We hope you’re enjoying our newsletters! You’ll find a lot of information packed in each one such as what’s keeping us busy right now, what stages different sets of livestock are in, product offering news, and much more!
One goal with this is to establish and nurture a direct relationship between you (the well-informed consumer) and us (a pasture-based farm). That’s something that industrial agriculture and supermarkets will never be able to fully duplicate. Thanks for your support and enjoy the latest from Watson Farms!
We have picked a name for this newsletter!
We appreciate all of the name suggestions you all have submitted. There were so many good ones it was very difficult to decide. So the new name of our newsletter is…
Pasture Posts
We will contact the winner this week to receive their $50 Watson Farms store credit!
What’s keeping us busy.
It’s been an unusually busy week, so here’s a rundown of what we’ve been doing in order to continue to serve you with the highest quality pastured proteins possible!
Moving layer chickens
We house our layers in a re-purposed turkey barn during the cold, wet months of the year (usually early December to March). We were a week or two delayed in moving them out this year as we were training a flock to lay in the nest boxes so we didn’t want to disturb them with a relocation until they were in good practice.
We use a deep bedding of pine shavings in our winter housing which keeps the birds dry, comfortable and warm. The sides of the house have curtains that operate on a thermostat that go up to close the barn when it’s cold and go down to open the barn up when it’s warmer. This keeps the birds comfortable during the worst winter weather.
We also allow the layer chickens to access some pasture areas throughout the winter so that they can still forage some if they choose to.
Another reason we use stationary winter housing is to keep from making ruts in the fields when they’re wet. We use a tractor to move the pasture houses and it can make a mess in our fields if it’s too wet.
While a stationary operation is not ideal, it is necessary to maintain a steady supply of eggs year-round.
With all that said, it came time this week to move the layers to their pasture houses which will allow us to rotate them every other day throughout the growing season. We will end up covering about 30 acres each growing season with the 2500 or so birds. That’s over 500 square feet of pasture per bird per year!
The whole point of this rotation is to allow the birds to ingest as much grass as possible which makes the most nutrient-dense eggs on the planet!
Next Tour Date
The first tour of the year went great! We had a great turn out and the weather was nice. We had almost 30 people show up and had some very beneficial discussions! If you missed out on this one, don’t worry! We are offering another tour in May. See below for more information.
If you would like to see some of these methods in practice that we mentioned above, we are providing a great opportunity to do so on Saturday, May 8th! We will have a tractor-pulled hay ride ready that will transport you around the farm to show you first hand the benefits of pasture-raised livestock that are constantly moving.
- The date/time is May 8th at 10:00am.
- We look forward to these tours as it lets us talk with customers at more length than is usually possible. It also lets you see in person where and how your food is raised.
- We plan to have tour offerings about once per month.
- Hit the button for more details on the May 8th tour.
What makes us different
With this segment we plan to highlight one aspect of our farm that makes us different from other farms.
Watson Farms – An extensive home-delivery network
We have seen in the past year that customers are more accepting of ordering food online and with that comes the expectation of home delivery.
We have made many investments to meet that demand for convenient weekly home delivery. We do this through two different services:
- Our own Home Delivery service
- Performed by our team using our refrigerated van.
- This service is available to 4 major metropolitan areas in SC and NC.
- We are able to deliver all of our products on this service from eggs to whole cow orders!
- FedEx
- Our FedEx Eligible products can be delivered to your door in over 15 states.
- These frozen meat bundles are packaged with dry ice in thermal-lined boxes to ensure your order stays cold until you receive it.
- If you have friends or family that may not be in one of our Home Delivery service areas, chances are we can serve them with FedEx. Help us out by telling them about us!
Huge Chicken Sale! ????
Our chicken sale continues for now!
These are some of the best prices EVER on our truly pasture-raised, non-GMO chicken products. As you can see below, many products are 25% off or more while our bundles are as much as 15% off the already-discounted bundle price. Head over to the website and stock up!