She was a whistleblower about pipeline pollution while working for an oil company. She has been a science teacher at Eureka Springs High School and the Thaden School in Bentonville. Now retired from teaching, Katy Turnbaugh concentrates om the preservation of threatened and endangered livestock breeds on a 57-acre ranch off Rockhouse Rd.
Katy was recently one of 12 rare breed ranchers across the country who received a grant from The Livestock Conservancy, whose microgrants program “puts funding into the hands of our most important conservation partners – the people doing the hard workday after day to steward these genetic treasures for the security of tomorrow’s food and fiber sources.”
“Small financial awards can make a big difference for heritage breeders,” Livestock Conservancy Executive Director Dr. Alison Martin said. “These strategic investments were selected as excellent examples of livestock conservation in action across the United States by our panel of judges.”
Katy will be using the grant funds to install paddocks for Mulefoot hogs and Holland, Barred Rock, Buckeye, and Araucana chickens.
“She will also extend her existing water lines to provide ample fresh water to all. These improvements will allow her to expand the Mulefoot hog herd and increase production of meat and registered breeding stock,” a press release from the conservancy said. “It will also enable Katy to expand her market for eggs and chickens in Arkansas.”
Many people aren’t aware of endangered livestock and poultry.
“We focus on things like tigers and monkeys, not to say they don’t need our attention, but what we’re losing is genetic diversity in domestic livestock that took hundreds of years to become fairly self-sufficient to survive conditions that more recently created breeds do not do,” Katy said. “I specifically work with North American species. There are wonderful European and South American breeds, but I had to draw the line somewhere. So many North American species are critically endangered, so it looked like a logical place to work.”
When Katy bought her ranch in 2004, she wanted a hardy breed of cattle that could take care of itself including handling the steep, rocky hills and weather variations. Two years later, after quite a bit of research, she decided to raise American Dexter cattle. Her Dexters have thrived.
“At the time I started, they were threatened, and now they are on the recovering list,” Katy said. “You can have a positive effect on the outcome of the breed by one person supporting someone else, and it grows from there. Now Dexters are pretty common in our area and that’s because they do so well.”
She is currently growing Mulefoot hogs, a critically endangered stock with fewer than 250 breeding pairs in the United States.
“They are tough to find,” Katy said. “I had to travel quite a distance to get them. They’re a little slow to mature, which is often true with heritage breeds, but I’m finding that’s not a really good indicator of their value. If I have a hog that can gain half its caloric needs from what grows naturally on this farm, I’ve gone a long way in maintaining that animal.
“They are fascinating to watch. They are the best-looking piglets I have ever grown on the farm. Pigs are smart, but these have a canny intelligence. They remember how to do things. The sows remember how to build a nest to give birth in. It looks like a four by six-foot birds’ nest. The males are good with the babies. They don’t do things like bite other pigs’ tails off, things we see in modern breeds in more confining conditions. Mine have quite a bit of land to entertain themselves.”
Their maximum weight is 500 pounds while other heritage breeds can get up to 1,200 pounds, a weight as big as her cattle and three horses.
“I’m not up for dealing with something like that,” Katy said. “Any aggression could be dangerous. Mulefoots are very friendly. They like having their bellies scratched and come when I call them from the woods. Plus, in a blind taste test for chefs using heritage and conventional hogs, the Mulefoot was number one in a taste test. That swayed me because they are completely enjoyable to the consumer. They need to be popular in order for their numbers to grow.”
Another benefit is the pigs are helping remove Bermuda grass, a detriment to her garden.
Her Holland chickens from Louisiana are a critically endangered dual-purpose chicken providing both meat and eggs. She is growing in appreciation of the breed daily. For example, during a recent cold spell, they were able to keep their water supply open without help.
“As far as an all-around homestead bird, they are great,” Katy said. “They love to watch me as I move around. I also raise Barred Rock, which look similar to Hollands with black and white pinstriping.”
Her jungle fowl are the best mothers she has ever found. Even though they are not a chicken, Katy uses them as brood mothers to hatch chicks. Male jungle fowl watch the skies for predators.
“I don’t lose chickens because I have male jungle fowl around,” she said.
Another favorite is the threatened species Buckeye, which she describes as super friendly, not super smart, but good mousers. Anytime you have chicken feed, you have mice. A non-endangered species she raises just for fun is Araucana, which lay Easter egg-colored eggs.
Then there are 15 fiber goats, cashmere and angoras. Katy is teaching herself how to spin wool. She wants to have cradle-to-the grave processing ability. She also likes that the goats help with “forest integrity” keeping the forest from being too overgrown.
“Where goats are, there is no poison ivy, and I love them for that,” Katy said. “And I have found you can milk angoras. So, I consider them quite versatile.”
Katy also does dog rescue, and currently has six dogs, including two guardian animals that help protect livestock from predators. She may add more heritage breeds, but there is a lot of extra work whenever you add a new species.
To people interested in heritage breeds, she recommends starting with heritage chickens by purchasing eggs to hatch, which is less expensive than buying live chickens. She points people to The Livestock Conservancy website, livestockconservancy.org/, for more information,
Her future plans include opening a farm store at the ranch and adding more produce and berries to the garden to have for sale.