Jason, Theresa, Garrett & Sawyer Zuk is the family behind Bar Z Beef, and the ranch hands at Bar Z Ranch, situated 10 miles west of Arborg, MB
Jason & Theresa have been married almost 21 years. We have two pretty incredible sons - Garrett our oldest, is 19, working on a his heavy diesel mechanic apprenticeship and has achieved his level one this past fall. Sawyer is 17, in grade 11, and goes to school in the morning and recently began his welding apprenticeship, which takes up his afternoon. We all work on our ranch, as we are a pretty tight unit. Whether it be calving cows, working in the hay field, managing meals, baling straw, or watching gates, feeding winter rations, etc we all work together to get the ranch tasks completed.
Our agricultural roots run deep. Jason grew up on a mixed farm of grain & cattle, located pretty much a quarter of a mile from where we are now. The farm Jason grew up on was established by his great grandparents many years ago.
Theresa grew up on W+ Ranch, solely a cow/calf operation, about an hour southwest. It is a ranch established by her parents and very much a family run operation.
We were running a feedlot & grain farming with his parents up until 2009 when we decided to venture out on our own with our boys and started running our ranch.
We run a good sized herd of commercial cow, with a strong black angus/simmental influence in our breeding program. We start calving by the 10th of April, take to grass at the beginning of June. Round up begins usually later October, with weaning by the third week of November.
The rest of the year is steady hum of feeding a corn/oat silage based ration to our bovine in the winter. Making hay ,chopping silage & managing forage crops for feed keeps us busy in the summer/spring months. And maintaining good herd health is a top priority year round at Bar Z.
Bar Z Ranch has started down the road of taking on a more regenerative agriculture approach to our land and herd management. We feel this will be a considerable benefit our ranch lands, herd and environment. We are excited to implement more regen ag practices and continue educating ourselves more in this type of ranch management.
We made the decision to start a direct marketing beef side of our ranch in February 2020. We saw the need and want from consumers for ranch raised beef. Consumers appreciate knowing where their beef is grown and how it is grown. Hence, Bar Z Beef was established. We are absolutely dedicated to transparency on how we grow our beef and raise our animals. Herd health, animal care and environmental care are all the priorities on our ranch. The quality of the beef we retail is a reflection of all this. The beef we retail is exactly what we feed our family. A ranch raised, high quality product is always the end goal for our beef reaching our customers plates.
We are a Verified Beef Production Plus certified ranch, and thus we are also recognized certified under the CRSB Certified Sustainable Beef Framework. This means we have reached a national certification focused on-farm safety, environment stewardship, animal care, biosecurity and community involvement. This is done through thorough record keeping of all vaccinations, herd health practices, pesticide management, manure management and feed documentation. We are audited by a third party to ensure these practices are continuous.
