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Before I was born and as I was growing up my late grandfather, Johnny Smith, raised cattle on the same land that we are farming today. After he passed away, my grandmother, Carol Smith, kept the cattle operation up and running, but after a few years she sold all the cattle and farm equipment. Like my granddaddy, I always had a special place in my heart for the cows and the farm. I began to dream of the day after pharmacy school that our family could start the farm back up and follow in my granddaddy’s footsteps.
Upon graduating for the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy in May of 2013, my dad (Chad Pierce) and I went to work trying to get the farm back in working order. We named our operation J Bar S Farm in honor/memory of my granddaddy’s operation, J Bar S Ranch. We started with a Ford 1600 tractor and a 5 ft. bushhog and never looked back. We had approximately 150 acres ahead of us to get cleaned up, but we never listened to the folks that said we couldn’t do it. A few months later, we bought a much bigger tractor and started buying larger implements to help aid in our effort to clean up the land and produce our own hay. Keeping the farm looking nice and the pastures clean is a never ending job, but we have made it to a point where we are able to maintain our pastures at a standard that we are satisfied with.
We started out in a partnership on some cattle that belonged to one of our neighbors. We had the cows on the farm, but were in need of a bull and that is when we bought our first animal. The first animal that we bought was a black crossbred bull that we named Smut. As time moved on, we picked up some of our own cattle here and there, and in the Spring of 2015 we purchased the herd of cows that we had been involved in the partnership with. This group of cattle was predominately of the Red Angus breed, and after much consideration we decided to take these cattle and grow Red Angus seed stock. We bought a registered bull to breed these registered cows to, and in January of 2016 we had our first registered Red Angus calf hit the ground. We are up to approximately 50 head of mama cows, both crossbred cattle and registered and commercial Red Angus cattle. All of our cattle bare the J\S brand (which is applied with the same branding iron that my granddaddy used). We are focused on raising quality Red Angus and Red Angus influenced cattle, but our primary focus is enjoying our time together as friends and family.
Our whole family is involved with the farm in some way whether it is checking cows and doing daily activities that keep it going or bringing ice water to us boys in the hay field. There are many days that we start before daylight and work on into the night (sometimes a Friday night date with my fiancé, Lauren, may simply be her sitting on the fender of the tractor while I cut hay), but we do not do this for any other reason except that we LOVE it. It truly is a dream that is becoming reality right before our eyes. Right now, Jonathan (Jon-Boy) is involved with the farm as much as he can be when he is home from USM, but our hope is that once he graduates that he will jump right in and be working beside us all the time.
God has blessed us beyond what we could have ever imagined. Three years ago, I would have never believed that we would be where we are today, but God is good and He has taken care of us every step of the way. Everything doesn’t always go our way, but we will always give Him the praise, honor, and glory for what He has done and what He is going to do.
We are active members of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Mississippi Cattlemen’s Association, Simpson County Cattlemen’s Association, Red Angus of America Association, Southern Eastern Red Angus Association, and Mississippi Red Angus Association. We are always looking for opportunities to help promote the cattle industry, and these great associations help provide those opportunities.
Family members: Chad Pierce, Janet Pierce, Josh Pierce, Lauren Dotson (Josh’s fiancé), and Jonathan Pierce (Jon-Boy)
