The Beginning Farmer: April 2014

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

TBF 061 :: Selecting Heritage Meat Chickens Part Two, A Rainy Farm, and a Hard Lesson Learned

**As I transition to www.TheBeginningFarmer.com I am quickly realizing I'm not as web savvy as I had hoped! In the meantime I will be posting here as well for those of you subscribed through RSS ... and hopefully will have that fixed soon.**

I am very excited to have "Part Two" of my interview with Wesley Hunter of Providence Farm on the show today. On todays show Wes and I talk about some of the most important steps in raising a heritage breed chicken ... the eating and the marketing! There are challenges of course when it comes to raising meat chickens on pasture, but when it comes to your customers the most important challenge is the marketing and education. Wes has some great information about the results from his blind taste test and how some of the struggles associated with marketing a heritage breed (because they are different than most chickens found in the local grocery store ... in a good way). If you have any questions for Wes leave them in the comments below and he'll answer as best as possible.

Through the help of a SARE Grant Wes was able to do some great on-farm research comparing a variety of heritage meat chickens for things like feed efficiencies, dressed weight percentage, total feed consumption, and even an unscientific taste test. It would not be a stretch to say this is one of the best sets of episodes to date! If you have any questions please leave them in the comments below and Wes or I will take time to answer them. Helpful Links from Today's Episode:

As always, I want to thank you so much for listening and supporting the show with your encouragement and reviews on iTunes! I am continually working to produce a better show, and I'm thankful for all of the listeners sticking with me as I learn.

If you do enjoy the show, don't forget that you can subscribe on iTunes and leave a five star rating and review (by clicking the link). If you are an Android phone user you can also subscribe on the free Stitcher App. It is so very encouraging to know that people are listening and enjoying the show!

I would love to hear your questions, show ideas, or comments about the show. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail! As always you can follow along with "The Beginning Farmer" and Crooked Gap Farm by checking out these links ...

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

TBF 060 :: A Major Farm Marketing Change, Farm News, and a Hard Lesson Learned

Life on the farm is always full of difficult decisions. Sometimes they have to do with livestock, sometimes they are about projects, and sometimes there are even difficult marketing decisions to be made. For the past few months we have been working through the process of making a difficult marketing decision, and we have finally come to the conclusion ...

We will not be doing the Downtown Des Moines Farmers' Market this year.

This is a huge change in our marketing plan for the farm, and honestly it is very scary because for the past two years the market has been by far our highest grossing sales opportunity. But, with a full-time job off-farm and another farming job working for the neighbors I have been finding myself spread too thin to accomplish the work that I feel needs to get done. The lack of time because of the demands from my other jobs, along with less product availability than expected and a desire to involve the family more, has led us to the point where the market just needed to go ... at least for this moment. In today's episode I wanted to share a little bit about the thoughts we had while making this big decision and then what big changes this means for our marketing going forward. Sometimes you just need to dive into something ... and we are diving in head first this time!

Helpful Links from Today's Episode:

If you do enjoy the show, don't forget that you can subscribe on iTunes and leave a five star rating and review (by clicking the link). If you are an Android phone user you can also subscribe on the free Stitcher App. It is so very encouraging to know that people are listening and enjoying the show!

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

TBF 059 :: Selecting Heritage Meat Chickens, Farm News, and a Hard Lesson Learned

I have to admit that this episode (and the following episode) is one that I was very excited about doing for purely selfish reasons. I am super excited to have Wesley Hunter of Providence Farm on the show to talk about heritage breed meat chickens. This is a topic that is on my mind a lot because I just haven't been able to find a replacement for the birds that I was able to raise a few years ago. Through the help of a SARE Grant Wes was able to do some great on-farm research comparing a variety of heritage meat chickens for things like feed efficiencies, dressed weight percentage, total feed consumption, and even an unscientific taste test. It would not be a stretch to say this is one of the best episodes to date! If you have any questions please leave them in the comments below and Wes or I will take time to answer them. Helpful Links from Today's Episode:

As always, I want to thank you so much for listening and supporting the show with your encouragement and reviews on iTunes! I am continually working to produce a better show, and I'm thankful for all of the listeners sticking with me as I learn. If you do enjoy the show, don't forget that you can subscribe on iTunes and leave a five star rating and review (by clicking the link). If you are an Android phone user you can also subscribe on the free Stitcher App. It is so very encouraging to know that people are listening and enjoying the show!

Wednesday, April 09, 2014

TBF 058 :: Raising Pastured Poultry, Farm News, and a Hard Lesson Learned

The podcast is up and I'm excited to say that it is about chickens! But, the show notes are not up yet ... they're coming ... I promise ...

Wednesday, April 02, 2014

TBF 057 :: The Listener Mailbag, Farm Updates, and a Hard Lesson Learned

I am always thankful for all of the questions, comments, and encouragement that come in via e-mail or comment or even from the good ol' post office! Lately there have been some very good questions coming in covering a whole host of topics that I want to cover on future episodes of the show. Today though I wanted to take some time to answer three questions that have come in over the past couple of weeks regarding hay, finding pigs, and the big bad Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus. All great questions that deserve great responses ... hopefully some rambling from a beginning farmer will at least shed a little light on the topics.