Rockin H Ranch, home of
Real Farm Foods
Norwood, Missouri

About Us

In 1975, Cody left home at age 17 with his high-school 4-H project of seven cows.  That project has grown into what the Rockin H Ranch is today:  a 3,400 acre, 900-cow/calf operation, on-farm market and agri-tourism business.

Cody and Dawnnell met and in 2000 the agri-tourism business began to take shape and added to the base business of the already established cow-calf operation.  We offer several annual events that invite the general public to our ranch during different seasons of the year.  Along with these events, we offer our Real Farm Foods Farm Market, an on-farm store offering retail sales of our premium beef, pork, chicken, eggs, milk and seasonal produce.  We will be having a Grand Opening of our Farm Market in the spring of 2009.  Join our Real e-Newsletter to keep updated! 

Our daughter, Taylor, is 13 and a major part of our everyday operations.  Taylor raises our Pastured Pork and helps take care of the Free Range Chickens collecting eggs and making sure they are moved to fresh pastures.  Along with her schooling, Taylor is a key member of our family bluegrass band, Keep on the Grass, as a singer, mandolin player and fiddler.  She has been the artist for the pictures on our annual Cowboy Gathering t-shirts and helps her mom with painting signs located throughout the ranch.  Taylor's favorite animals are her barn cats and she loves to read.

Cody grew up on a small dairy farm in south central Missouri, not far from where we are today.  He bought his first seven dairy heifers at age 14.  By the time he was 17, he traded those dairy heifers for beef heifers, bought a farm and never looked back.  He has a business degree in accounting from Missouri State University and uses that background to help ensure the financial success of the ranch.  Cody is an acclaimed horse trainer and has traveled the central states displaying his horsemanship methods through round pen clinics and demonstrations.  Cody's part of our family band is playing acoustic guitar and singing.  Cody's passions are his cattle and soil fertility.  In fact, Dawnnell has to get away from the ranch from time to time to have a conversation that does not revolve around cattle, soil or dung beetles.  Cody is a proficient author of many articles published by magazines like Acres, USA and Equestrian Central and is completing his much anticipated book, Ranching Full-Time in Three Hours a Day.

Dawnnell hails from a small town area in southwestern Missouri.  She grew up with a love of music and animals, although cows were a whole new matter to her when she met Cody.  She sometimes combines her love of music and animals by singing to her milk cows in the mornings.  She attended Ozark Christian College pursuing a degree in Biblical Literature.  Her work background is in the title insurance and mortgage industries.  Dawnnell sings and plays acoustic bass in the family band.  She enjoys the daily chores mingling with the animals in God's creation much more than she enjoys housework.  Along with taking care of the majority of the marketing of the ranch events, Farm Market and website, Dawnnell also schools Taylor at home full time.  She has created a line of apparel for their Real Farm Foods which are available in their Farm Market.  Dawnnell also loves to read and hopes to one day find time to organize the family photo album.

We have a philosophy of "work with what you've got".  And "what we've got" is found in God's beautiful nature.  We have a desire and an obligation to do things naturally.  That means we use no chemical fertilizers, no dangerous pesticides, no unnatural growth hormones in our animals, no harmful antibiotics.  We like to use the term "Farmeceutical", indicating a lesser dependence or elimination of pharmaceuticals for a healthy lifestyle.  We believe God gave animals legs for a reason.  To walk around as they choose.  Our animals are never placed in confinements or small cages.  We raise our animals in sync with nature, ecologically and sustainable.  We have a God-given responsibility to ourselves and others to raise premium foods top in quality and taste, naturally.  The cycle never ends.