Our Practices
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The quick take: We care deeply about healthy & safe food, happy animals, and a clean environment. To bring about these things, our animals are raised outdoors, are regularly rotated on pasture, and are fed only organic feed.
The long take: As you probably already know, food production is a complex and nuanced endeavor, and the plethora of labels and claims made by producers can cause a lot of confusion for consumers. We believe the best antidote to this confusion is to build a food system in which consumers have access to food that is bought directly from local producers that are transparent about their practices. We are committed to this ideal and thus will provide a detailed description of our practices here for those who are interested. Feel free to contact us with any questions.
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We raise Jersey cattle for both dairy and meat. Our cattle are fed grass, the food they have evolved to eat. During the grazing season, they eat fresh grass from the pasture. We utilize a method called intensive rotational grazing, which means they are rotated to a new patch of grass on a daily basis. This mimics the behavior of wild ruminants and it is a practice that helps us to simultaneously keep both the cattle and the pasture ecosystem healthy. Grasslands have great carbon-sequestering ability and are the sites of enormous biodiversity, and grazing cattle (or any ruminants) are the keystone to this whole system. We just love watching our herd as we move them to new grass each day, seeing them joyously munch the grass as they convert sunlight into nutritious food for humans. When fresh grass in the pasture is not available, we feed our cattle hay (which is just dried grass) that is organically grown. Our lactating dairy cows are sometimes supplemented with a small amount of grain during their lactation. All of the grain we feed is certified organic (organic is always non-GMO).
Under this system our cattle are very healthy and infrequently have any health problems. In the rare event that an antibiotic or other medication is warranted, we believe that using it is the right thing to do. We never use antibiotics preventatively or to stimulate faster growth – they are only utilized with discretion in situations of acute illness in which no alternative treatment is available.
Under this system our cattle are very healthy and infrequently have any health problems. In the rare event that an antibiotic or other medication is warranted, we believe that using it is the right thing to do. We never use antibiotics preventatively or to stimulate faster growth – they are only utilized with discretion in situations of acute illness in which no alternative treatment is available.
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Chickens and turkeys are not ruminants like cattle, so they require grain to grow and thrive. All of the grain we feed is certified organic (organic is always non-GMO). Our meat chickens and turkeys are raised in portable pasture pens. These are bottomless pens that give the birds protection from direct sun, rain, and predators, while allowing them to eat bugs and grasses. We move the pens to fresh pasture on a daily basis to give the birds continuous foraging and to ensure even manure distribution, which revitalizes the grass for the cows. We raise White Ranger chickens and Broad-Breasted White turkeys.
For most of the year, our laying hens live out on pasture and are sheltered in a movable chicken house, which regularly moves to different locations throughout the farm. This benefits the hens by allowing continuous foraging of bugs and grasses, and the pasture by providing even manure distribution. During the winter, it would not be appropriate to raise chickens outdoors in our climate, so they live in a ventilated shelter from December through February.
For most of the year, our laying hens live out on pasture and are sheltered in a movable chicken house, which regularly moves to different locations throughout the farm. This benefits the hens by allowing continuous foraging of bugs and grasses, and the pasture by providing even manure distribution. During the winter, it would not be appropriate to raise chickens outdoors in our climate, so they live in a ventilated shelter from December through February.
Other Farm Store Products
The other products that we sell in the farm store are obtained from local farms that hold the same values as we do. In the spirit of full transparency, we always list the farm of origin on the signs in the store. You can find links to our suppliers’ websites on our farm store page.