FARM HAPPENINGS
We finally have some much-needed snow cover after a long dry spell, so we can't complain except it would be nice if it didn't all come at once! Another 3-4 inches last night means a a couple hours of plowing out the drives and barnyard today before I can bring the beef herd in from the pastures for water. Some of the farm team took time on Thursday to goof around in the snow and make a funny short video that we posted on our Instagram page. More of these to come as our new Farm Manager Cody is pretty good with the videos and has a great sense of humor.
As pictured above, we did eventually locate some good outdoor feeder pigs a couple of weeks ago, but I had to drive all the way to South Dakota to pick them up. Over the years we have found it increasingly difficult to find quality feeder pigs (usually about 2 months old) that are raised outdoors and have good pig instincts and strong immune systems. Most pig production has moved indoors and increasingly to large confinement barns, those pigs don't do well in our pasture system. We are considering the possibility of starting to farrow our own pigs, but adding another enterprise to our already complicated and diverse farm operation will require careful consideration.
2025 FARM TEAM & PLANS
We usually spend most of January huddled around the kitchen table evaluating spreadsheets and financials from the previous year and planning for the upcoming production season. Last year was a challenging one for us, with a new farm manager and new crew at our Brunner Farm location. Milk production was horrible and egg production uneven for much of the year. Good news is we hired a new farm manager in November and everything has been running really smoothly since. Cody was with us in 2020 for six months and we are very happy to have him back (Cody is married to Molly - our former store manager and favorite sourdough baker!).
He is working with Eric, who joined us mid-year and has turned into a superstar farmer. Eric will be managing our poultry production this season (layers, broilers, and turkeys). And we just hired Meg in January, she comes with a few years of dairy experience and we expect she will be managing the dairy operation once she gets comfortable with our cows and pasture system.
With the new team in place our winter production of milk and eggs has been very strong, even with the crazy demand for eggs (our egg production is more than double what it was last winter). We are hoping to increase egg production as the days get longer and warmer, and expecting 1000 new hens to join the flock in early April.
We are planning to raise two additional batches of pastured broiler chickens this year (500 each batch) and converting about 60% of our total production into parts this year (vs. 25% last year). The demand for chicken parts vs. whole chickens continues to grow and we have to try and keep up with the times. Three of the batches will be raised on the corn free/soy free organic feed that some of our customers prefer. The processing dates for all the batches will be listed on the board in the farm store.
As for turkeys, we will raise about 250 in the spring and summer to process into parts (breast, tenders, drumsticks, and ground turkey) by late August, and then another 625-650 whole turkeys planned for Thanksgiving. A total of 250 of those will be set aside for fresh turkey reservations, but this year our processing dates were changed so the fresh turkey pickups will be on Tuesday and Wednesday the week of Thanksgiving (no Saturday pickup). We are now accepting reservations for those fresh turkeys on our website.
FARM STORE UPDATE
We have started working with a new local produce supplier recently - Tulip Tree Gardens is based in Beecher, Illinois but they aggregate and distribute organic produce from a number of local farms. Of course there is not much fresh local produce available this time of year but we are excited to have them on board as we move into the growing season.
And we are hoping to get more fresh produce this year from our onsite grower, Karolina, who mainly grows for her CSA customers. She is now taking orders for her 2025 CSA program - a weekly or biweekly veggie share that can be picked up right at our farm store.
We have finished processing all of our summer and fall pigs and have totally restocked our pork freezer with all the favorites - the maple sage ginger breakfast sausage links, fresh and smoked Kielbasa, regular and jalapeno brats, chorizo, Italian sausage, and yes…bacon! The only sausage we are missing is the Farmers Hot Breakfast sausage but that will be included in my next pickup from our Indiana pork processor.
Other items of note in the store - we have lots of onions, shallots, garlic, local Blue Adirondack potatoes and sweet potatoes, local squash, green cabbage, asparagus, brussel sprouts, carrots, celery, red & orange bell pepper, local microgreens, avocados (not local!), lemons, ginger, local apples, pears. All organic.
That's it for this week, now that we are pretty much finished with the winter paperwork deluge I hope to get back to a more consistent weekly farm newsletter. Stay warm out there this week!
Cliff, Anna, and the Farm Team