If 2020 was a little crazy, 2021 is going nuts! January was not a quiet month for anyone in this country. We hope you are staying safe, not breaking laws or trying to overthrow a democratic government and wearing your mask.
Our offerings for 2021 are once again different than years past. We are adjusting as we go to meet demand as we can.
The beginning of February we send the first round of emails to our 2020 bulk beef and pork customers giving them the first option to put in their reservations for meat this year.
Mid February the second round of emails goes out to our 30 pound box order customers from 2020.
The end of February any openings we have available will then be listed online for all other orders.
There is very limited beef but we hope to have more pork options.
We often get asked if we can just raise more beef, we could but we would need more land, then add on more mom cows that fit our program. We do not have the resources to invest in more land adjacent to us, land isn’t cheap and so far we can’t afford more. We have been here 10 years this coming July and finally are at our sweet spot where the land is now fully productive, we have a herd of homegrown mom cows that are calm, grow well on just grass, calve with no problems and their calves are just the same. We have ample market for our amount of beef and the farm is paying it’s way foward. We can make all our own hay to feed the entire here thru the winter and graze the entire herd from May til November on our pastures with nothing extra.
Pigs, we have restarted our breeding program with 2 sows - daughters of our last sows and hope to add on a few more. We’ve had to purchase some piglets from others but we really prefer our own genetics and having them born here on the farm on our own dirt instead of in closed barns. It’s more work to do it all from breeding to finishing but it’s been the best way for us. So sure we can add pigs on at anytime we need to IF we can find piglets to purchase. In 2020 when you may have heard of the big processing plants shutting down well thousands of animals were DESTROYED and never processed into meat. BUT thousands of piglets were shipped by truck to other parts of the country, sold at local auction houses and purchased by farmers, homesteaders and aspiring people looking to raise their own. These are genetically special pigs bred to grow well ONLY in a confinement temperature and light controlled barns. What we saw was disgusting to us. Horrifying actually. Pigs put in outdoor pens with no shade so yes they were horribly sunburned, many developed horrible terminal pnuemonia and similar ailments. And NO veterinarian to treat them. Yup, you heard that right. It is impossible for us to get a veterinarian for pigs even to answer a call . These naive people found the same- no help.
THEN what these naive people didn’t know was that many couldn’t find a local butcher to process the pigs for meat when they were ready. What happend to them? Many struggled to do it themselves or “found a buddy who knew how to butcher a deer”……….. Some had to wait months and months so had massive pigs going to slaughter. Of course hundreds died from all sorts of issues.
So what does this have to do with 2021? Well many farmers just stopped breeding their pigs and slaughtered the sows for meat. But the demand for piglets is still high and raising practices still questionable. We are looking to add some more good ones but we have enough on the farm at the moment with 2 litters due this spring. We can feed a lot of people and proud to do so.
So how does a small farm grow larger to meet demand? We are meeting the demand and futher growth takes years with a cost we are not ready to take on.