In this episode of the On Land Podcast, we sit down with Chrissy McFarren, the owner of Badger Creek Ranch in Cañon City, Colorado. Chrissy shares her journey from a first-generation rancher, originally from California, to becoming a dedicated land steward in the American West. The interview explores the challenges and triumphs of managing a 6,500-acre ranch, where Chrissy and her team balance the demands of producing food with the critical work of land conservation.

Chrissy discusses the innovative strategies she employs to restore and preserve the Badger Creek watershed, including the use of virtual fencing and prescribed grazing techniques. She explains how these methods are helping to mitigate issues like overgrazing and erosion while promoting the health of the watershed. The conversation also touches on the importance of community engagement and education, as Chrissy is passionate about sharing her knowledge with other landowners, ranchers, and the public.

In addition to the technical aspects of land management, Chrissy emphasizes the broader significance of stewardship, particularly in the context of climate change and resource management. She talks about her vision for Badger Creek Ranch as a center for education, where people can learn about regenerative ranching, soil health, and conservation practices.

Chrissy also highlights an upcoming open gate field day on August 24th, sponsored by the LOR Foundation and Western Landowners Alliance, where the public can learn about the ranch’s conservation work and enjoy hands-on tours.

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Episode Transcript

Chrissy McFarren: I think the big thing for the public to realize is that the folks who are out managing lands and producing our food are working 24/7. It’s exhausting, and it’s often for little to no money. I believe it’s the most important work there is.

Jake Lebsack: Welcome to the On Land Podcast, the Voice of Stewardship in the American West! I’m Jake Lebsack with Western Landowners Alliance. I’m excited to share a conversation I recently had with Chrissy McFarren, the owner of Badger Creek Ranch. Badger Creek Ranch, a family-owned operation in Cañon City, Colorado, is dedicated to preserving the land’s vitality and history. In partnership with the Badger Creek Ranch Community and Full Circle Alliance, Chrissy and her team focus on education, restoration, and cultural legacy. Join us to learn more about Chrissy’s work as a land steward and partner in the Badger Creek Watershed Partnership, which is working at a landscape scale to restore the Badger Creek watershed. Now, let’s begin.

Jake Lebsack: Wonderful. Well, thanks again, Chrissy. If you could just give us an overview of who you are, what you do, and where you’re located.

Chrissy McFarren: [00:01:12] Sure. I’m Chrissy McFarren, director of Badger Creek Ranch. My husband and I are the owners of the ranch as well. He does a lot of the behind-the-scenes work at the ranch, and I’m the boots-on-the-ground. He also has another full-time job. The ranch is located in south-central Colorado. We’re closer to Salida than to Cañon City. Honestly, we’re an hour from everywhere but closest to Salida. We are in the northwest corner of Fremont County and the southwest corner of Park County.

Just to say, we’re stewarding about 6,500 acres, a mix of private, state land board trust, and BLM land. We are a working ranch, raising our own beef, but we also do custom grazing for another rancher down in the San Luis Valley. We have some lamb, pork, and eggs. We do direct market sales, the farmer’s market in Salida, and a lot of educational programs as well. We have a nonprofit component that runs alongside the ranch, Full Circle Alliance, which supports all of our public interest work: retreats, seminars, and an internship program. Each season, we take up to four young adults who are interested in regenerative ranching. We also have guests who stay with us. Every week, we have a handful of guests who go out and learn about ranching, conservation work, and moving cattle. In fact, we have guests here right now. When we’re done with this call, we’re taking them out on a wagon ride for a picnic. It’s a mix of fun and tons of work.

Jake Lebsack: It sounds like a lot of fun. I am curious about the work side of this, though. What does it mean to you to be a steward of the land, and how did you decide to dive into this world and pursue the work that you’re currently involved in?

Chrissy McFarren: [00:03:50] I’m a first-generation rancher. Honestly, I was born in California, but I’ve always felt more at home in the West. So, when we came out in 2015 and got this ranch, I quickly started learning about what was happening in the West regarding overgrazing and raising food. I was always passionate about this work. I raised meat at our other farm in the Shenandoah Valley and wanted to continue doing it. I was passionate about it but also about learning what’s involved in raising produce and livestock out here. It became clear that this wasn’t just about ranching; it was about conservation work, healing the land, and educating the public about what it means to raise livestock and ranch responsibly. I got hooked pretty quickly. It feels all-consuming, and it’s a ton of work. I don’t believe someone can do it unless they love it.

Jake Lebsack: Sure. We hear that a lot. You mentioned it briefly before, but can you give us a better understanding of your watershed and how your property fits into it? And where are you located in the context of your land and water?

Chrissy McFarren: [00:05:50] Badger Creek feeds into the Arkansas River down near Howard. It’s a huge watershed, and most of it is open rangeland. It’s a mix of private ranch property, BLM, state land board, and some national forest. Regarding the group that’s come together to work on this watershed, our ranch is kind of plopped right in the middle of it.

Jake Lebsack: Perfect. Can you tell me more about this project and how it came together?

Chrissy McFarren: [00:06:41] The project, headed by the Central Colorado Conservancy, started back in 2017. The fascinating thing about this project is the dynamic group of people involved. You’ve got representatives from the Conservancy, three different ranches, the State Land Board, BLM, national forest, scientists, biologists, and Ecometrics, who are designing many of the treatments. They saw that to improve the health of this watershed, there were quite a few things that needed to be done. One of the treatments done on Badger Creek itself involved putting in these little speed bumps. We’ve got some beaver mimicry going on, using slow and spread treatments to hold the water just enough to get it to spread. It certainly doesn’t stop it, but it slows it down. After 10 years of living here, I’ve seen that we only get 10 to 13 inches of rainfall a season, but when it comes, it usually comes down in massive storms, often hailstorms, bringing a lot of water all at once, so we get flooded quickly. The hope is to slow down the water, hold back the sediment, and keep it in our watershed, hopefully in our pasture lands close to the creek and the riparian area.

We’ve been tackling certain sections of the creek bed at a time. One section will be done on the BLM, and it’s been done over the years. Last year, the riparian work was done on our section, in an area called the Old IM part of the ranch, which stands for Ira Mullick, the man who founded that part of the ranch. At the end of the year, we’ll all get together for a field day to see the progress, talk about how it went, and what we did differently. They really want to hear from the ranchers about what we’re seeing. Last year, in particular, we had quite a bit of moisture, so the watershed in that riparian area was lush. It was good to hear from some of the ranchers who’ve been here for many generations. They said they hadn’t seen it look that good in years, so that was a good feeling.

Jake Lebsack: Yeah, that’s tremendous. Thank you for sharing that. You mentioned some other projects or treatments in addition to the stream restoration. What might those be?

Chrissy McFarren: [00:10:03] The other part of all this is the grazing, which is honestly the most important part of the restoration work. You’ve got cattle using this creek for watering, which causes problems with water health from them just hanging out in the stream bed and erosion, and then they completely overgraze right by the creek.

So, number one, we, the ranchers, work together on grazing at different times, especially when the treatments are being done. It’s like, “Hey, instead of grazing in the spring when the treatments are done, we’ll graze in the fall and give it a chance to get established.”

Then we brought in Vence, a virtual fencing system. For us, they had some grant money for Vence collars. Last year, I reached out to the LOR Foundation and talked about what I wanted to do, which was to get collars for the cattle so we could have exclusionary virtual fences around the areas where all this work is being done on the creek. This way, the cattle can’t get in there and undo thousands of dollars’ worth of work, allowing the area to establish itself while promoting a situation where the cattle drink from man-made watering points. We’ve spent a lot of work getting other watering points in pastures so that the cattle don’t have to be at the creek. The LOR Foundation loved the idea, so we got the grant and had collars on the cattle. There’s a lot of learning that goes with these collars. While we were learning, we also managed to have some exclusionary areas around the work that we did, and it worked. It kept them off.

Jake Lebsack: I’m happy to hear it’s working. We’ve had some great conversations with other LOR folks. I’m always interested to hear what innovation is happening here in Colorado and beyond. But I’m curious to know how your virtual fencing techniques and practices have evolved. There seems to be a learning curve when people get into this technique. Is that a mission on your own, or is there a lot of knowledge sharing with others? And how does the partnership fit into this?

Chrissy McFarren: [00:12:55] I think it’s both. We didn’t have to get into this, but it felt like the right thing to do. Really, our long-term mission is to do the best we can to help this watershed get back to a place it once was.

Obviously, it won’t happen in our lifetime, but hopefully, we can keep these practices going. So, we were interested in doing this work, and being part of this watershed work was something all the ranchers were interested in. So, it’s kind of both: sharing knowledge, learning ourselves, and wanting to share what we’re learning with other landowners, ranchers, and anyone else involved in conservation and land restoration work.

It’s a huge learning curve. Last year, it was about learning how it works, the technical aspects, getting the collars on the cattle properly, building the base station because this is a satellite system, getting that installed, and then starting to learn how it works with solid fences. You first train the cattle to solid fences, and once they’re trained, you start experimenting. For us, it was experimenting with building exclusionary virtual fences around all these treatments to keep the cattle off the creek bed. This year, I think our next step, now that we’re starting to get more adept at using it, will be with grazing because we’ve got huge pastures. Up here in this open range, one pasture might be 2,500 acres. If there’s an area, like a corner, that they seem to hit harder than others, we’ll put a virtual fence around that to keep the cattle off that section of the pasture, let it rest, and encourage them to graze parts of the pasture that they haven’t grazed yet. The possibility is, and this is being done with Vence, that you can use a virtual fence to move your cattle. Have them graze a section of your pasture, then move your virtual fence—this is all done on the computer—and now they’ll graze another area, keeping them off the pasture they grazed before. The possibilities are endless, but we’re realistic that each year we’ll learn something new. It’s certainly experimental right now, but we’re happy with it.

Jake Lebsack: Can you tell me more about the role of the community when it comes to this watershed restoration work?

Chrissy McFarren: [00:16:28] Regarding neighbors, I think what’s been interesting, because we’re flanked by two big ranches, is getting to know the folks around us. Oftentimes, we meet them because they might be out walking on the ranch, so it’s always like, “Hey, how are you doing?”

It’s just starting to have conversations about what we’re doing. For us, it’s really about having an open gate policy. For example, we have a big event coming up on August 24th, inviting all of our neighbors to come and hear about what we’re doing. I think my biggest passion is creating a community and becoming a working ranch education center. We want people to come here for classes and projects and be part of it. You might be a student or have 40 acres down the road, and we’ll bring in facilitators so that we have the expertise here for people to learn about land stewardship, conservation work, and soil health. So, I’ve been trying to get involved in as many different projects as we can that benefit our ranch but also provide education for the entire community. My belief is that our biggest downfall with a lot of this is education and getting that education out to the public. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of information out there that cattle are the problem, and I hear that a lot, but I think that’s very unfortunate. When done properly, cattle are the solution.

And we’re seeing it here, which is why we’re inviting the public. Come on, just take a look for yourself.

Jake Lebsack: You mentioned the need for more public education and maybe to fill in some blanks for other farmers and ranchers who might be interested. When you dove into it, what resources did you leverage? What helped you learn, and where might you point other producers who want to learn more?

Chrissy McFarren: [00:19:20] I started by going to any conference I could attend. NRCS has been fantastic in providing opportunities. We’re involved in an EQIP project, and they helped us with a prescribed grazing plan. They’ve been phenomenal.

The Quivira Coalition is another great resource. They offer a wealth of information, webinars, and more. We’re currently involved in their Soil to Supper program, which is turning our ranch into a demonstration site for composting on open rangelands. They have podcasts, books, and documentaries.

Even before moving west, I was obsessed with learning everything I could. We were doing a little bit on the East Coast, learning through Joel Salatin’s work on livestock for soil health and rotating different species. His farm was only two hours from our farm, so we attended many of his classes. For me, it’s all pretty amazing. Go to a conference, learn, meet people, network, and ask, “Okay, where do I go next?” It’s like following a breadcrumb trail. The most exciting part is the networking, learning, and moving on. That might not be for everyone, but I have a thirst for it, and then figuring out what practices are a good fit for where we are at high altitude, open range, and arid environment. The land teaches us a lot.

The land is our greatest teacher. We can see areas where it’s clear we need to do something different or more. It’s a humbling experience.

Jake Lebsack: Out of all these treatments, where have you seen the most significant progress? What do those results look like?

Chrissy McFarren: [00:21:52] I think the prescribed grazing has had the most reward. Close to the headquarters is where we have our horse pastures, and we’re using electric fence paddocks, which are often used with cattle, but we’re doing that with our horses. We’re making our strip paddocks with the horses and moving them every few days, seeing a huge improvement because horses can overgraze quickly. That’s definitely been working well. Another piece is we’ve worked hard to get water points throughout the ranch. We worked with NRCS to get an EQIP project to establish water points. We’ve also gotten some additional water points through a habitat partner program, securing grants while contributing to get these water points installed. These water points are on parts of pastures that haven’t had water for years, so those parts really needed to get grazed.

Yesterday, we were riding with our guests, who are farmers from Iowa. They said, “Oh my gosh, this pasture looks amazing.” I mean, they’re from Iowa, where they have tons of water and grass. So, I was like, “Yeah, I think so, too.”

This one portion looked like prairie. We have short prairie up here, but seeing it waving in the wind was a good thing. So, I think we’re starting to see results. We’re in our 10th year, so who knows what’s possible.

Jake Lebsack: Can you outline some more of the challenges that you’re hoping this work can remedy? And just how important are things like rotational grazing, stream restoration, and how these fit into the broader question of keeping lands intact, keeping lands working, and why people beyond the fence should care?

Chrissy McFarren: [00:24:30] I think there are many different theories. Unfortunately, one is to just let the land be wild again—rewilding, which in and of itself is a beautiful idea, but I do think humans need to be part of managing this because we’ve always been part of it. We were part of the problem of how everything got to this condition, and I think we need to be part of the solution.

We need to help open lands stay open but also stay healthy, given the challenges with climate, weather, drought, and water shortages. We have to manage resources to the best of our ability, and that affects everybody. To me, that’s part of the problem. Everyone gets into their little bubbles, and if you live in town, you might think, “Well, that doesn’t really affect me.” But actually, it does. We’re all connected, all part of it.

We’re all using the same resources. A lot of times, whatever resources we have—whether it’s water flowing down or the management of lands—it all affects what’s happening in towns. We have to think about this differently, as one big ecosystem and not as tiny bubbles where everyone’s separated from one another. We have to think about it for the next generations.

I really do appreciate the thought of managing for the next seven generations. Unfortunately, the problem has been short-sighted thinking, a lot of greed, and maybe just not caring or sleepwalking among many humans.

We all need to be part of the solution for the next generation. We owe it to the generations coming after us if they’re going to have food. It’s a big problem, and maybe it overwhelms people, so they stick their heads in the sand. My hope is to educate people so it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. There’s a way everyone can get involved in helping, even if they don’t ranch or manage large pieces of land, even if they enjoy the same public lands that we’re grazing on.

One small thing I can mention is when you enjoy the same lands that we graze on, shut the gates. Just please shut the gates! One of the biggest challenges in ranching on public lands we have, luckily now we have Vence collars, so that helps, but people go through areas they’re not supposed to and leave gates wide open, letting cattle out.

There are some courtesy things that can happen that help ranchers who are ranching on public lands. I think there are ways we could all come together to be part of the solution for the health of these big open range lands. I think it affects everybody.

I think that’s the big thing for the public to realize. The folks out managing lands and producing our food are working 24/7. It’s exhausting and often for little to no money, and I think it’s the most important work there is.

If the public could do one thing differently, it’s to go to the farmer’s market and buy local produce, local meat from folks doing this work. Because if we’re not supporting them, they can’t make it. And while they’re growing food, they’re managing huge expanses of pasture lands, and it’s really quite remarkable.

I really hold farmers and ranchers in the highest esteem, so my hope is to wake the public up to that and encourage them to do one thing differently: use their dollars to purchase locally grown produce and meat.

Jake Lebsack: As you work to address these issues and do your part in all this, what’s the direction of the Badger Creek watershed and the collaborative?

Chrissy McFarren: [00:29:47] I know we’re going to continue working with the Vence collars and prescribed grazing, and really start looking at what else we can do as a ranch to help with the health of the watershed that goes through our section of the ranch. For us, it’s about continuing to look at our main objective of becoming an education center, so what more can we do there to make that more robust and improve the internship program? We’re also learning about what other practices we could implement to help the watershed, like addressing the erosion issues we have on the ranch.

So, for us, it’s about moving forward, learning, working, and collaborating with Central Colorado Conservancy and the rest of the group to see what’s next. I do know the monitoring continues. There’s been a ton of monitoring with this project, collecting data. I’m curious and excited to see what the future has in store for us.

Jake Lebsack: Well, it’s great you brought that up. It segues nicely into this next question. As you’re tracking your progress, what metrics are you tracking, and how are you doing it?

Chrissy McFarren: [00:31:29] One thing that’s really helpful is that we have our grazing plan. We start out in the spring with our plan, and I try to change things up, like if we’ve grazed one pasture at a specific time in the season, we switch things around so we’re not grazing the same area at the same time every season. We create our plan, and I track it on a huge whiteboard, noting when we’ve moved everyone. Then I go back and make a grazing plan of what actually happened, compare it, and make notes about moving the animals early or keeping them on later. Why did we do that? Because if I don’t write it down, I’ll forget it.

We have photo point monitoring, which we’ve done for the last three years. We have photo points around all the pastures, so we take pictures before and after grazing. A lot of it involves making notes about the season and conditions and keeping a log so we can go back and try to remember, like, “Did that look like that last year?”

Then we can look at pictures or notes. I think that’s super important because when we’re gone, whoever is managing can have an archive of data. It’s not necessarily scientific—so much of it is intuitive—but they still have pictures and notes to go off of, and that’s essential.

I know the Central Colorado Conservancy has lots of computer data that they’ve collected. The watershed group has lots of computer data and graphs for stream flows and to see what’s happening after rain events. I think that information is absolutely fascinating, and it influences what we’re doing too. That’s the fascinating thing about it—it’s all tied together.

Sometimes we’re left with big questions like, “Huh, I wonder if this is happening because…” and that’s all we have: a question. And a curiosity about, “Wow, I wonder why that’s happening.” We don’t know yet, but that’s part of what makes it exciting: we become students of the land, and the land is trying to teach us what needs to happen. Oftentimes we experiment, grazing this part differently, and sometimes we’ll see, “Oh my gosh, that worked really well.” It’s such an organic process and definitely a humbling one. I don’t think I’ve ever learned more in my life than I have in these last few years.

Jake Lebsack: Well, I always think it’s interesting how that qualitative and quantitative information and data play off of each other. You mentioned it before, but I think this might be a great opportunity to plug the upcoming event with a little more detail. What does that mean? What are you hoping to accomplish? Who’s going to be there? And how does it all fit into the work you’re doing?

Chrissy McFarren: [00:35:26] On Saturday, August 24th, from 10 am to 4 pm, we’re having an open gate field day opportunity. It’s free for the public. The biggest plug I’d like to give is that it’s made possible by the LOR Foundation, first and foremost. They reached out and said, “Hey, we’ve got this grant for a storytelling opportunity to talk more about last year’s project, the Vence collars, and the riparian restoration work.”

I thought about it and was like, you know, why not do that? Why not have everybody out? Every year, we normally do an open gate event where we have folks out, and it’s more about food and square dancing. This year, it’s really more about the education and restoration work. It’s an opportunity to hear from the ranchers involved, what they’re seeing, especially the other two. This is my first go-round with this ranching thing, whereas the other two are multi-generational ranchers, so they know what’s going on. They know this land well, so it’s to hear from them and hear stories about the land from the ranchers. It’s also to hear from some of the folks involved in the project.

We have other sponsors, including Western Landowners Alliance, so you’re going to hear a bit from them about the work they do. We’ll have tours that will go out to two spots on the creek bed so people can see for themselves what it looks like and have someone talk about the willow plantings and these little speed bumps that slow down the water. They can see the vegetation for themselves. I think we’re going to have our horse-drawn wagon take folks out to some of these spots. We’ll also have a lot of chili, and everyone will have an opportunity to have some of our grass-fed beef in some chili. The main intention with having this be free to the public is for education, so folks from the community, other landowners, and anyone interested can come and network, talk to people, and hopefully, inspire others to try doing things on their property.

And again, even folks who have 40-acre parcels—even if they could be educated about grazing differently. Unfortunately, what happens is a lot of times those parcels get overgrazed quickly and turn into dirt. So, even if they say, “Oh wow, I could actually get an electric fence and do rotational grazing on my little 40 acres,” that sure makes a difference.

So yeah, the main intention is to inspire, educate, and network.

Jake Lebsack: Thank you so much again for taking the time today; I really, really appreciate it.

Chrissy McFarren: Absolutely. Thank you so much.

Jake Lebsack: [00:39:05] We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of the On Land Podcast. Thank you so much to Chrissy for taking the time to talk about all the work happening across the Badger Creek watershed, her missions of education and building community, and the role stewardship plays in sustaining her way of life. To find show notes for this episode and others like it, check us out at onland.westernlandowners.org. Thanks for listening, and I hope you will join us next time when we talk with other Voices of Stewardship in the American West.