Thursday, February 2, 2012

Pasture Raised Chickens for 2012

Our chickens on pasture after a snowstorm.

For those who have been buying from our farm the last few years you may recall that we used to offer chickens.  You may also recall that we were forced to cease our chickens sales by the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food (UDAF).  It is a long story that can be somewhat summarized here.  In a nutshell, we received permission to process poultry at our farm under a small farm exemption.  We did this for most of the year only to have the UDAF come back and inform us that they had "reinterpreted" the regulations and that we could no longer process chickens on our farm unless we built a full blown inspected processing facility.  While we had the USDA's blessing we did not have the the UDAF's blessing.  In fact we were threatened with a Class C misdemeanor if we continued.  Last year, we missed out on a significant source of farm revenue that we had banked on when we expanded and built our new farm the year before.  This year however, we have made arrangements to lease a small poultry processing facility that was recently built by another farm.

We are pleased to announce that we will once again be offering our mouth watering pasture raised chicken!  We anticipate having our first chicken harvest ready around the end of April.  You can read more about our chickens and place your chicken order here.  As always please feel free to contact us with any questions.