Welcome to Twelve Point Antlers Ranch

Every ranch has a story. Ours doesn’t start with a sprawling herd or a century-old barn. It starts with a dream, a patch of dusty Arizona land, and a series of hard-learned lessons that forged the values of our family-owned business today. Welcome to the journey of Twelve Point Antlers Ranch.

Our dream was simple: to build a life connected to the land and to raise clean, healthy food for our family. We started with five acres on a county island in Chandler, our blank canvas. The vision was grand—a home, pastures full of cattle and horses, and the wholesome bounty of a working homestead.

Our first steps were filled with hope and hard work. We built a "mare motel" for our two horses before we even had a house plan. We carefully leveled and fenced the land, dividing it into four rotational pastures. We felt the incredible joy of that first garden and the daily miracle of collecting eggs from our own laying hens. We were living the dream, and it was beautiful.

But the path to a dream is rarely smooth

Emboldened by our early success, we decided to dive into raising meat birds. We built practical hoop houses and brought home 20 Cornish Cross broilers. Then came one of our most heartbreaking lessons. To give the birds shelter at night, I built a simple, three-sided box. It seemed like a perfect solution—until an Arizona heatwave hit. Seeking refuge from the brutal sun, the birds piled into that box. We lost 19 of them in a single, devastating evening.  The lone Cornish Cross perished a week later out of loneliness.

The loss was staggering. It was gruesome, humbling, and a stark reminder that nature demands respect. That day, a piece of our naive enthusiasm was replaced with a sobering understanding of real responsibility. It was a struggle that made us question everything we were taught.

Building Our Herd, and Facing New Challenges

Our commitment to clean, grass-fed beef was the core of our dream. We started with four calves: three heifers and a steer, rotationally grazing them across our four pastures. They thrived on sunshine and native grasses, never receiving vaccines or antibiotics.

That first spring, the three heifers were bred to an Angus bull, and we added two more steers to the herd. Or so we thought. We soon had a hilarious and slightly alarming discovery—one of the new "steers" was very much a bull! The ranch was teaching us to expect the unexpected.

The second spring, we were filled with anticipation, ready for our first calves. All three heifers calved, but we suffered another painful loss when one calf didn't make it. The heartbreak didn't end there. Something changed in that mother cow after her baby was taken away; she grew fiercely aggressive. While everyone knows a dangerous cow is a liability, she was one of only three. We made the difficult decision to keep her, a choice we watched carefully every single day.

We used our homegrown bull to breed our small herd again. And after that first loss, the ranch seemed to find its rhythm. We didn't lose another calf. The females were raised as precious breeding stock, and the males were nurtured for meat. The cycle of life on our farm was firmly, and successfully, established.

A Triumph of Thanksgiving

Amidst the challenges, there were pure successes that kept our hope alive. In the other hoop house, our three turkeys thrived. We’d laugh watching them, as they’d sometimes gaze up at the sky with their beaks open during a rain shower, looking so comically perplexed we feared they might drown! They made it all the way to November.

Processing them by hand was a tedious chore that taught us another vital lesson: investing in the right equipment for the job is not a luxury, it’s a necessity for efficiency and respect for the animal. But all that work was forgotten when we sat down to Thanksgiving dinner. Those turkeys, each around 12 pounds of bird we had raised from poults, were the most flavorful, moist, and satisfying we had ever eaten. In that moment, with our family gathered around, every struggle felt worth it.

Forged by the Journey

Those early struggles—the devastating heatwave, the aggressive cow, the learning curve of herd management—are the bedrock of Twelve Point Antlers Ranch today. We carry the memory of those lessons with us in everything we do. They are why we are fanatical about animal welfare, attentive observation, and sustainable practices. We learned in the most difficult way that true husbandry requires resilience, adaptability, and a deep respect for the life in our care.

Our name, Twelve Point Antlers, symbolizes strength, natural growth, and the wild beauty we are privileged to be stewards of. Our ranch is built not just on land, but on perseverance, family, and a profound respect for the entire journey—the heartbreaks and the triumphs.

Thank you for being here and for supporting our story. We are more than just a ranch; we are a family that persevered, learned from our stumbles, and is dedicated to providing you with food you can trust, raised with integrity from our family to yours.