Imagine you walk out to feed your chickens and spill some of the chicken feed on the ground in an area where the chickens can’t get to it.  If you came back a few weeks later, what would you expect to find?  Well, if it was commercial feed, you would probably find a pile of moldy feed.  What you wouldn’t find, is sprouts.  Just like the potatoes you bought in the grocery store – when was the last time you had to remove a sprout?  More and more chemicals are being used on the foods we eat, and on the foods we feed our animals.  Soy is cheap and has become a MAJOR component in animal feeds.  One REALLY big problem with that is almost all of the soy grown in the US today is GMO soy.

For quite a while, this topic has concerned us.  The problem is, commercial feed is cheap, and organic, GMO free, soy free feed is NOT cheap.   However, we have decided the time has come to shift our farm to a product line that is GMO free, Soy free, and organic.  We have chosen Countryside Organics because they offer feed varieties for all the animal types we currently have on the farm (and are considering in the future).  The down side is cost.  Our rabbit feed will be more than 2x as expensive.  The chicken and goat feed will be about 80% more.  However, in gathering info, another farm told us that their goats consumed about 3o% less feed and produced more milk on the Countryside product.

Since we know others in the area may also be interested in some of the products, we are starting a co-op.   There are no resellers nearby, so we will be buying a full pallet at a time and having it shipped from VA (that’s not cheap).  By coordinating a co-op, we won’t really save any money, but it allows us to order more frequently and not have to worry about exactly figuring out the next 3 months of feed needs.

If you are interested in joining our farm in the co-op, let us know.  The first order will be going on Monday, 8/12.