This has been a tough year to raise chickens. As many of you know, we have been raising pastured chickens since 2012 following our visit to Polyface Farms to witness first hand how Joel Salatin writes about how to raise pastured chickens. And, we have raised a lot of chickens that matured into nice 5 & 6 pound dressed chickens.
It's been a busy week here on the farm! Tuesday through Thursday we worked on cutting, packing, and making ground beef & organ burger to restock our store Thursday evening. Friday, our soil consultant is on site working with us on building compost piles and learning how to evaluate our biology using the microscope. More to come later. Today, I want to share a documentary on glyphosate - the active ingredient in Roundup that is sprayed on corn and soybeans to kill weeds and onto wheat & oats prior to harvest to defoliate the plant just before harvesting. In case you don't know, the seed head is at the top of the plant and receives a full dose of this harmful chemical.
Folks, I wanted to share Joel Salatin's (Polyface Farm) 5-minute testimony before Congress this week with hopes that you will read not only what Joel had to say but also comments from readers – (especially Ed and Elliott T.). Unfortunately, in Mississippi we still can only operate at the 1,000 limit vs. the federal limit of 20,000 on chicken like 40 other states operate BECAUSE of associations like poultry and Farm Bureau who through FEAR (not facts) taint peoples mind against farmers selling direct to consumers. Additionally, Farm Bureau, I suspect also lobbies to keep other insurers out of the Mississippi markets that are available in other states for farms that sell direct to consumer. I believe that Mississippi must
Today, I want to let you know about some of the steps we take to ensure the safety of the products you buy from our farm. PREVENTION is the first step. A few of the practices include: No pasture foot ware inside the plant. So, folks have inside foot ware (typically rubber boots) they use inside the plant. This helps keep out contaminants Active pest management plan to take care of any problems outside so they don't come inside the plant. Animals attract flies so we have fly bait traps strategically placed to capture flies away from door openings, etc. The following are some examples from our HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) Plan.
My family moved to what became Nature's Gourmet Farm the summer of 1970 - just before I started the 8th grade. Prior to that my exposure to farm "work" was bush hogging my stepmom's parents farm as well as spending a summer replacing a 5-strand barb wire fence along two forty's or 2,640 feet worth. Back then, all of the post were creosote wood only. Papa was a stickler for the details. Every post hole was hand dug (more than 220 of them). When setting the new post the top had to be the right height - that often meant taking the post in and out until the top was perfect. A level was used to make sure the post was perfectly straight. Then, you could put a small amount of dirt into the hole - making sure to get some all the way around so you could then "tamp" the dirt with
My family moved to what became Nature's Gourmet Farm the summer of 1970 - just before I started the 8th grade. Prior to that my exposure to farm "work" was bush hogging my stepmom's parents farm as well as spending a summer replacing a 5-strand barb wire fence along two forty's or 2,640 feet worth. Back then, all of the post were creosote wood only. Papa was a stickler for the details. Every post hole was hand dug (more than 220 of them). When setting the new post the top had to be the right height - that often meant
In the documentary "Living Soil Film" they mention that a really diverse healthy ecosystem will contain up to 10,000 POUNDS of living biology in the soils! And, that 10,000 pounds was the weight of two elephants - and elephants eat a lot. So, it takes a lot of plant matter to feed soil biology. To learn more about Living Soil and things you can do to protect your soils click to watch the FREE documentary - more than 4 million folks have. Early 2022 we had our soils tested to see why our plants were not growing. The Haney Test told us there were plenty of nutrients available in the soil, but not in the form plants could use it. The PLFA test told us the biology in our soils. The optimum would be 1:1 ratio
Last weeks article regarding the dangers of seed oil fat was well received based on the number of comments received (and only 1 person unsubscribed). In about a days time all the rendered tallow was sold out and the balance of tallow fat (yet to be rendered) was also sold out. The good news is we cut & packed beef this week and have added more tallow fat to our store inventory.
Last week I mentioned our Farm Field Day with Dr. Williams. One of the new farmers I met is named Larry. Larry also does some consulting work for the USDA. As we discussed issues in Agriculture Larry mentioned that the new farm bill was being debated in Congress. He continued by explaining that the farm bill sets the SPENDING and POLICY priorities for the USDA. And, how big business is the major influencer (through their lobbyist).
Some time ago I mentioned that our farm was hosting a NCAT (National Center For Appropriate Technology) field day led by Dr. Allen Williams. Well, the date was Saturday, April 22nd. NCAT put together a nice flyer and used their normal channels to "get the word out". I invited all the farms (12) that get feed through our farm (Resaca Sun NON-GMO), and Dr. Williams let folks he thought might be interested know as well. NCAT foot the total cost including lunch. That means attendees did not have any expense
This week our team spent a lot of time in the plant! Typically, after our last Saturday delivery route each month we turn our focus on restocking so customers will have product to order when the time comes for their delivery. We had postponed slaughtering pigs about a month until our plant was ready. Monday was scheduled for pig slaughter that would include five customer orders for half/whole pigs as well as seven pigs for our farm store. PLUS a bonus - three RAM LAMBS! Sean & Emilie (the young couple who were using our pastures for their sheep) have actually found a farm to purchase and closed on it the end of March. They have relocated all of their sheep to their farm except three ram lambs that were born here last Spring.
Thanks for taking the time to open and read our weekly Newsletters! Our open rate is consistently in the mid-50% range which is very good compared to most direct market farms. A few farms that I follow tell me their open rate is in the low 40% area. That surprises me as I thought they write a pretty good newsletter. Feedback from last weeks Newsletter regarding mRNA vaccines for livestock was extremely positive. Nobody wants to eat their shots....Right? When you come across something you benefitted from is great to be able to share with others who could also benefit. What do I mean? Well, I had been looking
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