Greetings from the farm! It's been a long time since we've updat
ed the blog and for those of you who subscribe, we apologize. Happy New Year! We had a great 2016 on the farm, we made some changes with our farm help last season and decided to to keep on two of our apprentices from 2015 and hire them as full-time employees and not hire any additional help. We managed to make it through the busiest times with less people, which was difficult, but we made it happen and we're so happy to have had Travis and Tina with us for the challenge.
We raised a few more broiler chickens on pasture this past season and moved to a mobile range coop design to replace many of our smaller chicken tractors. We liked working with the mobile range coops so much that we're planning on making the switch to using them exclusively. If you haven't seen one of our MRC's in action, it's a pretty amazing way to raise chickens on pasture and is much easier on the farmers' back due to less bending and less time all around for moves and feeding. Here's a short video example of one here.
In other news, Chris and I were invited to a conference in Texas for pastured poultry producers from around the country. We were two of about fifty other farmers nationwide farming the way that we do here in Walpole. It was humbling to be among some of the top producers in the country including the well known farmer Joel Salatin and his son Daniel. We soaked up the knowledge that we gained from all of our peers and now that we're home again, we're starting to plan for the upcoming season with fresh ideas and a positive outlook.
We're looking forward to ordering chicks in March and starting the season, it always amazes us how quickly we need to start the planning for the warmer weather! We will be continuing our weekly Movie Nights at the Barnstarting in June so if you didn't attend one last year, you must come out for a great family evening of local food, entertainment, beautiful views, and community.
Our farm store is well stocked this winter, we have plenty of whole chickens, chicken parts, turkey parts, all cuts of beef and pork, sausages, jams, maple syrup and maple cream, and the ladies are laying well so we have plenty of fresh eggs. We update our inventory list often so if you're looking for something in particular, take a peek at our website here. We hope to see you soon!
Caitlin