We have had alot of interest in our animals lately, and we get a lot of questions about what exactly we do with our animals. Our family farm raises goats, sheep, and heritage poultry (so far, chickens mainly, as well as a smattering of ducks and a few turkeys). We strive to mimic how animals would behave if they were out in nature on their own.
We raise sheep and goats to use as lawn mowers and fertilizers in our orchards. They graze between the trees and eat the weeds and keep the trees from suckering. The chickens and ducks wander around after them, eating bugs and dragging straw around the orchard, consequently mulching around many of the trees. This is time and labour intensive for us, we move a temporary fence around the orchard to prevent the animals from eating the trees, and we haul water to them. We treat our animals kindly and compassionately. All our animals have 24 hour access to indoor and outdoor spaces, fresh water and food. All of our animals are used to being around people... They are handled kindly by our family and we ensure that everyone who comes to our farm does the same.
We also slaughter our animals for meat. We slaughter chickens ourselves and take our small livestock to a provincially inspected abbatoir. We have taught our children that these animals are not just pets, but are also being raised for meat. And they should be treated compassionately.
If you are interested in what we are doing, we would be happy to have you out to our farm and show you around. We also do school tours and have opportunities for people to help out.
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