Our Animals

“You are what you eat.”An old saying that I take to heart when growing food or raising animals.

Chickens – Egg layers

Egg layers are pastured raised on rotational grazing following the goats for parasite control.They are rotated so that the pasture stays healthy and the pasture is regenerated from the manure. They are fed a whole grain feed mix with kelp. Chickens raised on pasture are able to go about their natural instincts like scratching, flying, pecking and running . All of our livestock never receive antibiotics, growth hormones or steroids. They are fed a whole grain mix with kelp. I feed kelp because it contains more than 53 trace minerals in perfect balance with each other which leads to amazing tasting eggs. At least 40 % of their diet during the summer comes from the pasture in the form of bugs, worms, and forage like clover . During the winter they are fed clover hay to make up for the lack of pasture. Our breeds are rhode island red for our brown eggs and ameraucanas for green tinted egg shells.

Understanding Labels

Cage free: can still be housed with hundreds of thousands of other chickens with no excess outside

Free range: does not specify how long they spend outside or much space they have with limited outdoor space like a concrete pad.

Pasture raised: chickens allowed to roam freely outdoors for forage and feed

Chickens – Broilers

Broilers are raised for 10 – 12 weeks on pasture using rotational grazing.They are rotated so that the pasture stays healthy and the pasture is regenerated from their manure. They are fed a whole grain feed mix with kelp. I feed kelp because it contains more than 53 trace minerals in perfect balance with each other which leads to amazing tasting meat. All of our livestock never receive antibiotics, growth hormones or steroids. At least 30 % of their diet comes from the pasture in the form of bugs, worms, and forage like clover .

Understanding Labels

Cage free: can still be housed with hundreds of thousands of other chickens with no excess to outdoors

Free range: does not specify how long they spend outside or much space they have with limited outdoor space like a concrete pad.

Pasture raised: chickens allowed to roam freely outdoors for forage and feed

Goats

Goats are the most personal animals on the farm. They are pastured raised on rotational grazing plan.They are rotated so that the pasture stays healthy and the pasture is regenerated from the manure. Also to help with their parasites. They are fed a grain supplement along with an organic free choice mineral .All of our livestock never receive antibiotics, growth hormones or steroids.Goats need a a wide variety of browse to stay healthy so in the summer they get the pasture and field edges and in the winter when I trim the orchard they get some of the branches I cut.

Pigs

The breed I raise is called Tamworth they are an older heirloom breed.The differences are night and day from commercial raised pigs. I grow Tamworth because they are time tested breed so I don’t have to use any drugs to promote muscle growth, or antibiotics or dewormers. I feed them black walnuts as a tasty treat but also as a natural dewormer.

My pigs live all summer in a 4 acre clover and grass pasture instead of living on a concrete floor with only about 7.5 sq. ft per pig this standard practice for commercial raised pigs. They are in sunshine every day no artificial light this affects everything from health which results in a delicious pork.

They are fed a grain mix along with apple drops when they were in season. They were also fed cracked black walnuts when they dropped this fall. All this adds to the flavor and the marbling of the meat.

Raising pigs on pasture and/or woods is done by very few environmentally minded farmers. It is really easy to stick 10,000 pigs in a pig barn and pipe everything in and pipe everything out in artificial light. The food they eat has antibiotics and drugs to keep them alive.

I see my pigs twice a day and make sure they have adequate food, shelter, and fresh water. They are rotated on there pasture so they stay healthy and the pasture is regenerated from the manure and there is no nasty farm run off into rivers.

Turkeys

Turkeys are pasture raised on rotational grazing plan.They are rotated so that the pasture stays healthy and the pasture is regenerated from the manure. Also to help control parasites in the pasture . They are fed a whole grain feed mix with kelp.I feed kelp because it contains more than 53 trace minerals in perfect balance with each other which leads to amazing tasting meat. All of our livestock never receive antibiotics, growth hormones or steroids. At least 40 % of their diet comes from the pasture in the form of bugs, worms, and forage like clover which makes for some happy turkeys.