Q. Do you raise animals other than Maine-Anjou cattle on your farm?
A. We maintain a flock of around 30 laying hens that keep us in fresh eggs year round. We also grow 100 or so meat birds every year. We start with day old chicks from a local hatchery around April first, and host an annual Memorial Day Chicken Slaughter and process the chickens.
Q. Do you give growth hormones to your cattle?
A. No. We have no need to. Our Maine-Anjou moms produce so much nutritious milk that our calves get a great start, and continue to grow healthy and strong on standard rations.
Q. Are your cattle Grass fed?
A. Yes... and no. Finishing cattle on grass is complicated, and if that's your goal it will affect your breeding program. Animals need to be born at the right time of year so that they are ready to butcher 24 months later, in spring or early summer when grass is thriving. And who's crystal ball can predict the weather two years from now? Sometimes we get lucky. When we don't, we supplement their grass/hay diet and grain finish our beef animals. For the majority of their lives our animals forage on grass, and eat local grass hay, they are never finished at a feed lot.
Here's a Fact Sheet from www.beefboard.org about grass finished beef. Note that most prefer grain finished beef. Now we simply prefer good beef. We've had the good and bad of both grass finished and grain finished beef. We feel the animal's genetics is the most important factor.
and possible answers
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. WTF? What does that stand for?
A. Well we've come up with a couple, maybe you might have some other ideas and we're always happy to hear them, but here's a few...
We Three Fools
We're The Farmers
Where's The Food