On behalf of Joe, who recently jumped into his dream of growing up to be a farmer, I would like to offer you the opportunity to support Joe’s first meat chicken venture by ordering some humanely raised and home grown chickens for your freezer. Joe’s first batch of meat birds are being raised on grass, in movable chicken pens that Joe built himself, and supplemented with only non-genetically modified feed. They also taste amazing!
We will have a pick up location in Lexington, or at the farm in Salvisa, but if you are in the Louisville or Danville area, and you order enough butchered and frozen chickens to make it cost effective to drive them to a pick up area near you, we can work out the details through email (salvisafarms@gmail.com).
Because these are Joe’s first big batch of meat chickens (he has almost 90!) his plan was to sell the birds when they are ready to Marksbury Farms, which is a small scale local butchering facility and farm market. Marksbury can buy the grown chicks from Joe, then turn around and sell them to Whole Foods, or other businesses that support local, healthy food. This is a good way to get his business started, but puts farmer Joe at the bottom of a chain of middle men, which significantly reduces his pay off. Some farmers make only $1 profit on each bird they sell to Marksbury. At Good Foods in Lexington I’ve paid up to $17 for a healthy local chicken, and a friend of mine says she normally pays $15 for healthy chicken.
In order to help Joe get some capital for his new farm, and in order for all of us to capitalize on having access to chicken without industrial fecal soup (see this NY Times article if you want to know how gross grocery chicken is http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/health/in-small-sample-e-coli-found-in-48-of-chicken-in-stores.html?_r=0) I volunteered to take orders to see if I can sell most of his 90 chickens.
Each chicken you order will cost $14. Remember, these chickens are raised with more care, and fed good food so they will be healthy food for your families, but also remember that every purchase will help Joe kick start his farm. $14 dollars is high compared to mistreated and feces covered grocery chickens, but it’s still a deal compared to Good Foods or Whole Foods, and Joe gets the money, not the middle man. Joe still has to pay the butcher to process the chickens, in addition to the cost of the chicks and the food.
Just let me know if you would like to order some chickens (salvisafarms@gmail.com) and I will keep track of how many, and who gets them, and when they are ready in less than 5 weeks, I will work out how to get them to everyone for distribution.
Thank you all!
Rain
P.S. The photo above is one Joe texted me last week – these are the meat chickens at the end of the rainbow!
