Our Minten Crew


At Keyser Creek Farms, we understand about wanting a better world for a better tomorrow. It drives everything that we do!

Whether it's being conscious of healthy food for our kids, or finding ways to leave our soils and pastures better than we started with, our mission is all about working towards a positive and hopeful future.

We're excited to share this journey with you!

We Farm to Serve

  • Keyser Creek Farms is a family owned, certified organic beef and dairy farm run by Ron & Kathryn Minten - and kids! We work together to make healthy food because we believe everyone should be able to provide great food for the people they love.

  • Primarily, we believe we are called to be good stewards of our land and take excellent care of our animals.

    We believe that regenerative and organic farming practices are the best way to achieve this. We build up our soils with rotational cropping, natural fertilizers and organic matter, and intensive rotational grazing. We don't use any type of '-cides' on our crops, and we'll never use GMOs or bioengineered seeds.

    We ensure that 'cow comfort' is our top priority, both their environment and their feed; and they are always treated with great care. Keyser Creek Beef is certified organic, which means it is 100% free from antibiotics and synthetic hormones.

  • Additionally, we aim to build relationships in our food communities by educating the public about the incredible world of agriculture through innovative and engaging activities and information sharing.

    We are striving to create a community food culture that builds bridges with other local producers and businesses to ensure food security in a close knit supply chain, as well as support our local economies. Also, by helping those in need through fundraising and donations, we seek to satisfy basic needs so we can all fight the 'bigger picture problems' causing poverty and hunger in our communities.

    While we continually aspire to create a dynamic farm with a blend of traditional values and innovative technology, we hope to inspire others to make healthy lifestyle choices, and share our knowledge for the benefit of others.

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The Backstory

We (Ron & Kathryn) started Keyser Creek Farms back in 2007 as an offshoot of his parents' larger farming business. They came up with a plan for us to invest in dairy cows and quota as a segment of their herd, without having to shell out impossibly huge amounts of cash (aka. debt) to purchase land, buildings, and equipment - if it weren't for this... I don't know how we we ever would have gotten started.


So, we planted our roots.


The farm was officially certified organic in 2007, and our journey to learn about treating our animals with natural and homeopathic remedies was an eye-opening experience to the world of alternative healing.  We also hired a nutritionist to help us balance the feed rations for our animals, and we watched our vet bills all but disappear! Go figure..! We dreamt of having an on-farm dairy processing plant so we could sell milk, yogurt, cheese, ice cream… I loved the idea of running an organic vegetable subscription… and we’d have an ol' general store… and… and..



But during these years, as we grew our farm and dreamt big dreams out there, we also grew our family and our best dreams actually came true right here! We had 3 little girls in just under 3 years, and two years after came our first son, followed by his baby brother 16 months later. That was 5 under 6 – and we were busy! So, of course, we threw homeschooling into the mix - I mean, at this point, why not?!  (I don’t think I dreamt as much those years – mostly tried to get some sleep!)  As new parents, we really focussed on natural treatments and healthy food - and even though I was initially skeptical of a lot of the alternative methods, I still had to admit that they worked!



It was around this time that we were finally in a position to buy the home farm from his parents. It was a great opportunity we couldn't pass up.  So, we swapped homes and made it official in March of 2012!



But life is crazy, right...?

Only 9 months later – right after New Years - we had a house fire. We moved back in to the basement of our old house - and it took us almost 2 years to finish renovations! Bless his parents’ hearts! We moved home in November of 2014 - just in time for baby #6 to be born (at home) - our 4th little girl!


               

The next stage in our journey took 7 years to perfect...


An investment like a new barn was NOT something we were taking lightly - especially Ron. He is the type to research things until he is 100% confident it will be the BEST he can make it, and every decision has to pencil out. So, we spent 7 years touring barns, attending conferences, interviewing farmers, questioning suppliers, negotiating deals, crunching numbers, and re-drawing drawings! It had to be perfect!


Oh – and we added 2 more little girls to the crew! 😉However, my pregnancies were complicated by strange autoimmune disorders… and the prenatal specialist basically told me to tough it out til the baby was born! At first, I cried… then I thought “NO WAY!” I went home, learned everything I could about my health issues, and came up with a diet and supplement program to try and beat this “incurable disorder”. At my follow-up appointment 2 weeks later, I stumped the specialist – he said it was impossible that my symptoms were going away.

…. I fixed my autoimmune disorder with food! I mean, we ate very healthy generally speaking because I knew it was important – but that was my real "AHA! Moment"…

Well, we finally built our amazing, new barn!

We ‘officially’ broke ground for this new facility in July of 2019. It took a year and half, but the last group of animals moved into their new home by December 2020. We were exhausted!  But the cows liked it so much, they hit our 5-year performance goals in less than 6 months!

In the middle of all this, (October actually) we added baby girl #7 – which puts us at our current 7-2 girl-boy split! And guess what – no autoimmune problems this time around (even though the specialist said it would come back worse with every pregnancy…!) Over all these years, we have seen how healthy food can have a powerful effect on our family, and on our farm.



ALL OF THIS STORY leads up to the opportunity we currently have to start focussing on an organic beef herd. When we go grab beef from our freezer to feed our family - you'd better believe that we've done everything we can to make it the best for our own kids! We have an incredible facility to work with, and it's given us a renewed passion to provide even more for you and your family: healthy alternatives, affordable prices, and stability.


Also, the last few years have shown us that we REALLY like food security - we think it's super important that people can rely on where their groceries come from. We believe that every person, every family, should have control and confidence over the staples of their food supply.


We also like healthy foods; and walking through a grocery store being able to afford pop and chips, but not veggies and meats, is wrong. We believe that every person deserves to eat balanced, nutritious meals, and that healthy foods are a foundational part of living a healthy life – and EVERYONE deserves that chance.



So we’re going to keep dreaming, and farming, and hey… maybe that ol’ general store will be next!







Our Most Popular Products

Testimonials

  • Sheri V.

    "Yours is better quality than other local bulk meat. I swear I'm not just saying that to be nice, I genuinely believe it." 

  • Terry

    "The beef is great! Had some friends over on the weekend and we cooked that rump roast for 11 hours (low and slow), mmmm. Also, I checked out your website, and I must say it looks extremely professional. The site is easy to maneuver and click through.” 

  • Mark T.

    "We felt we were in the presence of people doing something really special in agriculture, work and family."