Q: What is in our animal feed (for our pigs and chickens) and is it non-GMO?
A: The feed is all locally grown within 5 miles of our farm and contains corn, barley, milo, soybean meal, fish meal for essential amino acids and complex proteins, and minerals (NO antibiotics). After much corroboration between us and our grain farmer, our feed is now completely non-GMO. The farmer that grows our feed has made a significant investment in equipment to process soybeans as needed to be used in feed. He has also made the conversion to planting non-GMO corn and soybeans for use in our feed. It should be noted that Milo and Barley are already non-GMO crops. This is an effort that has been several years in the making due to the quantity of feed that we use on our farm and our desire to keep our products affordably priced and locally grown for our customers.
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Q: Are we certified organic?
A: No, we are not certified organic. The current organic certification system and process requires that the animals be fed an organic feed (we do not have access to an economical supply of organic feed), but does very little to address the quality of life of the animals, which is very important to us. In many ways we feel that we are beyond organic. As an example, currently you can raise certified organic chicken within a conventional chicken house. Thus the birds never see the light of day, their beaks can be cut off so they will not peck each other, but they have been given a certified organic feed and therefore qualify as “organic” chickens. Our chickens are outside on pasture in open bottom protective pens that are moved each day to fresh grass, they get to chase bugs as they like and eat grass.
Also, we do not spray our pastures with herbicides and rarely use any type of chemical fertilizer. 95 percent or more of our fertilization program comes from our cows, pigs and laying hens.
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Q: Do we offer farm tours?
A: Unfortunately, we are not staffed to offer tours, or to host field trips.
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Q: What comes with a whole cow and how many pounds of meat is that? Can I customize my order?
A: You will get a mixture of steaks (NY Strips, Filets, Ribeyes, Sirloins, Skirt, etc), roasts (unless you prefer to have no roasts and more ground beef), London Broils, stew meat, cube steak, ground beef, and bones. A whole cow has a hanging weight of around 600 lbs (give or take depending on the animal). You will take home around 65% - 70% of the hanging weight in meat after the moisture and trimming losses. Of course you can just divide those numbers for a 1/2 or 1/4 cow. You can customize your order - we will get the specifics from you and pass them on to the processor.
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Q: What comes with a whole pig? Can I customize my order?
A: Typically, you will get a mixture of pork chops, ribs, Boston Butt and picnic roasts, tenderloin, sausage, ground pork, and pork belly (unless you want it ground into the sausage). Hanging weight for a whole pig is around 300 pounds. You will take home around 80% of the hanging weight in meat after the moisture and trimming losses. You can customize your order - we will get the specifics from you and pass them on to the processor.