– Our Animals –

[ Heritage pastured breeds ]

our approach

We care for our animals in a natural setting and give them plenty of room to root and forage. We feed our animals non-medicated feed and supplement their feed with garlic, herbs and other natural foods. Our chickens and pigs are free to roam the pasture and forest and supplement their diets with a variety of flora and fauna.

what do we raise on the farm?

Chickens

We are continuing to experiment with the best heritage breed that will deliver the best flavour. Overall weight and development time in a pastured environment is an economic factor that we need to consider in our final decision. We believe "you are what you eat, eats”, and are committed to raising chickens that eat grass, bugs, seeds and vegetables. The Bielefelder breed is showing real promise and at this time we are developing our breeding flock in order to be able to raise them as our meat birds.

This is the uber chicken: autosexing, beautiful, friendly, and it lays gorgeous jumbo eggs! If you buy just one breed, this is it.

Pastured Pork

Our breeding stock are Berkshire Sows with excellent bloodlines that were chosen for their high conversion rate of grass to weight. We experimented with pure Berkshire, Hereford Berkshire, Tamworth and Duroc cross. Our favourite breed combination turned out to be the Berkshire Hereford cross because of the flavour and quality of the meat, the fat to meat ratio and the length of the body, resulting in more bacon or pork belly.

Our pigs dine on ample scraps, grain and spend their days in pasture and wooded areas. We move them into the gardens whenever we need them to till up a plot, till the soil and fertilize.

Nigerian Dwarf Goats

There are a number of reasons we decided on this breed. First of all, they are on the livestock conservancy list and preserving heritage breeds is a priority for our farm. Secondly, they are small and adorable! The small size makes it so much easier to handle them and transport them. They fit in our dog crate and we can lift them quite easily. Thirdly, their milk has a very high butterfat content. Average milking goats would be 3 to 3.5% butterfat and the Nigerian goat is 6.5%. This makes their milk excellent for cheese making and is very palatable for drinking.