Free Range Meats

Free Range means that the animals are at no time kept in individual confinement cages.  They are either running loose in the yard or field, or they are in an enclosure large enough to allow them to express their culture properly.   For example, chickens have to be able to fight and crow and have sex and basically do all the things that chickens do anytime they are given enough space to do so.  The males set up a pecking order (dominance hierarchy) through frequent skirmishing, which once established, the fighting diminishes to the occasional bird who thinks he can move up, having gotten bigger since the hierarchy was established, or whatever.  The hens are less scrappy, but also very social in a chicken sort of way.  Most importantly, they are chickens so they must get to be chickens or we do not sell their flesh or eggs.  Nutritionally, the eggs and meat of birds getting lots of exercise, eating a diverse diet of insects, weed seed, green vegetation and organic grain will be three fold.  First, no chemical residue.  Second, exercise and a balanced diet produces muscle instead of the flab of caged birds.  Third, if you know anything about how commercial chickens are raised, you don’t want the karma of those birds in your body.  Nor do you want to promote further such cruelty by continuing to purchase such tortured and stifled souls.

Obviously our cattle herds never see feedlots or consume any kind of feed that includes dead animals.  Our herbivores are vegetarian, and you can’t catch mad cow disease from vegetarian animals.

Also, our animals and animal products have not been given any antibiotics (to prevent disease, especially in confinement situations) or grown hormone (used to boost production of milk, eggs or meat).  In the USA, Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) is used to raise production of milk, with serious health consequences for the cow.  If you consume American dairy products of any kind, choose only certified organic products.  Organic milk cannot contain BGH. 

Here are links to our organic meats, and our organic milk products.

Some good links to do with the subject of animal husbandry practices in the mainstream agribusiness, include:

The Meatrix;

The Humane Farming Association.;

For information on getting your herd certified as Organic, contact:

OCIA;

OPAM;

Procert.