Basket Contents: Broccoli or fava beans, green onions or beans, lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini, fennel, spring turnips (Hakurei), radicchio or bok choy, mesclun, cilantro or dill
Recipe: BBQ Veggies
As many of you know, we produce many other tasty things besides vegetables on our farm! Not only do we produce herbal teas, cookies, and eggs, we also raise animals for meat! This year, we have lots of meat to offer: veal, pork, turkey, and stewing hens all raised outside on pasture! And for the first time, we are selling our meat as a CSA share, just like the vegetables. We will also continue to sell veal and pork as quarters, and the turkeys, a few stewing hens, and a few cuts of pork and veal individually. But we think that the meat share is the best way to buy our meat for those who would like a bit of everything.
Here are all the details of how to buy meat from us this year. Just like for vegetables, we ask that you pay for at least part of your meat in advance (see suggested payment plan below). To order a meat share or a quarter, please email eby@fermeauxchampsquichantent.com with your order and she will confirm by email.
Meat Shares
| Date (to be confirmed) | Large Share | Small Share | |
| Box 1 | Week of October 27th | 20 lbs veal | 10 lbs veal |
| Box 2 | Week of November 10th | 10 lbs veal, 10 lbs pork | 5 lbs veal, 5 lbs pork |
| Box 3 | Week of December 15th | 10 lbs veal, 10 lbs pork, 2 stewing hens | 5 lbs veal, 5 lbs pork, 1 stewing hen |
| Box 4 | End of January or early February | 10 lbs veal, 10 lbs pork, 2 stewing hens | 5 lbs veal, 5 lbs pork, 1 stewing hen |
| Price | $700 | $350 |
* Please note that the total weight of meat will vary slightly, depending on how large our animals are (if our animals are larger than expected, you may receive a bit more. However, we will do our best to make sure you don’t receive any less!) The meat you will receive will vary in cuts in each box, and throughout all the boxes you can expect to see a little bit of everything!
Other Meat for Sale
| Meat | Price per pound | Average weight of meat (estimate) | Total price (estimate) | When available |
| Turkey (fresh)* | $7.00 | 15 lbs | $100 | October 10th |
| Quarter Veal | $7.00 (carcass weight) | 45 lbs | $430 | November-December |
| Quarter Pork | $6.00 (carcass weight) | 35 lbs | $300 | November |
| Stewing Hen | NA | 3 lbs | $12 | December |
*Please note that all meat will come frozen, except for the turkeys, which will be available fresh on October 10th.
* Please note that partners who purchase a meat share will have priority for purchase of a turkey, as supplies are limited. Please indicate if you would prefer a smaller or larger turkey when you place your turkey order.
Suggested Payment Plan
| Deposit at time of registration | August 1st | At time of delivery or first box | |
| Turkey | $50 | – | remainder* |
| Large Share | $50 | $350 | $300 |
| Small Share | $50 | $150 | $150 |
| Quarter Veal | $50 | $200 | remainder* |
| Quarter Pork | $50 | $150 | remainder* |
*For those ordering turkeys or a quarter, the remainder will be billed just before the time of delivery, as it will depend on the total carcass weight of the animal.
Supplies of everything are limited! Last year we sold out of our veal in less than two weeks, so please do send your order as soon as possible! To order a meat share or a quarter, please email eby@fermeauxchampsquichantent.com with your order and she will confirm by email.
How we raise our animals
We hope that everyone has a chance to come out and see our happy animals, but just in case you can’t, we want to tell you a bit more about how we raise our animals. Jenna is the farmer who is in charge of the animals, and she spends a lot of her day with them, during feedings, moving them from pasture to pasture, and just getting to know them. Raising our animals outside, on pasture, and with as little stress as possible are our priorities. In addition to pasture, all of our animals are fed with grains from Homestead Organics.
Pigs
This year we are raising seven Tamworth pigs that we purchased as 7 week old piglets from Ferme la Dorée in the Eastern Townships. This is our first time raising pigs and we are learning a lot about how smart they are! Tamworth pigs are an older breed of pig that is known for its fine taste as well as its ability to do very well on pasture. Our pigs started out in a barn stall for a few weeks, as we got to know them, before we moved them to a pasture with an electric fence around them. We will move them from pasture to pasture, about once a week. Not only do they love rooting around in the pasture, they are also helping us prepare these pastures to be planted next year!
Veal
This is our third year raising pastured veal and this year we have 13 male dairy calves in our herd! (Yes, they do all have names and we can tell them apart!) We purchase our calves from dairy farms, where they are essentially by-products. To be in milk, a dairy cow must have a calf once a year. Female calves are kept for the milking herd, but male calves are usually sold at auction and sent to large indoor veal production facilities. We think that they can have a much better life outside with us! This year, we purchased 11 of our 13 calves from Pinehedge Organic Dairy in Ontario (the farm that makes the wonderful yogurt in the green glass jars!) The other two come from neighbouring dairy farms that we feel raise their animals in a very humane manner.
Our calves are given milk replacement for the first two months of their lives, as well as a bit of grains and access to hay and pasture. For the remaining five months, the calves are on pasture and fed some grains. We rotate the veal to a new parcel of pasture every week or less, allowing them to always have delicious new grass and allowing our pasture to regrow and store more soil carbon. We have seen remarkable improvement in our pasture in the last few years (less weeds, more grass and clover) and we know that rotating the calves has made a big difference!
Turkeys
This is the first year we are raising turkeys and so we have decided to start with the most easily available breed, the standard White turkey. We purchased our 25 turkeys as day old poults on June 3rd from Couvoir Simetin in Mirabel. They are currently still living inside the barn, because they are small enough to be eaten by foxes or coyotes, but within the next few weeks they will go out on pasture, where they will be able to find insects and plants to supplement their grain feeding. Our turkeys are certified organic this year, which we are able to do because they come to us as day old animals. We are hoping that their finished weights will be about 15lbs per bird, but already we can see they may get bigger than that!
Stewing hens
We raise hens primarily for their eggs, which we have available at every drop off, but we will also be selling the hens as stewing hens at the end of the season. This allows us to regenerate our flock each year, which is good for disease prevention and to maintain a higher laying rate. In addition, it allows us to take some vacation in the winter, because we will no longer have animals through January and February.
Our hens have a new home this year…. a holiday trailer! We bought an old camper and refurbished it into a mobile chicken coop… our Eggmobile! The Eggmobile along with an electric fence allow us to move the chickens from pasture to pasture throughout the summer, while keeping them safe from predators at night inside their camper. The hens actually graze the same pasture as the calves, about 4-10 days after the calves have been there, which helps to break cycles of pests and diseases (the chickens love to eat all the insect larvae growing in the manure left behind by the calves). “Birds following herbivores” is a very common ecological phenomenon in the wild, and we like to think our calves and chickens make a nice little ecosystem together!
