Prairie Creek Farms is a regenerative, 80 acre farm just west of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Established in 2016, Prairie Creek Farms provides Grass-Fed Beef, Pastured Berkshire Pork, Pastured Chicken, and Pastured Eggs to the Tulsa and Oklahoma City regions. Owners, Jason Ketchum, Nate Beaulac, and Peter Prulhiere model many of their practices after Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms in Swoope, VA – using animals to prune the pasture, heal the land, and rebuild the soil.
Prairie Creek Farms started as a lengthy road trip conversation between a few college buddies in the winter of 2015. We were talking about the food system and what was wrong with it. None of us knew where to go to get pasture raised meat, meat that wasn’t raised in some huge warehouse and bathed in antinbiotics. We started researching farms and found that there wasn’t much around this area (Tulsa, OK). Jokingly, we tossed around the idea of starting a farm and raising animals in a regenerative, sustainable way.
A month later we had secured the scrubbiest 3 acres we could find, and agreed to pay $1 per year to lease it. We were looking for something close to town where we all have jobs, and it had to have running water. This acreage wasn’t pretty. It was thorns, bushes, bramble, snakes, but it had a beautiful flowing creek running through it. After doing some research, we purchased 10 Berkshire piglets on January 30, 2016 and began our farming journey. Just on the other side of the creek, was a seemingly endless Oklahoma prairie, thus the name “Prairie Creek”.
A short 18 months later, Prairie Creek Farms is on 80 acres in Kellyville, OK, raising chicken, beef, eggs, and of course, Berkshire pork. We supply hundreds of families Oklahoma every month, and are on the menu at a half dozen restaurants.
“At the end of the day, we are grass farmers. Grass is the center of every operation we have here, and the animals are our tools. The pigs are in the woods cleaning the place up; the chickens are on the pasture eating flies, fertilizing, and leaving us an egg when they’re in the mood; and the cows are mowing the lawn and trampling the weeds. Every animal at the farm has a really great life, and one bad day.” – Nate
