Poultry: I add giblets and necks (for stock) in a ziplock inside the bird. I'm told by people who know food that the best chicken stock flavor comes from including feet, and at our place we usually do make soup from the carcass, but Mary insists adding feet is unusual enough it will annoy most of you, so you have to remind me you want feet at pickup time. When do we pay for the chicken, at order time, for the whole season? You pay for the chickens when you pick them up. We haven't had a problem with unclaimed chicken so far so paying when you come to get your product is fine. Can they be frozen whole? Yes, they come to you in a freezer bag already, just throw them in the freezer when you get them. Can I volunteer for a chicken harvest? What does that entail? I am happy to train volunteers in the fine art of chicken evisceration. You need to commit to 8 am to 1 pm on the 1st or 2nd Saturday of each month and be able to be on your feet (w/ a few breaks of course) the whole time. You need to be careful with a sharp knife yet able to learn the skill and steadily improve your speed as you get practice (but don't let me chase you away, I just want you to have a can-do attitude). In exchange you get a free chicken, a neat survival skill, and hopefully some decent coffee, a good personally caught California Albacore tuna sandwich, and good conversation. I have all the equipment and aprons, but you should bring rain pants and rain boots and wear nice wool socks, maybe even bring a change of socks/pants if your rain pants and boots aren't high quality. We are wondering if you have predator issues and, if so, how you manage this, as we do not wish to support any poisoning or shooting of wildlife. I do have predator problems. I have been hit by: racoons, skunks, weasels, foxes, mountain lions, domestic dogs and Cooper's hawks. I would not put poison out because I have lots of free range animals myself and also I'm in farming because I want to help the environment. With poison its hard to prevent another animal from eating the poisoned target animal and thus getting poisoned itself. I put a hot wire on my mobile chicken pens now so when one of the mammals visits they get hit on the nose with a little voltage and they don't come back. I get shocked by these regularly so no worries, they are fine after the experience (I've had a single entanglement related fatality-a domestic dog who had been incorrectly tethered at night with a regular leash which it broke free of). The hawks cannot get my meat birds because instead of day ranging I move bottomless but fully enclosed pens every day to new grass. I have my egg laying birds surrounded by portable electric-net fence. They can go in/out of their roosting structure at the crack of dawn and as late as they please in the evening. Their only protection from hawks is their roosters, about 1 for every 15-25 hens. Roosters are watchful and usually see the hawk in time to warn the flock and that alarm call tips the advantage to the chickens. Lamb: Do I pay when I pick it up? Are there two checks, one to you and one to Willowside Meats? The way to reserve a lamb is to send a deposit for $40 to the address I will provide when you express interest. When we harvest, we will weigh it, and I'll email you with the balance that you owe me. At this time you will call Willowside and say you have Felton Acres lamb #3 (for example) and they will discuss with you your options for how much ground lamb vs. stew meat vs. chops you want etc. You pay them the harvester feed and the cut & wrap fee when you pick it up at Willowside. At this time cut & wrap is $0.78 for bulk, $1 for bulk sausage, and $2.00 for link sausage. so its really 3 checks: 1-deposit 2-balance upon harvest 3-harvester; cut & wrap fee to butcher shop Pork: Do I pay when I pick it up? Are there two checks, one to you and one to Willowside Meats? The way to reserve a whole or half hog is to send a deposit for $40 to the address I will provide when you express interest. When we harvest, we will weigh it, and I'll email you with the balance that you owe me. At this time you will call Willowside and say you have Felton Acres hog #3 (for example) and they will discuss with you your options for sausage, thickness of chops and bacon you want etc. You pay them the harvester feed and the cut & wrap fee when you pick it up at Willowside. At this time cut & wrap is $0.78 for bulk, $1 for bulk sausage, and $2.00 for link sausage. What kinds of sausage can they make? They can make a variety of sausage, and for your convenience I will list them here. I imagine they would reserve the right to change this list at any time, but at the time of this writing they can do the following:
Can they make sausage that can avoid the following food I am allergic to? gluten, wheat, egg, dairy, soy, garlic, pea, lentil Yes. Probably you can't get "Smoked Garlic" if you are allergic to garlic; in other words, they'll tell you what your options are based on your particular food allergy/intolerance. Just how much "stuff" is 1/2 hog? About 2 banana boxes worth. What if I am intimidated by 2 banana boxes or I cant get enough stuff out of my refrigerator freezer to make room for 1/2 hog? My first time ordering a 1/2 local pastured hog, we split it with a neighbor (1/4 each). It worked well, I would not recommend trying for less than that. Buy from a meat buyers club or someone doing USDA cut & wrap but still raising pigs on pasture and moving them. I would suggest Silva Star Farm. We coordinated the entire order with Willowside, and our neighbor wrote us a check for half the amount. We picked up the boxes at willowside (brought a nice big cooler) and went directly to the neighbor's house and just made two piles: your ham, my ham. bacon for you, bacon for me, bacon for you, bacon for me, chops for you, chops for me, etc. There was maybe one or two odd packages where we had to decide who would get the 3rd package of something and who would get the odd item. This is the only way to do it, they will not deal direct on a 1/4 hog order. Just how much will a whole lamb or a half hog cost? /2 a berkshire hog costs $4/lb for the live weight. I will try to get the hogs to be 200-220 lbs when I harvest them which is considered the standard weight for a "market" hog. The total cost is going to look as follows: 100*4=$400 -> felton acres harvest=$50 ->butcher cut & wrap~=$110->butcher (I'm guessing and it changes with your preferences) total ~=$560 you end up with ~65 lbs of meat, so $560/65=$8.62/lb which is a good deal for pasture fed hogs. You get tenderloins for that price. Check out the pricing of TLC ranch in Watsonville, CA if you want to see the prices of USDA cuts of pastured pork. A lamb ends up with a lower percentage of edible meat relative to the live weight. So it works out to be about the following: 65lbs*$3=$195 -> felton acres harvest=$50 ->butcher cut & wrap=$75 (minimum) -> butcher total~=$320 you end up with ~30 lbs of meat, so its around $10/lb in the end. To secure your orders of lamb or pork send a $40 check payable to "felton acres" to -Felton Acres address upon request- simply send an email indicating your intent to commit and I will reserve your order. |
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