Our Farm:

Thank you for visiting our web site.  The Tiny Texas Ranch is actually a small local family farm operated by the Wolfe family in Harlingen, Texas.  We feel people have a right to know where their food comes from so we support the move back to local food production.  The meat we raise is born right here in Cameron County Texas and grown on our 17 acres under the watchful eyes of Ken, Kay, and Josh. 

We no longer direct sell our all natural wholesome foods at farmer’s markets or from our front gate.  We have retired for now due to the rising cost of feed and the oppressive regulations by local, state and federal agencies.  We believe safe local food should be available to everyone but feel we can better serve the public in an educational capacity.  Our hope is you find inspiration from this web site and experiment with raising your own food.  The benefits go much farther than great taste and nutrition.  This is a very rewarding way of life.   

Our Methods:

If I had to describe our farm or our meat in one word, that word would be REAL.  Real food to me is food created the way nature made it before scientist became involved.  Today's food has changed more in the last 100 years than the previous 2,000 years.  The baby boomer generation is the first generation to eat foods raised on artificial fertilizers, sprayed with chemical pesticides (both plants and animals), raised or fed genetically modified seeds, using scientifically created freakish animals kept alive and growing on antibiotics and in some cases arsenic and/or hormones.  They have done a fantastic job in bringing us a constant food supply at a cheaper price (compared to a percent of our income) than ever before.  But, there is an alternative and that is meat raised the way your great grandfather probably raised it.     

Here at the Tiny Texas Ranch, we use the heritage breeds that were selectively breed over generations to grow and prosper outdoors on grass.  They were also selected for their taste since the farmer that bred them, ate them.  We raise everything out on pasture in family units where they have room to run and play while grazing together whenever they so desire.  Our animals are only confined when giving birth but not always even then.  We never feed antibiotics or enhancing drugs to our animals.  Animals have been raised successfully for thousands of years before such aids and we see no need to start now.  Just like they did one hundred years ago, we use only natural herbs and organic products.  We did extensive study and research and learned the key to healthy animals is healthy soil and balanced minerals.  Nearly every ailment from parasites to infection can be traced back to either a mineral imbalance or a man made problem. 

To keep our animals healthy we test our soils and add only natural fertilizers and minerals.  We feed our animals sea kelp to provide the best minerals balanced by the sea.  Consequently, we never worm our pigs because they are not infected.  In addition to the pastures, we provide them with a daily ration of whole grains and natural earth minerals for optimal health.  Aside from water, that’s it!  

Our Heritage pork comes from two different kinds of rare pigs known for their exceptional taste.  These two breeds were developed long ago in Europe by farmers who raised great pork in outdoor production systems.  Our turkeys are also a Heritage breed that won the taste test for the best tasting roasted bird.  Our eggs come from nothing less than French hens and of course we feel the best raw milk on earth comes from one of the oldest breeds, the Guernsey. 

Our History:

Ken and I were both raised on small farms in Arkansas where we grew up gathering eggs and feeding animals from the time we could walk.  Ken worked in the fields starting in grade school and then later for neighboring farms as a teen.  Instead of growing up with video games, I passed the summer months shelling peas or tending the garden when I wasn’t riding horses for hours on end.  That love of the land and nature brought us together with a shared dream of having our own farm.  It took a lifetime to make that possible but that dream came true at a place known as Wolfe Mountain. 

By the time we became farmers though, farming had changed.  It looked nothing like the farms we knew as children.  They had become corporate conglomerates and the animals were no longer treated as animals but objects.  They became “protein units” that were pushed to produce as much as possible in the smallest space possible.  Most breeds were unable to survive that sort of condition so they were quickly discarded in favor of the one breed mentality, a monster breed that was created by scientists, not farmers.

In the name of more profits, most of these animals are fed antibiotics and a cocktail of stimulants to keep them alive and growing fast.  Needless to say, these methods have been extremely successful at feeding the masses but we want to provide an alternative.  We decided to go back to our roots of Heritage farming since we were going to be eating our own products and were tired of eating “fake” food, as we call it.  Taste and quality became our number one goal as we set out to find the best breeds to produce. 

In 2009, we moved our farm and our family from Wolfe Mountain to the Tiny Texas Ranch in the fertile Rio Grande Valley due to Ken’s health problems.  Now that our farm is smaller, we are forced to produce less so quality over quantity is even more important now.  We can’t feed the world but the folks we do feed eat the best in the world!

Our Mission:

Our goals on the farm are to:

The Art Work: