These past few years have been a doozy. Covid, the economy, supply chain issues, …and in light of these geo-political events, we feel motivated to help families out by now offering homesteading supplies. With the world seeming to go crazy at times, our heart is to see folks become more food secure and food independent. So we decided to do something about it at the farm.
When we first started growing our farm fresh meats years ago, the first place we started was chicken. Most people find them to be the easiest to get started with and humorously, raising chickens is often called the “gateway drug” to food sufficiency ☺️. Knowing that to be true, it’s where we have decided to start helping our local community become more self-reliant.
We want to serve as your one stop shop for getting started raising chickens. We’ll now start carrying day old chicks to purchase as well as the feed to get them growing, combined with our expert advice to help you get going.
Additionally, if you are looking to raise chickens for meat, we’ll be offering processing classes, so you can become a self-reliant producer of your own meat. We want to help you get better prices as well as offer you support from an experienced, local farmer.
So how does all this work?
Here is a little more info about our homesteading supplies:
Day Old Baby Chickens
We will have day old chicks to be raised for meat AS WELL AS day old chicks to be raised as egg laying chickens available for sale throughout the season. The chicks will be available for pickup at the farm just as soon as they arrive from the hatchery, giving you the chance to start your own backyard flock. These chicks can be ordered right on our farm website.
High Quality Feed
Once you have your chicks, you will need a feed for them. By now you may have seen the stories circulating of how chickens given feed bought from Tractor Supply Store have ceased to lay. This is thought to be caused by the low quality, genetically modified, junk-filled feed.
High quality feed makes a difference.
When we switched from the low quality junk feed to our current local feed supplier, our meat chickens all of the sudden ended up weighing considerably more than any previous batch of chickens did. Nothing else had changed, except the feed. And it showed generously in the final product.
So we are now offering high quality, non-GMO feed that is so much fresher and of a superior nutrient quality than what you can buy at the store. It comes right from Lancaster County, and even has a probiotic and mineral blend mixed right in.
We will have feed available for both egg laying chickens and chickens raised for meat, as well as feed for pigs.
You can also place your order for the high-quality feed conveniently from our farm website. And because we buy chicks and feed in bulk, you will have high quality feed and chicks at a competitive price.
Chicken Processing Classes
So now you are thinking this all sounds great, raising your own flock of chickens, eating your own healthy homegrown protein, but then you think… “how do I care for and …BUTCHER… these birds?!?”
We have you covered there as well! For years we have enjoyed teaching folks how to care for and butcher their own meat bird chickens at our chicken processing class.
OUR CLASS TEACHES YOU:
- The whole process of raising meat chickens.
- We’ll show you what they eat and how we care for them.
- What open air structures we raise our chickens in and how we care for them.
- How to humanely butcher a chicken.
- How to eviscerate (gut) and package a chicken.
To make all this as efficient as possible for our customers, we have partnered up with Redemption Springs Farm in Carroll County not only to offer you the class, but also the chicks and feed. So if you are closer to their farm in Carroll County, you can head to their site here to order from them.
Thanks so much for partnering with us in meeting your needs for greater food security…we certainly hope these homesteading supplies are a help to the homesteading and self sufficiency folks out there!