Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Locker Lambs Available

This is it! For just a few weeks out of the year, we have locker lambs available for sale to Virginia buyers who want fresh, local, humanely raised meat.


Icelandic lamb is lean, mild, and delicious, with none of that “gamey” flavor often found in commercial lamb. The breed’s modest size is perfect for modern families who often don’t have freezer space to store a large amount of meat.

The October 2009 issue of Saveur magazine said, “Free-range, grass-fed Icelandic lamb is exceptionally fine grained and mild tasting; it is prized by chefs….”

In the March 2010 issue of Food & Wine magazine, Robert Wiedmaier, chef-owner of Marcel’s and Brasserie Beck in Washington, DC, is quoted as saying, “Icelandic lamb is the best I’ve ever tasted. It’s a very pure, nonfatty meat.”

We send lambs to slaughter in early-to-mid October. At this time, they are about 4-6 months old and weigh about 40-80 lbs. Each one typically yields 20-40 lbs. of packaged meat, cut to your specifications (chops, roasts, ground lamb, stew meat). 

Due to this summer's severe heat and drought conditions, most of this year's available lambs are on the lower half of those weights, but even so, our prices are very reasonable.

Our price is $70 per lamb, including delivery to our local butcher. The butcher then charges $70 to process each lamb, including cutting, packaging, and freezing.

The butcher is only a 10-minute drive from our farm, so the lambs don’t have to endure the stress of a long, arduous trip.

Our supply of locker lambs is extremely limited. Once they are gone, there will be no more until next year.  If you're interested--or if you have any questions--contact me soon before they're all gone.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Guinea Hog Piglets (1 Month Old)

The piglets are growing SO fast!  I took some time to get some photos of them today, to show how much they've changed.  Look at those cute little faces and fat little bodies!

A few of the male piglets are still available for sale.  We're asking $200 per piglet.  They'll be ready to go in mid-late October.












Compare this one to the photos of them nursing when they were first born.  They're so much bigger now!


 It takes a lot of milk to feed nine hungry piglets, but Cerridwen is doing a great job, especially considering she's a first-time mom.


I also took a little video footage of the piglets:






















And some footage of Jack and Circe playing with a tarp:

Friday, September 3, 2010

Piglets: One Week Old Today!

Happy one-week birthday, little Guinea hog piglets!

They are so fat and glossy, and growing so fast.  We did lose one of the females when mom accidentally sat on her in the bedding.  But the rest---3 girls and 6 boys---are doing great.  They look like a herd of tiny, short-nosed elephants marching around in a jungle made out of bushes.

They're so busy running around, it's hard to keep them still long enough to take any good pictures, but here are a few I captured this week.  Can you think of anything cuter than this?


We had quite a large waiting list of people who had inquired about buying piglets, so most of these babies are already spoken for, and I'm confident the others soon will be.  In a couple of months, they'll get to go off to other farms and when they're old enough, they'll help continue to preserve this very rare and special breed of pig.

I think that our other pair of pigs, Circe and Jack, had their first successful breeding yesterday.  If so, we should be expecting our next batch of piglets right after Christmas.