April 2017 Meat CSA Newsletter

Good afternoon Members!

Just about finished with lambing for the year. As exciting as we are to begin, by the end we are dragging ourselves to the home plate. Read more about what lambing is like below.

A big THANK YOU for everyone helping us out on our lack of beef last month. We are stocked and ready this month. As Easter is coming in a few weeks we have a good supply of Cured Ham/Shoulder roasts. Let us know if you have any special requests for your share or want to add some extra cuts.

Bacon & Hams Staying Warm

OUR MONTH – March

Lambing started on the 7th and the last few are trickling in, one this morning who was a bit sluggish to be start but is happy now. There are now over 50 lambs jumping, kicking, racing, and generally causing havoc in the maternity pen.

Our days for this past month are a bit more intense, we all have shifts where at least every 4 hours a pen check looking for ewes lambing/already lambed are found and moved to barn for a couple of days. They are ‘jugged’ in well bedded pens to allow them to bond with their lambs without interference from other soon to be mothers who want to ‘take over’. Once the new mother and her lamb(s) are jugged, we then check them every half an hour to make sure they are getting up, nursing and there are no difficulties with multiple births. There was only a couple ewes that needed some help ( which is AWESOME! ) We accumulated a few ‘bum’  or pet lambs that came into our mud room for bottle feeding. Most of them were the weakest triplet, our ewes do better with just two at a time. This is both super fun as they become close to us, pretty much for life and exhausting. Those week triplets need a little extra TLC for the first couple of days. I posted about losing one of those triplets, Grace. It doesn’t get easier, but that is why we do this.

April is almost upon us! What does that mean? Laying hen chicks are due any day, Cole & Eathon are expanding their flock and have a great following locally. ( Wish we could ship, it just doesn’t work!) Broiler chicks are going to be here in a month, we are working on getting supplies in ( Fertrell minerals, Kelp, Redmond Salt, Alfalfa meal and more) Again, we haven’t been able to source a soy alternative this year, despite all of our searching – so, we will stick with the GMO free local grain and perhaps grow our own substitute in the years to come.

If you are ever traveling in our area, give us a call, we love to have people stop and enjoy just visiting with us and the animals!

March Option 1 for Half Mixed

Beef BI/BL Chuck roast OR Whole Chicken
Ground Beef OR Ground Lamb
Ground Pork 
Bacon OR Pork Stew/Kabob
Bone-in Pork Chops
Pork Shoulder/Ham Stk OR Smoked Jowls
Sirloin OR Sirloin Tip Steak
NY Strip, Ribeye, Filet Mignon Steak OR BL Leg of lamb/steaks

March Option 2 for Half Mixed

Cured Ham/Shoulder roast OR Lamb Shoulder roast
Ground Beef OR Ground Lamb
Breakfast/Sweet/Hot Pork Sausage/Links
Beef Stew/Kabob OR Sandwich Steak
Boneless Pork Chops
Sirloin or Sirloin Tip Steak
T-bone, Porterhouse, Rib, OR Lamb Stew/Kabob

Pudgy sheep peeking & eating

Two very wet and mischievous calves.

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