Restock Dates: Please see our Farm Blog where we post our weekly newsletter for the latest updates

Turkeys, Eggs, and More

written by

Ben Simmons

posted on

October 14, 2023

Well, a few folks read last week's newsletter that we were restocking turkey--ground, legs, thighs, and wings--Oct 10th and grabbed some before the order deadline date. Awesome!!!

Speaking of TURKEYS - ours will not be ready for Thanksgiving this year due to the weather struggles. UGH!

Then, I received an email from a farm in MI that had a large retail contract to cancel which left him with a lot of turkeys to sell. And, Joe's Farm was offering them at a good price plus shipping, adding $1 or so per pound when bought in a pallet quantity of 60 turkeys.

They were fed NON-GMO Project Verified feed. Raised on pasture with daily moves. Processed under USDA inspection. Will be processed this week and frozen.

And, the best news is they will deliver in time for our customers to receive their Thanksgiving Dinner centerpiece during the November regularly scheduled pickup times.

There will only be sixty (60) turkeys available. I would really like to have them in hand before adding them to our website. But, we will see once we have the delivery info.

Thanksgiving is one of our annual holidays when families come together and enjoy each others' company. It's always a 4-day holiday weekend so there is plenty of relaxing time. And the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving meal is the turkey. Maybe this year you would like to splurge on a pasture-raised, NON-GMO fed turkey for your family. I'm sure it will be a hit with everyone!

Be looking for more details coming soon.

EGGS - we are in the process of converting our feed from a pellet NON-GMO to the mash NON-GMO that includes all-natural health additives which also makes for those dark yellow yolks that folks look for. Currently we are working through our pellet feed inventory so the change most likely will be hit or miss based on the eggs you receive. We should be well into the new mash feed before Thanksgiving.

Last week I mentioned that our next BIG project will be planting our winter grasses. Well, this week we harvested seven beef and six pigs Wednesday. Additionally, the project to replace property line fence was completed except for the top strand of "hot" wire.

Friday was spent preparing equipment, etc. for planting which will start Saturday morning. Will probably take about 8 days or so to complete if all goes well.

What a blessing the rain was we received on Wednesday. Our rain gauge shows 2.75 inches fell in the 20-24 hour period, so very little, if any, runoff.

OK - that's all for now. Be sure to check out our Product Availability updates below.

** Product Availability Update **

NOTE: Restocks are made about 6 PM on the dates indicated below!

Chicken - Restocked Oct 10th. Next restock will be October 18th. We currently have about 850 broilers on our farm. Processing will continue for twice per month for the balance of the year.

Turkey - Oct 10th restocked ground, wings, thighs, and legs. We also have two separate age groups on pasture now, but will not be ready for Thanksgiving.

Eggs - Restock each Wednesday.

Beef - Next restock will be October 27th.

Pork - Next restock will be October 18th

Lamb - Restocked September 13th. Scheduled to process about 12 lamb in November just in time for Christmas

More from the blog

Farm Visitors

Since we started selling via our online store in 2016, the number of visitors to our farm increased. Then, building the on-farm USDA poultry plant in 2019 spurred a lot of interest from folks who were interested in raising pastured poultry and were looking for a way around the MS Department of Ag regulation limiting the number of chickens per farm to only 1,000 per year. Most of the folks visiting were potential customers looking for naturally raised meats to feed their families.

Farmer Musings!

Beth & I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving - and turkey if you purchased one our our pastured turkeys. For our family the turkey did not disappoint. I spatchcocked (removed the backbone) so the turkey would lay flat. Beth then brined it for a day before smoking. It turned out tasty and juicy. Before our Thanksgiving meal each of us shared something we were thankful for. Beth's sister Debra shared the following:

A Day Processing Ground Beef!

Overall rain this week on our farm was about ONE inch! Not a lot in the big scheme of things, but very appreciated. It was enough to make a difference for our winter grass as you can see from this picture. In some areas of other pastures it appears that the seedlings died after germinating back in October. An observation that the heavy dews was not enough to keep them alive.