A working farm

Hi!! All of our livestock also say hi... to you, your family and your livestock, if you have any.

Our working farm was created from an old century barn with windows that hadn't been washed or dusted in years, segmented fields with wash outs and rocky areas, broken down fences, inefficient land, and a severely overgrown garden.

In the first year of owning the farm, the team got to work on the gardens, clearing out the barn of old rubble and straw and then started on a livestock plan. The field improvements were in the works in year two to avoid disturbing the crops in the first year.

We love to see people with land who have a few of this type of animal and a few of that type, cows that are pets and have rescued a variety of types of livestock. We have a different approach and respectfully, that's not our farm or our style. At Livingstone, everybody has a job and we will end up consuming most of the livestock on the farm for meat at some point or another. Except the barn cats. We don't name our livestock and appreciate if you do, we think it's cute, but it's not us.

The white barn kitty, basking in the sun

Every head on this farm has a job to do and a responsibility to be an active part of the system. Here's the details on the work our livestock contributes to the farm:

Pastured meat chickens - Bug control, heavy fertilizer in concentrated areas of our land that needs a boost of fertility, eating weed seeds and juicy meat at the end of the day. We use bones of our pastured meat chickens to make bone broth for our farm stand. We have a promo code for our loyal followers of this blog and our farm friends - $5 off your bone broth. When checking out using our online store, use the promo code 5BUCKSOFF to get your bone broth at a promo rate, while supplies last.

Laying hens - Bug control, eating weed seeds, creators of compost to fill our garden's raised beds and providers of rainbow eggs on a daily basis.

Laying hens in their summer pasture with rainbow eggs

Berkshire pigs - Ground disturbance, clearing forest areas of small saplings, turning inefficient areas into shaded pasture, digging up new ground, fertilizing, and bacon, pancetta & Christmas ham.

Barn cats - Vermin control of mice, rats and voles, and fun to cuddle. We don't plan to eat the cats.

Goats - Coming soon! We have exhausted a ton of money and energy on weed eating with gas or electric powered tools and just find it so time consuming and inefficient. No more of that this year, we're bringing in the goats to eat the weeds. Watch out for the goats... we don't know where they will come from or where they will go, kindof like a Cotton Eye Joe situation.

Berkshire piglets, begging for a treat

In the coming months, one of our blog posts will include a promo code for a complimentary sample of our rainbow minis, the smaller version of our farm fresh eggs! As we have new hens being added to the flock in March, their eggs will be smaller than average and we would love to give away samples to our farm to interested blog readers. Keep an eye out for the promo code, only to be found here.

See you soon,

The Farmer @ Livingstone Farm 1860