218 | Custom Grazing, Katahdin Hair Sheep, and Building a Farm Legacy in West Virginia with Justin Frye

About this episode

Justin Frye discusses building a farm legacy in West Virginia through custom grazing and managing livestock.

Justin Frye of JMR Farm in Rio, West Virginia joins the show to talk about building a farm from scratch on a family property that's been in his family since 1847. He and his wife Maggie custom graze cow-calf pairs, run a Katahdin hair sheep flock, and buy and finish feeder lambs — all while working off-farm jobs and figuring out what enterprises fit their operation best. Justin shares the story of how his grandfather's surprise offer to sell the family farm set everything in motion, how a connection through a mentor led to their first custom grazing arrangement, and what three consecutive years of drought have taught him about managing grass for someone else's cattle. He also walks through the sheep learning curve, going from 89 ewes down to 30 through hard culling, and explains their feeder lamb protocol from receiving through market. Topics covered: Growing up on a family farm in West Virginia and the influence of mentors at Potomac State College Buying the family farm (in operation since 1847) and what made it financially possible How a mentor connection led to their first custom grazing opportunity What services JMR Farm provides under the custom grazing agreement, daily…

People in this episode

Host: Grazing Grass

Guest: Justin Frye

Topics covered

• custom grazing
• Katahdin hair sheep
• farm legacy
• drought management
• family farm
• livestock farming

Keywords

• custom grazing
• Katahdin hair sheep
• family farm
• drought management
• livestock farming
• feeder lambs
• cow-calf pairs

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: JMR Farm

Places: West Virginia, Rio

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