Chicama Run Farm Blog

Some of you know – most of you don’t (I don’t always share THAT much – well ok – I like to talk…. but still)  We are going through the Foster to Adopt program in Loudoun County.  We are looking to adopt another child or 2 (or 3) that has been in the foster system and for whatever reason their birth parents have given up their parental rights.  We started classes yesterday.  There are 27 HOURS of these classes to teach us what to expect.

Besides being the “oh what a great thing..” to “you all are nuts….” it’s still an interesting process and amazing that there are this many children waiting EVEN IN RICH LOUDOUN COUNTY!!  It’s truly eye opening once you realize how many kids are in “the system”.

As a mom though – I want to save all the children.  It’s the reason (as bad as this may sound) I’m no longer allowed by Joe to go to the pound – why? Because I will adopt an animal.  It’s a given 99% of the time (hello?  Look at the farm……. we were just going to have 25 chickens and 6 llamas!!  I promised!!)  This program pulls at every string in my body to help them and in addition – because of all the paperwork, wouldn’t it just be easier to have my own baby? 

No, I wasn’t meant to have more children.  I had 2 rough pregancies and I won’t put myself back through that (even though I am 20+ pound LIGHTER than when I got pregs with Jacob).  Plus, I was adopted as an infant – and was given a dang good life.  I want to be able to give that to someone else – that’s just plain and simple.

If you ever wanted to just LOOK to see how many children are available IN THE UNITED STATES – just visit http://www.adoptuskids.org  You can even refine it to Virginia if you want and be prepared to have your heart strings pulled – even Joe’s were yesterday when he actually LOOKED at the site.

Now I will pass on (because I never would have learned about it if someone didn’t tell ME) the information for Loudoun County.  Bet you didn’t know they need more foster homes and adoptive homes?  Did you know the classes are FREE to go through and you aren’t REQUIRED to do anything if you pass them?  Also did you know they will search OUT OF STATE if they don’t find someone in Virginia for you?  http://loudoun.vhost.vipnet.org/services/foster.htm  At the bottom Francie’s email address is wrong - just add an ‘e’ to the end of it BEFORE the @ sign.   My soap-box remark…. maybe look into adopting the kids in the US before looking overseas – there are plenty available and in need – of ALL ages.

So there has been a good discussion going on about what is pasture-raised on a regional “Heritage Farming” email group I belong to….  It started out as figuring out hay issues for winter…. then moved into the what is pasture-raised…  It’s funny how it seems to depend on the person and their actual farm.  I’m just going to share my last couple of posts which might get you thinking as well.

“We raise up broilers – the cornish crosses.  They are the LAZIEST birds and NASTIEST things we raise.  And as much as I respect Salatin, I don’t think a tractor is appropriate for them.  My reason behind this is that they will not move – period.  I raise mine behind a portable electric fence.  They have to go to the coop at night and come outside to eat or drink – they have to WALK.  Mine take 10-12 weeks to get to the same size one in a tractor does in 6-8 weeks because they actually get exercise.  If I put the food closer to the coop – they would walk that far and then stop and never get up the rest of the day.  So my thinking is that if you have a bunch in a tractor with food & water right there and they only have to walk each day you move the pen – how can that be healthy for them?

Ok – that’s just my opinion once again.  I know I can start a WHOLE argument on this one and debating – but it’s just something that popped into my head when I was reading your post.”

“For the large black we have – they don’t seem to root up a ton – and the 1/4 an acre (it may be more – I have no idea) is perfect.  They run, play and all have their “own” space to get away it seems. 

I think it depends on your pasture.  I run 100-150 birds in 1 Premier fence (164′)….. HOWEVER the grass is VERY long this year down by that pen to the point we have to mow it because we lost some “in the jungle” of the grass.  Now last year – the same amount of birds were behind 2 fences.  Oh and the 10 ducks are back there too and a neighbor threw a hen with her chicks in that coop as well – LOL. 

So I think it depends on YOUR farm and YOUR pasture.  We are running 3 groups of hogs BESIDES our own.  But a group may only mean 1-2 and up to 5.

The taste doesn’t change in my opinion with the cornish UNTIL it is a HUGE bird – then it seems to lose flavor.  I think DRESSED they are perfect at 3-5 lbs.  I have some “meat makers” from Mt healthy that I am experimenting with because of health issues.  I’m just not sure.  My problem is time.  I have been 3 weeks without chicken because of losses due to the flood and it’s killing me.  It’s about $200-300 I am losing per week because of no chicken sales.

Mine are more pastured I guess you can say.  In an effort to stay neutral with most people I will say that they just get more exercise than one in a tractor (as I watch 5 try and catch a bug….. and the DUCKS win!)  And I do think it makes a difference on taste and quality – but I’m not sure the direction – if that makes sense.  We had a 4lbs birds for dinner one night and my husband thought it was the best we had done so far.  But then the 5lb one – he wasn’t thrilled with. 

Now I AM finding that the birds from Mt Healthy vs Moyers seem to take longer to grow in general (Cornish X’s) so I’m waiting to see how their health issues are – so far NO losses of them at all this go around (last time they got flooded and nothing I could do about that so it didn’t work as a test run). 

I’m finidng this an experimental year with maybe some changes next season.  I like the meat makers from Mt Healthy (heavy breed males) but I’m not sure how long they will take and that can be an issue – but then if I ran soemthing like that VS the cornish I would just need to plan differently – but the price is right up my alley ($30 for 100 birds or I think it was $32 for 200 of a different type!)”

The farming experiment continues…..

I received an email this morning – and I wanted to share it and my response so that hopefully everyone will understand what is going on.  I HATE increasing prices and I always feel guilty when we do.  But we do make the animals pay for themselves – we aren’t in this to get rich.

“I love your products and have supported you right along the way–as I do most of the local folks…

I’m truly worried that you are going to out price everyone else.  I know that prices are going up, really I understand that, but I can still get free range organic eggs locally for 3.50 a dozen.  Why should I keep supporting you when you are raising your prices so quickly, way faster than others?  I truly want to be able to support you and your farm but you are soon going to be out of my reach…

Thanks for listening.”

“thank you so much for your email.  At a lot of other markets in the area  INCLUDING Leesburg, eggs are now selling for $5.00 a dozen (Potomac Vegetable Farm had them this past week at $5).  I wish it could be less.  I was actually at Bloom the other day and regular (non-organic) Bloom Brown Eggs were $3.00 a dozen.  So it is affecting everyone down to the commercial producers.  During this time of year with the heat as well production does go down instead of going up.  We get about 5-10 dozen LESS eggs per day than we did 2 months ago.  It hurts us all, especially when feed prices went from $9.20 a bag to over $11 and I buy it by the ton.  As everything goes up – food prices are going to do the same.   3 years ago our eggs were $2 a dozen – a bag of feed was $5.00.  I wish I could keep it down which is why we are only raising it by 50¢ and watching closely our feed prices and trying to get it to stay at $4.50, but we do like to warn our customers what is happening and we like to be upfront. 

I hope this helps you understand that we aren’t “out to raise prices” because we want extra money – it is because we have to account for the raising cost of feed for the animals and the only thing I ask of my animals is for them to pay for themselves.”

Now I have seen eggs for $3.50 a dozen and usually they are people with just a few chickens doing it as a hobby – and if I was buying 1-2 bags of feed a week I could get away with that too.  We have 800 that need to be fed.   We also have the expense of not reusing egg cartons.  I know it’s goofy, but actually it is illegal to reuse egg cartons in Virginia.  Since we sell almost 150 dozen a week, we want to stay safe and protect our farm from all legal probing.  I’m not going to risk everything we have worked for in the last 3 years over an egg carton  

And as a small boast - there is a reason our eggs sell out every week and you have to get to the market before 9:30am if you want them (and we have been bringing over 50 dozen a week right now).

We run the numbers on everything EVERY time we get something done.  Butcher a steer – we run numbers to make sure no price changes need to be made.  Same thing with a pig.  Now for chickens – we do it when we get the feed bill and we see how many dozen we have been getting each day and how much feed we use.  It’s a cycle and we go with it.  If feed goes back down – we adjust accordingly (feed gets delivered this Thursday and we’ll see). 

We hope not to lose too much business from the 50¢ increase.  But we know that everyone’s pockets are tight – including ours (imagine $4.75 a gallon for diesel to run the tractor! not to mention $130+ to fill up my truck which is taken to every market and is used to transport the animals to the butcher!).

So remember we don’t increase prices because we WANT to, it’s so that we can even out our costs plain and simple.