The CFAES-managed OSU Sheep Team blog, featuring new research and advice for Ohioans raising sheep, is back and better after a three-year hiatus.
pastured livestock
Poultry processing for small farms and homesteads
Tea Hills Farms, which raises poultry on pasture and runs its own state-inspected on-farm processing facility, hosts the Poultry Processing for the Small Farm and Homestead Workshop from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 10, at 269 Township Road 2450 in Loudonville.
Continue reading Poultry processing for small farms and homesteads
Check out Gwynne’s green goings-on
A short wagon ride away from Farm Science Review’s (Sept. 19-21) rows of gleaming new tractors, its grounds full of hundreds of exhibitors, its streets packed by thousands of visitors, you’ll see another side of farming …
Grass-Fed Livestock Farm Tour is Tuesday
Grassroots Farm & Foods in Hillsboro hosts the Grass-Fed Livestock Farm Tour starting at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 22. The 380-acre farm raises Red Devon cattle, Katahdin lambs, Cornish Cross chickens and Berkshire pigs. The owners “lease sub-parcels of their land to independent dairy producers and are seeking to transition the farm to someone who will assume business ownership in steps,” the event description says. Tour guests will learn about grass-fed beef, pastured poultry, the farm’s wetland mitigation efforts and more.
Preregistration by emailing eric@oeffa.org is required.
Part of the ongoing Ohio Sustainable Farm Tour and Workshop Series. CFAES’s Sustainable Agriculture Team is a co-presenter of the series.
The grass is always sweeter on a sustainably managed pasture
Cows. Chickens. Turkeys. Hogs. All of them raised on pasture. The Joel Salatin-inspired Sweet Grass Dairy in Fredericktown in central Ohio hosts the Pasture-Raised Multi-Species Livestock Farm Tour tomorrow — Saturday, Oct. 1 — from noon to 4 p.m. It’s another in the Ohio Sustainable Farm Tour and Workshop Series. Graze nutrient-filled details here on p. 14.
Your neighbors next door: Organic hay and grass-fed beef
Indiana wants you … to consider attending the Quality Hay and Grass-Fed Beef Farm Tour at 10 a.m. this Saturday, Aug. 13, at the Wood Farm in Fort Wayne, about 30 miles west of Ohio’s western state line. The farm is a 500-acre certified organic hay and pasture farm that supplies hay to regional dairies and beef to local restaurants. Features include Angus cattle, rotational pastures and acreage-boosting partnerships including with Fort Wayne’s airport. The tour is part of the Ohio Sustainable Farm Tour and Workshop Series. Get details here on pp. 12-13.
Bucks from pastured buck buck bucks
Learn to make money raising pastured poultry in a workshop called Profitable Poultry in Motion: Maximizing Performance from Your Pastured Flock. It’s this Friday, Aug. 5, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Breakneck Acres in Ravenna in northeast Ohio. It’s part of the Ohio Sustainable Farm Tour and Workshop Series. This one has a fee: $50 for members of the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA), $70 for nonmembers, lunch included, limited to 35. Learn more here on p. 19. OEFFA and CFAES are two of the series co-presenters.
Grow your own quality dairy forage
The Ohio Sustainable Farm Tour and Workshop Series continues at 10 a.m. Friday, July 15, with the Quality Forages for Dairy Operations Farm Tour. It’s at the Heckman Family Dairy in Yorkshire in western Ohio. The Heckmans milk 80 cows, raise replacements and rotationally graze them on 340 certified organic acres. They also grow all their own feed. Learn more here on pp. 11-12.
Friday in Hillsboro: How to make your grass-fed beef even better
Next in the Ohio Sustainable Farm Tour and Workshop Series is Raising the Steaks: Finishing the Finest Beef on Grass from 1-5 p.m. Friday, June 24, at White Clover Farm in Hillsboro in southeast Ohio. The series booklet says Jim Linne of the farm and Troyce Barrett of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service “will delve into the finer points of managing a grass-fed herd to improve the marbling and flavor of your beef.” Details: Download the booklet here, then go to page 18.
Feb. 16: A new way to feed organic, pasture-raised chickens
CFAES scientists Mike Lilburn and Larry Phelan present “A Novel Nutritional Approach to Rearing Organic Pastured Broiler Chickens: Part 2” as eOrganic’s free organic farming webinar series continues at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 16. Their novel approach involves including a special kind of oat called naked oats (which don’t have a hull) in an organic rotation, adding pasture-raised chickens to the rotation as well, and using the oats for much of the birds’ (organic, grown-on-the-farm) feed. You can watch Part 1 on YouTube here. Get details here. Register here. See the full schedule of webinars here.