Albert Bimper, Jr., wears a lot of hats at CSU. His roles include ethnic studies professor, an executive director in the College of Liberal Arts, director of the Colorado Rockies Sport Management Institute, interim chief of staff in the president’s office and, most recently, interim director of the School of Education.
And in the past few years, he’s been trying on a different hat – a cowboy hat.
Bimper’s cowboy roots actually go back to his childhood in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, where he enjoyed getting out of the big city and visiting family and friends on nearby open lands and small farms.
Several years ago, after a discussion with his wife about what makes eggs organic, he surprised her by coming home from Jax with a few baby chicks that would grow up to be egg-laying hens – and their amateur farm/ranch was born.
His family moved to a larger, 11-acre property in Wellington just before the pandemic, and when he wasn’t on Teams and Zoom work calls, he was building a fence around his land and watching YouTube videos about raising livestock. Bimper said he was inspired by the idea of giving his kids – ages 12, 8 and 5 – a better idea of where the food in the grocery store comes from.
Before long, he had purchased a few cattle at a local auction and was getting help from CSU agricultural sciences Professor Terry Engle and his students about how to care for and manage them. Bimper expanded the burgeoning farm/ranch to include Cornish Cross chickens, or “broilers,” in addition to the egg layers. He assembled some transportable coops called ChickShaws that let him move the chickens around his property, where they graze, peck and fertilize.
“They get a new salad bar every day,” Bimper says with a laugh. He added that for him chickens were like a “gateway livestock” to the cattle and his other holdings, which include composting areas and several bee hives that have served as both honey producers and his kids’ science fair projects.
“One of my cattle knocked a hive over and started chewing on some honeycomb, so we are always learning,” he says.
His kids participate in the plucking, preparing, processing and freezing of the broilers, and the family sells them to friends and family.
The final touch, of course, was the procurement of an 800-pound, steel Mill Scale smoker that he had to pick up in Texas and drive home to Colorado a few months ago. Bimper has become a student of the science of the smoking process as well, carefully tending to his post oak wood fires for as many as 12 hours at a time.
Plans include adding a vegetable garden and a bred heifer to start a continuing herd of cattle. His goal is to create a self-sustaining ecosystem of sorts, or permaculture, where various elements complement each other. Plus, Bimper says, it harkens back to his childhood.
“I just grew up like that, so it reminds me of home a little bit,” he explains. “Most of our meat now comes from what we raise. If I could put a pond out there and catch fish, I’d do that too.”
And it’s been good for his children.
“My kids now know where some of their food comes from and appreciate all the work it takes,” Bimper says. “They learn patience and how all these processes work. It’s been a fun adventure.”
