20 May 2006
Some News and No Mistake!

Sunflower LogoHammerstead Farms is pleased to announce that we're now an egg vendor for the Sunflower Market in Indianapolis. I dropped off the first 50 dozen yesterday morning, and they say they're eventually looking for upwards of a hundred dozen a week! You can visit their website by clicking on their logo at the left.

And by all means visit their store at 1021 Broad Ripple Avenue in Indianapolis: you won't be disappointed. In addition to our fine free range eggs, they have possibly the finest selection of organic and natural foods I've seen anywhere. Their produce section is nothing short of awesome, as the entire room is climate controlled, which not only keeps the products fresher, but also cuts down on waste, I'm sure.

We've added 60 new hens to our flock, and are increasing production to handle the increased sales. This is a good thing, indeed! This puts our hen count at about 210, and we're considering ramping up further by brooding another hundred chicks. We'll see how sales keep going before we make that decision.

On another farm front, we've sold most of our Highland herd to the Apple Family Farm. We're keeping Chip, Maeg and this years heifer calf, but we sold the rest, even our half share of Peanut. We're picking up a bottle calf from another local farm, and will be adding a couple of feeder steers that'll be ready to eat in October and next March - so there's our beef production schedule.

We're also thinking seriously about getting back into the sheep business in a more serious way, as we've found a market for our lamb crop. We're investigating getting into a breed that can produce a reasonable wool clip and give excellent meat production as well: we really like our Scottish Blackface sheep, but the clip is tough to market. So we're looking at horned Dorsets or even (yeech!) North Country Cheviots... I say "yeech!" because I think they're about the ugliest ovines on the planet - but hey! good wool, good meat, good grief, let's eat!

We'll see. I still want a cool looking, horned breed...

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