Blake Ranch
Big Timber, Montana
The Blake Ranch is a small family owned and operated cattle ranch that raises cow-calf pairs, and also the home for a native plant and tree nursery. Through targeted grazing and infrastructure developments, the Blake family strives to leave this landscape better off than they found it. This means grazing responsibly, managing weeds, water and wildlife with a wholistic vision for the future. From the time when Sandi and Francis Blake started the ranch and nursery 50 years ago, the Blake family has accomplished much in rehabbing the land, and there are also many ongoing projects and needs that align with this vision of improving the land.
Currently the Blake ranch sells grass-finished beef – animals that spend their lives on the ranch until their last day. The Blakes and their circle of employees are enthusiastic about land stewardship, low-stress livestock handling, harnessing nature’s cycles for timing of calving, local food, and creating relationships with integrity and transparency between producer and consumer.
What does it mean to stay on a working ranch?
As many of you may know, there’s not a ton of extra cash in small family-owned and operated beef businesses. We like to keep things tidy, and efficient, but we don’t have sprawling manicured, watered grounds, or fancy new tractors. Sometimes a fence brace may look a little cockeyed or fencing patched together while we find the materials and funds to rebuild it. That being said, we do have an authentic ranch experience to offer, where you can see the difference in recently grazed pastures compared to where we are stockpiling forage, and we might need to stop what we’re doing to let a tractor go by or help gather a stray cow while out on a ride. We do our best with what we have, and are committed to giving you comfortable, basic accommodations, great food, and good company to make your stay as enjoyable as possible. We welcome you into our ranching journey so you can ride through it all, alongside us!
During your experience here, we may cross shared fence lines with neighboring ranches who have generously given us permission to travel across their land and are supporting your experience in various ways. We have to say, we live in a pretty cool neighborhood, with some big thinkers innovating around food production and conservation.
There are many great people we work with, but here is some info about a few of our neighboring ranches:
Tangen Draw is a neighboring ranch with a direct to consumer operation producing great tasting, nutrient dense, grass finished beef and bison using regenerative ranching and low stress livestock handling techniques.
J Bar L Ranch is a neighboring ranch whose mission is to steward their land and animals to the best of their ability, offer safe spaces where people can experience personal growth, creativity, and renewal, cultivate experiences that deepen the human connection to land, animals, and self, share what they are learning at the intersection of ranching and conservation, and enhance understanding of the conservation of wild spaces.
We have the best neighbors!
Let Us Come To You
For a truly custom experience, we can come to your private property with our horses and mule string. From private events, family trail rides to packing out game, we offer a wide range of opportunities. Please contact us for more information on pricing and scheduling.