Since 2004, we have been raising animals on pasture in order to produce high-quality and tasty meat and eggs. Through constant innovation, we work to raise healthy animals using beyond organic practices, to steward our natural resources upon which we depend, and to nourish people with incredible tasting food. We work to not only sell you our products, but to educate you about animal husbandry practices. We are pretty sure nobody else will tell you the full extent of their practices, but here are ours in detail.

Currently (2010), these are the practices we are following, by animal:

PIGS

Rotated around 20 acres of certified organic pasture that is planted with a mix of annual and perennial grasses, clovers, mustards, and native weeds as well as another farm with 28 acres of oak woodland. Pigs are moved to a new enclosure every 2 to 4 weeks with about 1 to 3 acres at a time, depending on forage quality, desired impact, season, etc. Two strands of portable electric fence keep the pigs where we want them.

Diet consists of an organic hog feed formulated by Modesto Milling (which includes corn, wheat, soy, limestone, and other vitamins and minerals). Organic feed means there are no GMOs in the feed, nor antibiotics or other medicines. All of the feed ingredients are domestically grown.

Pigs are also fed organic brewers grains from Uncommon Brewers, an organic artisan brewer in Santa Cruz, and waste organic veggies from Happy Boy Farms, whose packing facility is five miles away from us. We also get organic apples from Live Earth Farms and organic pumpkins from Rodoni Farms to feed our pigs.  We strive to feed high-quality waste feeds that are generated locally. However, we will never feed food waste nor bakery waste since we can't verify that they are organic; they can be contaminated; and they are not very nutritious for the animals. Poor feed = poor tasting pork. Ask any rancher you buy from: do you feed tortillas and white bread to your animals? (One way to tell is that the meat can be mushy. Garbage in, garbage out.)

We buy weaner pigs at about 8 weeks old (weaner means they are recently weaned from their mothers) and we raise them for another 4 months or so.  We are also breeding heritage pigs ourselves, with the goal of producing all our own piglets by the end of 2010.  We went to great lengths to get purebred Tamworth and Gloucester Old Spot pigs and have been working to create a cross that has the right ratio of meat to fat, as well as good mothering and foraging instincts. We strive for about 300 pounds live weight so the pig has plenty of intramuscular fat creating pork that is rich and juicy.

LAYING HENS (eggs)

Eggs are certified organic by California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), as of January 15, 2009.

Similar to the pigs, our laying hens are moved around 20 acres of certified organic pasture using mobile chicken coops. Using electric mesh fencing, they are given about 1.5 acres at a time and moved about 200 times a year so they always have fresh, green, growing vegetation to eat as well as plentiful bugs (chickens are not vegetarians).

Predation is prevented through the use of electric fencing and an amazing livestock guard dog, an Italian breed called the Maremma, named Angel, pictured here. (Sadly, Angel was recently killed by a car, so we are looking for a new dog.) We strive never to kill native predators as we feel they are a vital part of the ecosystem.

Chicken feed is also from Modesto Milling and is certified organic. Ingredients include corn, wheat, soy, kelp, limestone, and vitamins and minerals. Chickens are also given organic brewers grains and organic waste vegetables to diversify their diet and keep our feed costs down. Granite grit and oyster shells are provided at all times to aid in digestion and keep calcium levels up in the hens.

Hens are kept for about two years then sold live to local folks. We are exploring the possibility of processing the hens in order to produce chicken stock and chicken sausage as well.

We are now buying our chicks from Privett Hatchery in New Mexico and their beaks are not clipped.  We are brooding them ourselves in a nice, big, warm room in our barn.  Our older hens however come from an organic pullet producer in California and their beaks are slightly tipped.

LAMB

We purchase young, grassfed Dorper lambs from Glenn Land Farm near Orland, CA and raise them up for a couple months on our verdant pastures, organic brewers grains, and culled organic vegetables. Dorper sheep are a hair sheep breed, which means they don't produce lanolin. As a result, the lamb meat is sweet, dense, and flavorful—with no hint of muskiness. The lambs receive no antibiotics and are never confined to a feedlot: they spend their whole lives on pasture.

The lambs are brought to Johansen's Meats in Orland. They are killed using a strong electric shock to the brain and cut and wrapped under USDA inspection.

BEEF

We purchase cut and wrapped grassfed beef from Morris Grassfed Beef, located about ten minutes from our house. Ranchers Joe Morris and Everett Spalding raise several hundred Angus cross cattle using Holistic Management principles in which the health of the grassland, the watershed, and the animals are all key goals. Cattle are raised without any grain, antibiotics, or growth hormones. They are 100% grassfed from start to finish, rotated around 2,000 acres of unirrigated rangelands. The cattle are processed at either Johansen's Meats in Orland or Paso Meats & Smoking in Paso Robles. Beef is dry-aged for at least 14 days before packaging.

We are also raising several Jersey steers on grass, but they won’t be ready until 2011. (Do you know cattle take at least 18 months to get to harvest weight? We prefer more like 24 months.) We plan to raise a handful of Jersey calves every year that we get from our friends at Claravale Farm.

PROCESSES

Because the USDA-inspected slaughter & butcher facilities are far away, we process animals every 3-4 months or so, depending on how many are ready.  Therefore, all of our meat is vacuum-sealed, quick frozen, and stored at below zero temperatures. We then transport the frozen meat to a cold-storage facility in nearby San Juan Bautista and bring it to you at the farmers' markets. Frozen meat will last at least 6 months in your freezer without any loss in flavor or quality.

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