Meet Troy and Claire Eckard, Owners of Iron Springs Ranch

Iron Springs Ranch is more than a home to us, it’s a vision. We began in 2019 with 43 acres, the ‘Home Ranch’, where we dreamed of watching our herd of endurance horses run across green pastures in the cool mountain temperatures. We envisioned a lifestyle that encompassed eating from the land; fresh farm eggs, vegetables, fruit from our own orchards, and beef from our own herd of cattle. We imagined our grandchildren riding horses, picking fruit, tending to the garden, and running around in the fresh mountain air, learning to appreciate all that nature offers.

As we began living our dream, the dream expanded. Never ones to take the easy path, Troy and I began researching holistic land management, regenerative farming, and how we could be the best stewards of this land that was now entrusted into our care. We had always enjoyed an active, outdoor lifestyle, but other than some ranching experience in Wyoming as a teenager for Troy, and many years of owning horses and riding in long distance endurance races, this would be a very different undertaking from anything we had done previously.

Our dreams were given the chance to take root when a neighboring property, the A Bar V Ranch, also found its way into our stewardship. The ‘Big Ranch’ which came with a 400-acre conservation easement and over 5000 acres of State Land Lease, gave us the capacity to put everything we were learning about regenerative ranching into practice. We knew this was going to be a challenge, but thirty-six years of marriage had taught us how to push through tough times to enjoy a better tomorrow! Instead of winding down towards a quiet retirement, we would rather gear things up toward new adventures!

Now, both the ‘Home Ranch’ and the ‘Big Ranch’ are encompassed under our ranching and farming enterprise, Iron Springs Ranch. With the forefront of our vision centered around improving the health of the soil, we put together a herd of quality Angus and Angus Cross cattle to work for us, by trampling organic matter into the soil and putting natural fertilizer onto the land making it rich in nutrients. In turn, the land feeds our cattle, producing some of the finest grass-fed, grass-finished beef in the state.

Our holistically managed orchards are producing fruits that we are developing into products to share with our Beef Club members, the Prescott Farmers Market, and eventually, we hope, through a farm store that will bring our community together for a healthier future, for both us and the land we live on.

We hope you will come along on our journey with us!