June Farm Update - Plentiful Eggs, Farm Camps, Chicken is Back & Bone-in Pork Chop Recipe

FARM HAPPENINGS  
Farm activity is in hyper-drive as we approach the 4th of July holiday next week.  Not only do we have separate beef, dairy, and heifer herds, broiler chickens, laying hens (3 flocks), ducks, turkeys, and pigs in their pasture rotations requiring daily moves, but we also been running the week long farm camps since early June in addition to many farm tours. And chicken processing the last two weeks.  Many thanks to our youthful but hard-working farm team for helping us manage the chaos and keep it somewhat under control!

A few updates - our egg production has really ramped up with the new pullets coming into full production, including our Wisconsin flock that is getting the custom No Corn/No Soy organic feed.  We are now offering those eggs in the store on a daily daily basis and they will have a separate All Grass Farms No Corn/No Soy organic label.  The rest of our eggs are from our Illinois farm flocks that are fed a No Soy organic feed, and those cartons will NOT have our label on them.  We have so many medium eggs coming in from the pullets we are now offering the egg bundles again, buy 6 dozen or 10 dozen at a time and get up to $1 off per dozen.

Our own pasture-raised broiler (meat) chickens are back in the store as well.  We have whole and 8-piece cutups as well as some parts that will be restocked later next week.  And our first batch of No Corn/No Soy broilers of the season will be processed next Wednesday, and back to the store for fresh sales for the weekend on Friday July 5th.  The first three batches we processed were good size with an average carcass weight of about 4.4 pounds which is where we like them.  More on our chicken production in the expanded article below. 

Our beef inventory was replenished last week, so we have a great selection of steaks, roasts, briskets, and burgers for your 4th of July grilling.  And 15 of the big fat winter hogs are back in the store with bacon, pork chops, shoulder roasts, and even deli ham.  We are still waiting to get brats and sausages made with the pork trim from that batch but looking for those items to be ready the following week.  

FARM CAMPS ENDING
We finished up the last of our June Farm Camps today.  It was a little rainy for our nature hike through the woods near the Fox River, but the kids had a blast building a fort among the majestic trees of the old growth oak savannah.  Over the course of the week the campers helped bottle feed the calves every morning, collect eggs, move the turkeys, feed the pigs, transfer baby chicks out to the pasture shelters, make butter from raw milk, and splash around in the creek that runs behind the barn. Many thanks to our camp counselors Leah, Ella, and Naomi for helping out this year, we look forward to even more fun farm activities at next year's summer camps. 

FREE SHIPPING ON MEAT BUNDLES OVER $250
Just a reminder we are still offering free shipping on all online orders of $250 or more.  We ship 1-day ground to all locations within Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, and Indiana.  Check out our new selection of grass-fed/pasture-raised meat bundles.  The 25 lb. Farm Variety Pack has been popular it includes cuts from our grass-fed beef, pasture-raised pork, and No Corn/No Soy broiler chicken.  Most orders are shipped on Monday that come in the previous week. 

FARM STORE UPDATE

We are excited to be able to source more local produce in the store as the season progresses.  From Karolina's garden we have kale, zucchini, snap peas, and radishes. Grown with certified organic seed, in real soil with no chemicals or pesticides.  

 Other products of note in the farm store:

• Joe's Blues will be delivering the first fresh Michigan blueberries of the season on Monday. 
• Organic garlic scapes from Woodstock
• Lettuce mix from Broadview Farm and Garden in Marengo
• Local microgreens from Kane County Micros
• New larger bags of Masa tortilla chips, made with real tallow (no seed oils).  These are my new favorite snack!
• And we have a fresh batch of All Grass Farms T-shirts in stock, get a pig or rooster design in a 100% organic cotton shirt. 

HOW ARE OUR BROILER CHICKENS DIFFERENT?
I've been spending Saturday afternoons in the store for the last several months, and one of the most frequent questions I hear from customers is how do our broiler (meat) chickens differ from the "organic" chickens found in the grocery store. Oh what a difference!

First of all, the vast majority of organic chicken found in the grocery store is raised in a confinement building on concrete, never seeing a ray of sunshine or blade of grass.  The big poultry industry has successfully manipulated the organic standards so that a little tiny door opening onto a concrete porch outside their massive buildings now qualifies under organic standards as "outdoor access".  Of course the "organic" chickens never go out that little door because there is no food, water or grass out there on that screened-in concrete porch. 

Our chickens are raised on grass 24/7 once they leave the protected confines of the brooder house at about 3 weeks of age.  They reside in a floorless "Mobile Range Coop" that is moved to fresh pasture every morning.  During the summer the ends are removed and the sides rolled up so the chickens can bask in the sun and fresh breeze, or move under the shaded area to rest during the heat of the day. We raise a unique breed, the Freedom Ranger, that was developed specifically as a better foraging chicken for pasture-based farms like ours. The Freedom Ranger chickens grown a little slower, and they have smaller breasts relative to the body weight, but most customers will notice the more flavorful meat  they produce.  

And the final difference is in the feed.  We only feed our chickens (and all livestock) certified organic, Non-GMO feed, produced locally for us in Cashton, Wisconsin. Most of our batches of broilers are fed a standard organic feed ration which includes organic corn and soybeans. Certified organic feed cannot be made from genetically-modified ingredients, and should be free of herbicides, pesticides, and synthetic fertilizers.  It seems like a lot of pasture-raised chickens are now being produced with "Non-GMO" feed, which is different from certified organic in that it most likely was sprayed with chemical fertilizers and herbicides. 

In addition, we are raising five batches of broiler chickens this year on a custom No Corn/No Soy organic feed for those customers that have corn or soy sensitivities.  As noted above the first of those No Corn/No Soy chickens will be processed this coming week, and back in the store by Friday July 5th. 

RECIPE OF THE WEEK: BONE-IN PORK CHOP WITH HONEY MUSTARD GLAZE

For more pictures and tips on preparing this dish, please visit our recipe guru Jackie's food blog My Roots and Recipes 

That's all for now, stay healthy out there.  We hope to see everyone out at the farm soon!

Cheers,
Cliff, Anna, and the Farm Team