Who We Are
Cassebaum Farms received its name in the early 1900’s when “Grandpa” and “Grandma” settled in Lillian, Al. They came from Germany to Chicago sponsored by a family to work. As time passed by “Grandpa” looked through a newspaper found a homestead with 40 acres in Lillian. Along with other family members the Cassebaums settled and began farming. We have now evolved today into a fourth-generation farm with lots of changes, innovations and memories made. The owner of the farm today is Todd Cassebaum (3rd generation) who is married to Hope Cassebaum. They have two children August Cassebaum and Kelsey Hopper (Destry). August works on the farm full time planting and maintain the production of the crops in the field. Kelsey Hopper is a full time Agricultural Education Teacher. Destry Hopper is employed by the farm and his job description includes the care of the cattle and maintaining/ organizing the vegetable operation. The two have a daughter named Margaret, and we all know she is the real boss. She knows more about our customers and cattle than we do. Finally, we have three additional hired hands that pick up the slack wherever they see is needed and help us be successful in our farming operation.
What We Do
Outside of the produce operation that totals about 100 acres during the summertime, we farm roughly 1800 acres of crops. The crops include field corn, brown top millet, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and oats. During the off season of our crops, we plant brown- top millet as a cover crop or rye grass for the cattle as winter pasture. Our equipment is run mostly by a GPS system. This allows us to be more effective and be more sustainable in our practices when we start applying nutrients back into the ground. We have around 180 cow/ calf pairs that we care for year-round. The cattle graze Bahia grass with some clover during the summertime. During the winter months cattle are let out onto rye grass pastures, using rotational grazing to maintain levels, and fed 2 bales of baleage and 1 bale of dry hay every other day to maintain their conditioning. Our cattle are bred naturally with 1-2 bulls (Angus and SimAngus) in every herd. When calves are about 6 months of age (usually around July) we start weaning cattle based on the color tag. Certain tag colors tell certain months the babies were born. By September we have weaned all calves off their mothers, conditioned and sold at 700-750lbs. We keep about 25 heifers with the best composition every year to breed and put back into the herds to replace older cows. Alongside the row crop operation and cattle, we have the summer produce, pecans, fall produce, and strawberries. We do things a little differently than others, we pick our produce fresh daily. If we have corn left over from the day before we dispose of it. What really makes our stand successful are our young, high school employees who take pride in our operation and work diligently every day to ensure the product is the best it can be. As you can see the farm stays busy year-round and we have little to no downtime. However our end goal is to be the best stewards on our land and be sustainable in our practices.
