two, grow the best quality forage possible.

Forage

We understand that even the best genetics in the world won’t succeed without proper nutrition.  To grow the best quality forage available, we have been working with Doug Gunnink, owner of Dutch Mill Organic Supplies. 

We are committed to improving our soils and our forage biodiversity.  To that end we are performing soil, tissue and forage testing.  We have planted Italian Ryegrass to finish our cattle on, which has one of the highest levels of energy of any grass.  We utilize techniques taught in Doug’s seminars such as tissue, PH, and BRIX testing.  In order to improve the quality of our soils we are foliar spraying mineral and fertilizers on our paddocks based on recommendations by Doug.  This past year we foliar sprayed over 200 acres of paddocks.  We have also completed the process of becoming certified organic.  Several of our pastures have been managed organically for over 10 years with one as long as 14.

Genetics

In order to create the best grass finished herd possible we decided to have the industry’s foremost genetics expert, Gearld Fry, come out and personally ultrasound and analyze our herd.  We culled about 1/3 of our herd immediately and rated the rest of the herd on an “A”, “B”, and “C” basis.  We are culling the "C" cows as fast as we can. Gearld also went through and chose which heifers to keep as replacement heifers. 

In talking with Gearld it quickly became apparent that the best grass finished genetics existed within the Devon breed and specifically within the Rotokawa Devon Herd from New Zealand.  Since it is almost impossible to purchase these animals directly we decided to immediately purchase semen from two of the best Rotokawan bulls, 688 and 982, as well as embryos from both bulls.  This will enable us to be utilizing the best grass finished genetics in the world immediately as well as creating a purebred herd of our own that will allow us to continue using the best genetics into the future.  We used these bulls on our “A” cows and replacement heifers. 

Since it is impractical to A.I. the entire herd we searched for the best Devon genetics available in the U.S. and found them in the Lakota Ranch herd in Remington, VA., which is owned by Jeremy Engh.  We purchased three bulls from him and all animals in our herd that were not A.I.’d to Rotokawan bulls were bred by these three Devon bulls in 2005.