Still Frozen

Hey There!

It's Dave from McElhoes Family Farm/Belmont.

Our website was down over last weekend, so if you placed an order, please double check with me that I got it

I have been getting some weird inquiries from folks outside our usual area. Long Island New York of all places was the most recent. It seems like folks are wanting to lock in prices in anticipation of upcoming shortages or price increases.

I don't know if that is good news or bad news. It seems the several Pennsylvania farms who hatch our chickens are selling out quicker than I am used to, and I am too choosy to use standard birds from the feed store. There's nothing inherently wrong with those. We used to raise them, because those birds are quick to raise, but we found that they don't taste much better than grocery store birds. As you know, we raise specific breeds from specific suppliers, and we take a bit longer to raise them to assure the flavor and quality.

I have enough of our Country Chickens to cover early orders, but I have had to push our second batches back, and there might not be enough time for a third batch this year. I also have enough of our Gourmet Chickens for now, although they will probably be a few weeks late, and we may not be able to get the later batches. Come to think of it, that may explain the folks trying to order from New York. I guess the breed we use for our Gourmet Chicken is popular with fancy restaurants and folks up there and the shortages are affecting them too. We are just too small to even think of selling away like that.

We will still be taking pre-orders, and can take on a few more chicken club members, but I am going to have to be careful not to overextend. Drop me an email to see where we're at.

At any rate, I didn't want to turn this into a sales email, just an update on what's happening here on the farm.

Our thaw last week didn't last, and we are back to limiting our travel as our drive is just too icy. Katie has her next batch of pullets in her brooder and she says they should start laying in just a few months. Some of the ewes have that wide, flat look they get before lambing, and so far we have been able to keep the ice chunked out of the troughs.

Guess the groundhog didn't offer any good will.

Until next week,

Dave