A workshop group hangs out in a field in front of a barn

Every year, Badger Creek Ranch opens their gate to the public for an educational community field day. As part of this year’s Open Gate event, Quivira is excited to collaborate with Badger Creek, Grasslands LLC, and the Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS), to bring our programming to the heart of the Rockies.

Badger Creek is renowned for their success with prescribed grazing in Colorado’s Arkansas River Valley, and at this workshop, you will hear from local ranchers Chrissy McFarren (Badger Creek) and Jim Howell (Grasslands LLC), as well as Dixie Crowe (NRCS rangeland management specialist) about what is possible when it comes to managing your herd in riparian, high-elevation, and/or arid climates. After spending the morning learning about grazing your livestock in and around challenging environments and landscapes, stay for lunch, a tour of the Badger Creek property, and more family fun during the other Open Gate events!

Attendees will learn how to navigate the terrain and technical challenges of riparian areas in the high-desert to achieve increased soil carbon and soil moisture, healthier pasture, healthier animals, and healthier riparian areas! Some techniques and tools we will be discussing include prescribed grazing, virtual fencing, and portable electric fencing. We will also learn how to apply for and receive funding through the NRCS.

Lunch provided.

Questions? Contact Nina at nina.katz@quiviracoalition.org

Jim Howell‘s life and career have centered on ecologically regenerative and economically profitable livestock ranching. He is passionate about the intersection of wilderness, wildlife, domestic livestock, food and fiber production, and land-based human cultures—all of which overlap and can harmoniously coexist in the space of grassland agriculture. In addition to managing his family’s own ranch in western Colorado for 17 years, he has managed and consulted for large landscape working ranches, mostly in native rangeland environments, across the American West and Northern Great Plains, the South Island of New Zealand, the Pampean and Patagonian regions of Argentina, and peninsular Florida. He has also traveled extensively, working on, visiting and capturing stories of progressively managed ranches across southern Africa, Australia, and Mexico. Much of his lessons are captured in his book, For the Love of Land—Global Case Studies of Grazing in Nature’s Image. He co-founded Grasslands, LLC in 2010, and has served since then as its CEO. He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, with his partner, Megan Machmuller, and is the proud father of two incredible daughters, Savanna and Mia.

Chrissy McFarren is the owner, director & ranch mentor at Badger Creek Ranch near Cañon City, Colorado. She is a first-generation rancher and is passionate about regenerative agriculture and education. She and her husband Dave have owned Badger Creek Ranch for a little over 10 years, where they raise our own livestock, sell grass fed and finished beef, lamb, pork and eggs, and offer custom grazing. Their non-profit, Badger Creek Ranch Community, sponsors retreats, educational workshops, and an internship program for beginning ranchers.

Dixie Crowe is a NRCS Rangeland Management Specialist in SE Colorado and Past-
President of the Colorado Section of the Society for Range Management. She works with a variety of livestock producers in the Southern Rocky Mountains to create
conservation plans to improve their operations through conservation technical assistance, the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP), Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), and Conservation Reserve Program for Grasslands (CRP Grasslands). She provides technical assistance to the Farm Service Agency on their annual NAP grass insurance program in her service area.Dixie also presents at local events and shares her love of range, soil, and rotational grazing. In 2024, she presented two sessions on the benefits of grazing at the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Technician training event in Pueblo. In 2023 she hosted the Colorado Section of SRM annual meeting in Canon City and presented Rangeland Soil Health
workshop and field investigation. She served as a site proctor for Future Farmers of American (FFA) range judging events in SE Colorado since 2021 and co-teaches the Soil and Water Conservation course at Camp Rocky since 2022, a week-long summer
course for high school students, sponsored by the Colorado Association of Conservation Districts.Dixie has a B.A. in Journalism and Media Communication (2016), a B.S. in Equine Sciences (2016), and a Master’s of Natural Resources Stewardship in Rangeland Ecology (2018), from Colorado State University. During her undergraduate and graduate programs, she did the graphic design, video editing, and production of a series of four eBooks on Equine Reproduction available on iTunes with Dr. Patrick McCue, the Iron Rose Ranch Professor of Equine Theriogenology at Colorado State University’s Equine Reproduction Laboratory. She was the media intern sponsored by the Colorado Beef Council for the 2015 Range Beef Cow Symposium hosted by the CSU Department of Animal Sciences. At CSU, she was on the 2015 novice Quarter Horse Judging team, the 2015 Arabian Horse Judging team, and the 2015-2016 CSU Seedstock Merchandising  Team showing purebred Angus and Hereford bulls and heifers at and the National Western Stock Show and putting on the 40 th anniversary CSU Bull sale in 2016. During her master’s degree, she was a non-competing member of the soil judging team and was a part of the student, faculty, and professional soil scientist teams that did the soil surveys in Dinosaur National Monument in 2017 and 2018 to prepare for their
grazing management plan. She spent three years as a graduate research associate doing PhD research in soil science at the University of Wyoming working on a three-crop rotational farming with fall cover crops study using conventional tillage, low-tillage, full irrigation, and 75% of full irrigation with fall cover crops and livestock integration before leaving the program and coming to NRCS in 2021.