The Red Feather Ranch

The Red Feather Ranch on the banks of Salt Creek

Located on the banks of Salt Creek, the Red Feather Ranch offers a peaceful respite for hiking, off-grid camping, and horseback riding. Although Salt Creek meanders through the ranch, for the bulk of the year this creek is dry, so the creek bed becomes a scenic trail during the dry season. Underground springs still provide pockets of freshwater in the creek. Large boulders and rock formations stand as silent guardians of time. The ranch boasts oak trees so large that two people standing with joined hands cannot touch fingers around the base of the trees. We invite you to join us.

The Red Feather Ranch on Salt Creek offers trails for both the intrepid hiker and rider with exciting and vigorous trails which crisscross in and out of the deep banks of the creek. For those wanting a more relaxing hike or horseback ride, they may ride the level woodland trails or the creek bed itself.

We are dog-friendly at Red Feather Ranch and so well-behaved dogs are welcome on the trails. Because this is a working sheep and cattle ranch, with Livestock Guardian Dogs, Border Collies, and horses, we ask that visiting dogs stay leashed while in the barnyard or near livestock.

We offer limited barnyard tours by appointment where visitors may meet and feed our heritage breed Navajo-Churro sheep and horses.

The Red Feather Ranch has two nice ponds stocked with bass and catfish. Visitors to the ranch have the opportunity to catch their own dinner!

Although we offer tent camping spaces in the forest, if visitors wish to bring a camper or living quarters horse trailer with a generator, space is available near the large pond for set-up. All horses are required to have current Coggins papers.

RED FEATHER RANCH IS TEMPORARILY CLOSED TO CAMPERS DUE TO THE DROUGHT AND THE CONTINUED THREAT OF WILDFIRES.

The Navajo-Churro Sheep

Located in the rolling hills northwest of Fort Worth, Texas, Sheridan & Robert Langford work with breeders across the country to preserve the genetics of the unique and hardy Navajo-Churro sheep. These sheep are excellent multipurpose animals that produce meat, milk & fiber. Here at Red Feather Ranch, in addition to selling lambs and fleeces, we milk our ewes and make sheep milk soap that we sell both here and through our Salt Creek Soap Works page on Facebook. Sheep milk has such a high fat content that the soap made with our Navajo-Churro milk produces a much creamier bar with more lather than our traditional goat milk soap.

High quality raw churro fleeces and roving are available both in the spring and the fall. Quality churro fleeces will contain a soft inner coat measuring 3-5 inches and a coarse outer coat measuring 6-12 inches. The fleece is open with no defined crimp. The inner coat wool fibers range from 10-35 microns. The outer coat fibers measure 35+ microns.The fleece can be spun as it is, or processed by separating the hair fibers from the soft inner coat. This will yield a fiber easily suitable for scarves and sweaters. The churro fleeces also produce a superior yarn for weaving.

At Red Feather Ranch our goal is to produce traditional type sheep with high quality fleeces in rich, natural colors. Because we are also focused on producing Navajo-Churro ewes that can also be used as dairy animals, breeding for temperament is important here. Please visit our Facebook page at Red Feather Navajo Churros to meet the flock and pick out your favorite fleeces and lambs, or sheep milk soap.

Red Feather Navajo-Churros is a member of The Livestock Conservancy "Shave 'Em to Save 'Em" program which connects shepherds of heritage breeds with fiber artists.

We also offer classes in Intro to Spinning, Basics of Peg Loom Weaving, and Basics of Continuous Strand Weaving.

Navajo-Churro Sheep

The Navajo-Churro descended from sheep brought into the Southwest by Don Juan Onate over four hundred years ago. These sheep were used to feed and clothe conquistadors and Spanish settlers. By the 17th Century the churro had become vital to the people of the upper Rio Grande Valley. Native Indians acquired flocks of these sheep and within a century these churro sheep had become a major economic asset for the Navajo, or Dine' people. Meat, milk, and wool from these sheep sustained the Dine' people for centuries. Renowned for its hardiness and versatility, these sheep survived a series of government-sponsored efforts to eradicate the breed. First, in the 1860's, as an effort to subjugate the Navajo people, and later by its efforts in the early 1900's to "improve" the Native American flocks by the introduction of other breeds, the US government nearly destroyed the native Navajo-Churro sheep. Through great effort from the Dine' people and others, the flocks were restored and the sheep were saved from extinction. Although still listed with the Livestock Conservancy as threatened, the numbers have rebounded enough to maintain a healthy breeding population.

Sheep Milk Soap

Ours is more than your Grandma's old-fashioned lye/lard soap. All our sheep milk soaps are made using lye water, lard, sunflower oil, coconut oil and Navajo-Churro sheep milk from our own ewes. No artificial coloring is added to this soap. The unique color of each bar comes from the different properties in the fragrance oils added moments before pouring the liquid soap into a mold. These oils give the soap its color as it dries and hardens.

We do not take the lambs from the mothers at birth. Either we wait until the lambs are weaned or wait until the lambs are already eating solid food before we begin to milk their mothers. Our sheep live as natural a life as possible.

The Navajo-Churro sheep is a multipurpose animal thus it was not bred to be a specialized dairy animal. Our ewes do not produce the volume of milk that our Nubian Dairy Goats produce, but they produce a milk with a much higher fat content. This results in a creamier bar with more lather. The milk is also sweet with heavy cream and absolutely no 'gamey' taste. This milk is the perfect addition to your morning coffee!