Learn & Play
Your stay at Badlands Heritage Guest Ranch will be one to remember! We deliver plenty of opportunities throughout the season for guests to learn more about regenerative agriculture, as well as local history and culture. Check out our event calendar below for farm and garden tours, guided hikes, guided fossil hunts, cowboy poetry, and Lakota cultural programs.
We do our best to stick to a regular routine, but sometimes Mother Nature laughs at our schedules. When that happens we roll with the circumstances and do our best. Here’s what we have planned:
Morning Chores: daily @ 7:30am
Horse Training Demonstration: Monday-Wednesday @ 9:30am
Campfire: daily @ 7:30pm, depending on interest level and weather
Guest season opens! Our does (female goats) will start kidding (giving birth) towards the end of May. You will love to see kids (Our goat kids, that is!) bouncing around in the goat pen! If you’re lucky, you might even get to see a baby goat birth. Depending on how much the grass is growing, we may start rotational grazing with our livestock.
Kidding season continues, and planting in the garden begins! Because we live in a colder climate, we start many seeds indoors up to two months before planting in the ground. Once the danger of frost has passed, we begin planting outdoors. By this time, we are usually moving our livestock to different pastures at least once a week.
Now in the middle of summer, things are really heating up and we’re hiding out (From the sun, that is!). We get most of our chores – moving fence and animals, watering, and weeding – done early in the morning. Harvest of some of the early crops starts. When it gets dark, the goats naturally come back into their pen for the night. We do a quick head count and make sure everyone made it back.
As the heat of summer endures, we continue with our daily routines of caring for our animals and rotating pastures. We begin harvesting more crops, like cucumbers, green beans, and beets. We try to stay on top of weeding in the garden. If there is plenty of grass, we start cutting and baling hay in late summer.
The garden is really popping by this time! There are lots of flowers and insect activity going on. We use our chicken flock to keep the grasshoppers down, and also utilize companion planting to keep other unwanted insects away from our food crops.
The baby goats are getting close to 50 pounds by now, and it’s weaning time. Mommas and babies alike make a lot of noise when they are first separated. But after a few days, everyone settles into their new routines. This is also the time of year fall calves are born. By mid-October, we usually have a baby milk or beef cow ambling around.
The rugged beauty of the Badlands draws visitors from around the world. These striking geologic deposits contain one of the world’s richest fossil beds. The park’s 244,000 acres protect an expanse of mixed-grass prairie where bison, bighorn sheep, prairie dogs, and black-footed ferrets live today. Our ranch is a short 10-minute drive from the park entrance.
Hurley Butte Horseback, located on a working cattle ranch, lets visitors experience the lifestyle of a cowboy from the saddle. With guided rides on the open prairie, you are able to ride to the best of your ability at your comfort level. Our ranch is a 15-minute drive from Hurley Butte Horseback.
The Prairie Homestead, an original sod home of Mr. & Mrs. Ed Brown, was built in 1909. It is typical of the homes and outbuildings that pioneers built and is one of the last remaining original sod homes intact today. An interpretive walking tour will take you back in time. Our ranch is a 20-25-minute drive from the sod home.
Cowboy Corner is a hidden gem located on a less traveled path in Interior, South Dakota. In addition to the basics of food, drinks, and gas, they have some locally-made items that you won’t find anywhere else. And, you won’t want to miss the prime rib on Saturday nights! Our ranch is a 10-minute drive from Cowboy Corner.
