2011 End of Season Note

2011 End of Season Note

Holly and I want to thank you, our customers, for supporting our fledgling farming business in 2011. We worked very hard to provide you with the highest quality chicken and eggs that we know how to grow. Your enthusiasm, encouragement, and smiling faces always provide us with a much needed boost during the long season and we are grateful for all of you. We're busy planning for next season and we hope to continue to diversify our farm to add incremental revenue streams. We'll definitely increase our laying flock and we hope to add some lambs/sheep to act as our lead herbivore on the pasture. We'll continue to supply you with Cornish Cross (white broilers) and Red Broilers next season.

We want to thank Tom Hart, our part time apprentice in 2011, for all of his hard work and assistance this year. He will be very difficult to replace and we wish him success in his new farming venture. Having said that, we are seeking a full or part time apprentice for the 2012 season (March - October). If you know any honest, hard working people who have a passion for our kind of farming, let us know.We've committed ourselves to small, local farming. We do our very best to farm sustainably, organically, and as good stewards of the animals and land. We realize that this kind of farming is more expensive for you, but we also know that in the long run, it's worth it. We're grateful that you understand this.

By the way, our eggs are available at Fork and Anchor in East Marion and Love Lane Market in Mattituck. The North Fork Table in Southold is featuring them on their new brunch menu.
Our spice rubs and frying dredge will be available at A Taste of the North Fork on Peconic Lane and Love Lane Market.We wish you and your families a wonderful holiday season and good health in 2012.

We look forward to seeing you next season or around town.

Holly and Chris

Hurricane Preparations

Hurricane Preparations

After consulting with many local farmers about our options, we made the decision to move all the chickens on our pasture into the barn at Charnews Farms starting tomorrow. The Peconic Land Trust is allowing us to use a second barn bay as we'll have over 400 chickens to house and different ages will have to be kept separate from one another. It's a lot harder than it sounds. All the chickens will have to be caught, put into cages and transported to the barn in batches. Then we'll secure the empty pens out on the pasture with rope.

The laying hens will also move into the barn, along with their coop, until the storm passes. The smallest chicks are only 3 days old and we plan to house them in cardboard boxes with water and feed, and use their brooder for larger chickens.

Today, Chris dismantled the entire processing area and our tent. Needless to say we won't be processing as usual on Monday! But hopefully by Wednesday we'll be back together again and back on schedule.

Finally, the Land Trust also lent us a generator so if we do lose power than our freezers (and inventory) will still stay cold. Please don't worry about your CSA chickens! Stay safe!!

Holly and Chris

Spring Update

Spring Update

Greetings!
It's been busy on the farm this month - we've already had two sets of baby broiler chicks delivered so far this season. The youngest chicks are still in the brooder but we plan to put them out on pasture on Thursday. The older chickens have been enjoying the Spring weather and the thick, green grass and big bugs that seem to flourish on our land.

We also have added 30 Rhode Island Red laying hens to our flock. These chickens are 'pullets', a term for a young hen less than one year old. We look forward to having fresh eggs for sale in another month.

Sadly, we did suffer a severe predator attack on the pasture recently and lost nearly 50 chickens. It is a huge set-back for us and deeply unsettling. Chris has been spending many nights on the pasture keeping an eye on the chickens while we deal with this threat. Eventually we will make up for the loss but initially we will start the season with a limited number of broilers for sale. It may even mean that we delay the start of the markets & CSA until June. We will make that decision soon. But don't worry - there will be plenty of chickens to come!

Chris and Holly