Our Family Farm
What we envision for food and our efforts is to produce the highest quality poultry possible with sustainable methods that are humane while providing personal service to our friends (customers).
The confusion with sustainable agriculture is that it is more a philosophy or way of life than a strict set of rules, and farmers can interpret the meaning differently.
What is Sustainability?
When a process is sustainable, it can be repeated and maintained indefinitely. Sustainable food production can be maintained indefinitely because sustainable farmers do not take more resources to produce food than they give back. A reliance on renewable resources - as well as on symbiotic relationships with nature and the surrounding community - means that these farms do not damage the environment, are humane for workers and animals, attempt to encourage a fair wage to the farmer, and support and enhance rural life. Because sustainable farmers see nature as an ally rather than an obstacle, they are able to produce more wholesome food while using less non renewable fossil fuels (thus lessening the impact on the overall environment), without using any chemical industry produced synthetic pesticides, artificial hormones, steroids or antibiotics.
The vast majority of locally based sustainable farms are run by family farmers who are hardworking, honest and sincere people. They work all hours of the day and night to bring you the freshest, tastiest, best quality food available. It is now becoming increasingly possible that you can begin to reconnect with your food and the people providing it for you.
Each step you take on your own benefits both you and your family, and helps preserve and protect our natural earth for future generations. In our modern culture of mass production, treating food as merely a commodity thinking, this is at least one choice that will make the world a better place for all of us!
Thank you for your support of local, sustainable agriculture!
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Here is an excerpt from an article about the value of naturally raised pastured eggs. They have done studies that show that they have the most relative amount of nutrtion packed into them. This comparison is for eggs but explains how "you get what you pay for" when it comes to how your food is produced and the value added for nutritional quality. ___________________________
I discovered this article, Meet Real Free Range Eggs on the Mother Earth News website. They did a study in which they compared the nutrients in real pastured eggs to supermarket eggs.
Just look at these numbers! Compared to supermarket eggs (from factory farms), real pastured eggs have:
5 times more vitamin D
2/3 more vitamin A
2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
3 times more vitamin E
7 times more beta carotene
The Mother Earth News wasn’t the only one doing research on this. Check out all these other studies they cite:
In 1974, the British Journal of Nutrition found that pastured eggs had 50 percent more folic acid and 70 percent more vitamin B12 than eggs from factory farm hens.
In 1988, Artemis Simopoulos, co-author of The Omega Diet, found pastured eggs in Greece contained 13 times more omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids than U.S. commercial eggs.
A 1998 study in Animal Feed Science and Technology found that pastured eggs had higher omega-3s and vitamin E than eggs from caged hens.
A 1999 study by Barb Gorski at Pennsylvania State University found that eggs from pastured birds had 10 percent less fat, 34 percent less cholesterol, 40 percent more vitamin A, and four times the omega-3s compared to the standard USDA data. Her study also tested pastured chicken meat, and found it to have 21 percent less fat, 30 percent less saturated fat and 50 percent more vitamin A than the USDA standard.
In 2003, Heather Karsten at Pennsylvania State University compared eggs from two groups of Hy-Line variety hens, with one kept in standard crowded factory farm conditions and the other on mixed grass and legume pasture. The eggs had similar levels of fat and cholesterol, but the pastured eggs had three times more omega-3s, 220 percent more vitamin E and 62 percent more vitamin A than eggs from caged hens.
The 2005 study Mother Earth News conducted of four heritage-breed pastured flocks in Kansas found that pastured eggs had roughly half the cholesterol, 50 percent more vitamin E, and three times more beta carotene.
But What About the Cost?
It’s true that pastured eggs cost more. But isn’t it obvious that it is worth it? You’d have to eat 5 supermarket eggs to get the same amount of vitamin D from one pastured egg. You may be able to buy a dozen eggs for a buck or two at the grocery store, but you get what you pay for. The national average for pastured eggs is about $4-5 per dozen. However, they are worth that in terms of nutrient density.
I did a little figuring to see how economical pastured eggs really are.
Let’s say you pay $5 for a dozen pastured eggs. That means each egg costs about 42 cents. A “large” egg is about 2 ounces, so you’re paying 20 cents per ounce.
http://www.cheeseslave.com/2009/02/20/how-to-buy-organic-eggs-pastured-vs-free-ran ge-eggs/