Burnt River Ranch

12/25/2025

There’s an article in here about pigs that one of our friends and customers sent in for us! Take a read!

The December 2025 issue of the Spirit of the Peace Newsletter is now available online for your reading pleasure. Click on the following link for access:

mdspiritriver.ab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-12_Issue-21.pdf

12/23/2025

That about sums it up. 😆

12/17/2025

Creating something we never had, little by little 💛

12/15/2025

🌾 3rd Annual Northern Women in Ag Conference – Feb 19 & 20, 2026 🌾

The Peace Country Beef & Forage Association is to bring back this incredible event for the third year in a row! This sell-out event is a must for any hard working woman in agriculture, regardless of your level of experience and knowledge!

Attendees can look forward to:
✨Over six empowering female speakers sharing their expertise and experiences
✨A vibrant female ag-focused vendor booth fair showcasing products and services for women in ag
✨Two highly sought-after hands-on workshops

🎟 Tickets must be pre-purchased and will not be available at the door. Don’t wait - this event sells out every year! Secure your spot here: https://www.peacecountrybeef.ca/upcoming-events

🎁 Looking for a thoughtful Christmas gift? A ticket to this conference is perfect for the hardworking women in your life.

📅 Connect, learn, and be inspired - see you in February!

12/14/2025

"Why show it?"
"Not everyone wants to see it."
"Ew. I don't want to see that as I scroll."
"Who would want to see that?!"

Why show it? Because this is where REAL food comes from.

Not everyone wants to see it. Because they are living disconnected to where their food actually comes from.

Ew. I don't want to see that as I scroll. It is kinda ew, but there's lots of things I'd rather not see as I scroll, but guess what? I keep scrolling. 🤷‍♀️ Welcome to the Internet.

Who wants to see that?! People that want to LEARN. People that want to know where their food comes from. People that want to take feeding themselves into their own hands.

***
Get mad. Be grossed out. Unfollow. That's on you. But I feel like it is on me to help expose people to WHERE REAL FOOD COMES FROM. Because it doesn't just appear on shelves, prepackaged.

I don't expect everyone to grow and harvest their own (especially meat), but it is YOUR responsibility to know where your food comes from.

12/10/2025

Hope to see you in February in Fairview, AB!

🌾 MEET THE SPEAKER - Northern Women in Ag Conference 2026 🌾

Our next speaker at the 2026 Northern Women in Ag Conference needs little introduction to many in the Peace Region, and you may recognize her from the very first when she hosted a workshop on small-scale farming! Back in 2026, Britney joins our list of talented speakers to share her journey in agriculture.

Britney Jacob is the owner of Burnt River Ranch near Woking, AB; a successful small scale hog farm that also raises Jersey dairy cattle, poultry and Haflinger cross horses. Though her childhood is rooted in farming, unfortunately, the privilege of having her family farm handed down to her wasn’t an option. So in 2018, after living in town for 5 years, herself and her husband Cole purchased bare land to start their farming journey from scratch.

From starting with no electricity or running water, they have transformed the farm into a profitable and completely debt-free farrow to finish hog operation (with many other diversified ventures along the way).

Her aim is to share with others their unique journey, as a way to empower and inspire people to follow their dreams, and show other women and mothers that they are more than capable to have a voice and strong role on their farms and in the Ag industry as a whole.

Learn from her and more at the 2026 Northern Women In Ag Conference, February 19 & 20, 2026 in Fairview, Alberta.

12/04/2025

We hate to think that winter will soon be here, with this nice weather we have been having, but it is the perfect opportunity to talk about keeping pigs during the winter!

Winters icy cold grip is enough to turn anyone off of keeping livestock through that season, but did you know it also has a ton of perks when it comes to pigs? Here’s a few great perks about keeping pigs during the winter season:

• Pigs are pretty resilient and durable animals. They produce a lot of body heat naturally and like to cuddle together, and with lots of bedding, they actually do really well during the colder months. There are some farms that don’t even have a shelter for them, but just provide them with a round straw bale to burrow into. We personally prefer to offer an actual shelter to our pigs, but even a makeshift 3 sided shelter made from pallets with ample straw would suffice.

• A pallet pen made from free pallets screwed together makes an awesome low-cost, easy to take down, and moveable pig pen for a few pigs that will have no trouble lasting you until their butcher date. Plus, pallets are cheap and easy to replace if needed.

• It’s much harder for pigs to root when the ground is frozen! This means less chance of escapees and less ground disturbance.

• Pigs are generally pretty clean animals when it comes to soiling their bedding and enclosure. Given the choice, they usually prefer not to pee/poop in their bed and will create one area in their pen dedicated to going “potty”. This means less cleaning out dirty bedding.

• Pigs don’t require hay in their diet, so no panicking trying to find hay like you have to for a lot of other livestock. Though they do like to eat some hay, it’s not a crucial part of their diet.

•We water our pigs once a day during the winter, and only give them the amount they will drink so it doesn’t freeze. Because it’s cold, we find they drink their fill and don’t play in it. Less wasted water, and less water to haul around as they aren’t mucking in it like they tend to do during the summer.

•In the spring/late winter when your freezers are running low, you can fill them back up with pork, & bonus, the processing facilities aren’t as busy!

12/02/2025

Decorative pillows?

Throw pillows?

All I can see is another thing that’s only purpose is to end up on my floor for me to trip over 50 times while trying to get stuff done.

Throw pillows only get thrown… in the trash.

Anyone else relate?

11/29/2025

Winning the Farm Family Award, was honestly something I dreamed of having our children or grandchildren win one day, when our farm has really established generational strength and expansion.

In my opinion, it is rare to have a first generation farm receive this Honor.
Usually, it goes to farm families that have farmed their expansive plot for many generations and many years, and have amassed a much larger amount of acres than we have. Thats why we found it such a surprise to learn we had won!?
Plus, I can’t even fit on my hands all the other farms I can think of that are just as deserving of such an award!

Though we both come from farming families, running an agriculturally based venture has skipped a generation or two, and we knew if this was something we wanted to pursue, we would have to start over.
We didn’t have a farm handed to us, to continue to grow and expand. That just wasnt in the cards. There was nothing to fix, because there was nothing here at all. Nothing to fall back on, or even get started with.
So, it was a lot of sacrificing.
A lot of learning.
A lot of researching.
A lot of hard labour and long hours.
A lot of going without and making do.
Maybe some questioning our sanity at times…

But what it did do, was make us stronger as a family, as parents, as a couple, as community members and as agriculture advocates. We have learned so many skills.

We’ve always been transparent about our journey; showing the ups and downs.
Most of all, we have really enjoyed getting to help others in this lifestyle as we go, as we have had the privilege of being mentors to others, and had lots of unique opportunities come our way.

Thank you to those who believed in us, encouraged us, celebrated with us, have been there for us during hard times, and helped us in any way to get to this point. Looking back on where we started, the farm has changed so much, as have we, but we are far from done building this crazy dream.

We are so incredibly honoured to have been recognized, even if how we have done things has been a bit unconventional. Thank you.

11/28/2025

If I look back on us 5 years ago, where we are now seemed lifetimes away.

Trust me, we have heard almost every sort of “tone it down” comment there is, but we don’t ever regret going with our gut and staying true to ourselves to get to where we are at now.

Keep going.