Sweet Grown Alabama Blogs

Youngblood Ranch located in the small southeast corner of Franklin County has three mottos or slogans: 

1) “Slap some bacon on a biscuit and let’s go! We are burning daylight!” -John Wayne

2) “If you didn’t bleed, sweat, cry, or almost die did you actually do anything.”

3) “Not just beef, BETTER BEEF!” 

We are a modest, first-generation, woman-owned, mom, dad and four daughters family-run cattle ranch. We are Kirsten and Dane. The ranch was established in 1995 as an idea and a tiny 20x20 garden to provide higher quality self-sustained food for our family. We have always had a passion for being self-reliant and self-producing what we need. Some years we were successful and others it didn’t happen at all. It was in 2021 that we decided the only way we were going to truly be successful and make our passion a reality was to go 100% in. We knew this is what was going to bring us true freedom and happiness. It was more than a chance to be self-reliant. It was a chance to strengthen our family. Some may call it ‘homesteading’, we call it living.

Jobs had taken us to Texas where we gained an appreciation for the beef industry and saw that it could be done better on a small scale. In August of 2021 we decided we would leave our full-time jobs and become a ‘Wilderness Family Robinson’ (Youngblood) of sorts to focus solely on the Youngblood Ranch beef mission. That mission was to provide the best all-natural, steroid free, antibiotic free, vaccine free, GMO-free, grassfed beef with great taste and high nutritional value. Dane had attended Ranching University at Texas A&M where he learned that Wagyu beef is some of the healthiest beef in the world. Call it providence. Call it good fortune. Call it divine intervention. Regardless of what you call it, we knew that this is what we were supposed to do, and Alabama is where we were supposed to do it. 

We along with our daughters, have invested every drop of blood, sweat and tears in trying to produce the best beef possible and making it accessible to everyone we can. We do this by providing beef on a small quantity basis. We don’t feel that most people have the budget to buy a whole or half cow at a time, nor do they have the freezer space. That is why we sell it by the pound. You can buy just one pound of Wagyu hamburger if you want. We make sure the choice is yours. One pound to 100 cows, your choice. It is offered and can be found at local Alabama farmers markets, restaurants in Texas and directly at the ranch in Franklin County. Come on by and take home all you want. 

Try it and you will discover why the Youngblood Ranch motto number three is "Not just beef…BETTER beef!"