Mike and Erin Galloway founded Our Wyoming Life in Gillette, Wyoming after leaving their corporate jobs in radio. Our Wyoming Life is a social media brand that explores ranch life and invites others to escape the ordinary.
We sat down with Erin and Mike to find out more about how they went from corporate life to ranch life.
Tell us a little bit about your operation: where is it at, and what do you grow and raise?
My name is Mike Galloway, my wife, Erin and I are cattle producers in Northeast Wyoming, near Gillette.
For years, our operation has been strictly a cow-calf operation but with Erin’s continued interest in local food we found ourselves branching out, starting with farmers markets where we offered locally raised beef and pork along with produce.
We continued to evolve our business by becoming advocates for agriculture through social media.
We now offer our products online and in our own farm store located right on the ranch.
You both have a really interesting story about how you got started with your operation, and how it eventually became Our Wyoming Life. Can you share that story?
Until 2008, Erin and I had no real ties to agriculture. We both worked in corporate radio and advertising. Erin’s mom had married her step father, Gilbert, while Erin was in college.
That year, Erin and I were asked to come back to help on the family ranch when Gilbert’s health began failing. After a winter of feeding cows we decided to stay and start our family on the ranch. When Gilbert passed a few years later we dedicated our lives to continuing his legacy.
While Erin started attending farmers markets, I took to figuring out a cow calf operation, even going as far as buying a book called “Beef Cattle for Dummies.”
In 2017, we decided to post a video about how our cattle were raised on the ranch to help promote our local beef business.
A four and a half minute video about feeding the cows went viral and 24 hours later we had amassed 1500 subscribers to a YouTube channel we didn’t really mean to make.
We continued to post day in the life type videos but soon realized that we wanted to do more and become proponents for agriculture.
We continue to try to educate views on where your food comes from and the families behind it, stressing the importance of small ranchers and farmers and local food.
What is it like running both an operation and a YouTube channel at the same time? How do those things work (or don't work!) with one another?
Filming on the ranch can be a challenge. We deal with weather and animals, two things that are usually out of our control.
One thing we learned early on was that both YouTube and the Ranch rely on each other.
The ranch is a character in our story and without it, there wouldn’t be one.
As we move into fall run, what is at the top of your mind for your herd and calves?
Ranching is never easy and we have learned that hard decisions constantly have to be made.
This year, after dealing with drought all summer long we will be reducing herd size to help keep feed costs under control over the winter.
Preg checking will help make some decisions but at this point we are making decisions that will affect the herd and the ranch for years to come.
How have you used FBN® Livestock in the past?
FBN has allowed us to regain control over pricing that has been out of our hands for years.
Being able to compare what we pay to what others pay for the same products across the US has given us the chance to do what is best for our operation.
At this point, we use FBN for all of our branding and preconditioning medications and treatments, we have use FBN for all our mineral requirements and FBN has helped us with fly control. All in all, making our herd healthier and more efficient.