Cedar Meadow Farm Newsletter

March, 2006

Greetings!

Fortunately, it has been a mild winter here in New England.  This has given us an opportunity to continue many of the jobs we need to complete to ensure a healthy and happy environment for all of our animals.  We have made great progress towards finishing up our portable chicken tractors for both the egg layers and the broilers and start work on the pig fencing shortly.

We are glad to see the days get longer as this means our layers can spend more time outdoors and can produce more eggs.  As each day goes on, our supply of eggs has increased.  Please stop by, give us a call, or send us an e-mail to ensure we hold a dozen aside for you!  We are very excited to expand the flock and are eagerly waiting for the arrival of our first round of poults at the beginning of April.

Speaking of poults, we are thrilled to have found a supplier of chicks for our broiler chicken program.  In the past, we have relied soley on Cornish Rock Cross genetic strains.  These guys are bred for little more than to grow big and grow fast and are very similar (if not identical) to the breed of chicken used by commercial farmers.  Admittedly, they are very good at what they are bred to do.  Although this is counter to our beliefs, they provide a big breasted, uniform product that our customers have grown used to.  We are excited to announce that we will be diversifying our broilers to include birds similar to those used by the French growers to provide the gourmet "Label Rouge" product.  To learn more about Label Rouge, please visit http://www.label-rouge.org/  If you find your French is not as up-to-date as it needs to be, you can read a nice summary (in English) at http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/PDF/labelrouge.pdf .  We embrace the philosophy behind Label Rouge and will be emulating many of the practices and policies put forward by this program.  

To ensure the utmost in freshness, small numbers of broilers will be butchered every Friday from late June through November.  Remember, we do provide discounts on bulk orders.  Call up some friends and pool together your resources.  We promise you that you won't regret the end product!  If you plan to purchase more than five birds, please give us a heads-up so we have just the right number ready and waiting for you.

The culmination of our season comes at Thanksgiving.  We will be raising only a limited number of Turkeys this year.  NOW is the time to place your order!  You will receive a substantial discount for all orders with deposit made prior to April 1st.  These guys will be spending nearly 6 months on the farm.  If you don't place your order early, you will miss out on this exciting opportunity. 

We have recently become members of the Heritage Turkey Association.  To learn more about the nutritional and gastronomic advantage of Heritage Turkeys, visit their website at http://heritageturkeyfoundation.org/index.htm.  You should also take a moment to visit the Slow Food USA website at  www.slofoodusa.org/ark/turkeys.html .  You may have heard about the Slow Food Movement while watching the Olympics.  There are few people who enjoy their food more than the Italians and the recognize the value of farm-fresh products.

Truthfully, we don't believe a farm is complete without a few piggies.  Craig and Cheryl Floyd of Footsteps Farm in Mystic CT is our source for Tamworth Hogs.  These fellow are a wonderful example of quality heritage breeding and we are very excited to welcome them to the Cedar Meadow Farm line-up.  They will be ready for our patrons in late fall.  Order your 1/4, 1/2, or whole pastured porker today.

One very important thing we want you to know about is that we are taking the Avian Flu epidemic very seriously and monitoring it's progress closely.  We are participating in a voluntary program to test our birds for both pullorum (the disease that causes salmonella) and Avian Flu.  You can be assured that you will be getting a quality product with the highest degree of safety standards.

So far, this month has lived up to it's moniker of coming "in like a lion".  Let's hope that it keeps up the good work and goes "out like a lamb"!  Take a minute to visit our photos page to see all the work we have been up to.

Wishing you health and happiness,

Brian and Julia Cronin