About Us

Our Story

We are the Estabrook family, first generation ranchers. Bruce, Carri, Jacob, Caleb, Zachary, Luke, Keren, Hannah, Seth and Elias. Early in our marriage Bruce and I (Carri) had a vision of owning and operating our own ranch. We both grew up in a small touristy mountain town and loved where we were raised, but looked to the valleys and wide open spaces for raising livestock. We frequently explored our surrounding areas looking at land we'd like to own. Life moves forward and we moved out of the mountains and into the city where Bruce and his brother started their own business. Bruce worked hard building a life for our growing family, even so the dream of ranching never died. Most of the outings we took with the children were drives looking at land and penciling the numbers when we found something that might be in our price range. Praying, saving and working toward our vision, we made the decision to purchase 40 acres as a stepping stone to acquiring more land. We never lived on the 40 acres, God in His wisdom intervened in an unexpected, miraculous way. We sold the 40 acres and in selling, opened the doors to purchase a 400 acre ranch in North East California. Bruce continued to work at his business, commuting a few days a week from the city to our ranch, an 80 mile drive. Ranching was not an easy way of life to jump into especially without a ranching background. We have made plenty of mistakes over the years as we have worked hard at making it a sustainable lifestyle. Our first dream of ranching was for our children. We wanted to give them a life where they were free to roam without the restrictions that suburban life offered. Our dream came to fruition when our oldest was 17. Bruce and I had hoped that all of our children would experience as much of the ranching life as possible. It seemed disappointing that our children were growing older before we could offer them the opportunity. Looking back the timing was perfect, the older children were able to build and work the ranch along side of us. We literally could not have done it without them, especially with Bruce working a full time job away from home. The ranching life has given us the opportunity to produce our own meat and to know exactly what goes into the animals we raise. We knew we wanted to raise our animals to the best of our ability, cleanly, humanely and in a non stressful environment the way they were intended to live their lives.

Our ranch is located in the high desert which means not a lot of pasture land is available for grazing. In the summer our cattle go to a ranch in Oregon where they feed on high quality grass pasture while we grow hay for winter feed. Committed to raising only grass fed beef, we are working toward our goal of selling meat direct.

Our ranch name "E8", comes from our cattle brand which is "E8". Having 8 children and our last name being Estabrook. We tossed around the idea of E10, however the extra number made the brand too long for the cows' right shoulders. It was more practical to have the shorter brand, "E8". I'm certain the cows haven't had a problem with the shorter brand!