October Farm Update
Fall is upon us now. We have had a couple of killing frosts and the growing season at Pettit Pastures is officially over. The first week of October, we brought the pigs into the butcher. Today, we brought our last group of cattle for the year to the butcher. Now, we are starting to get ready for winter on the farm. Just because the growing season is over, doesn’t mean that our grazing season is over. Because we intensively manage our grazing throughout the summer, we still have 6 to 8 weeks worth of forage left to graze. Currently, we are grazing our fourth crop Alfalfa. By grazing this, we save the cost of making hay and the cows naturally fertilize the field as they graze. At the end of the week, we have the vet coming out to pregnancy check our cows and heifers. This will allow us to make a rough plan as to how many calves we can expect next year as well as letting us gauge how many of our cows were bred by our lowline bull and how many were bred by our new Aubrac bull. I will give an update next month to let you know the results.
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As mentioned in the opening paragraph, the pigs have been butchered. I have tried the bacon, chops, and steak and everything has been excellent. I have talked to most of our customers, who purchased pork, and have gotten stellar reviews from them as well. The pigs also exceeded our expectations on how they improved our pastures. Spots that were solid Buckthorn brush before we put the pigs on them turned into lush clover and grass after we moved the pigs and the pasture recovered. In fact, when we let the cattle into a new paddock the first place they grazed is where the pigs had previously been pastured.
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That being said, next year we will be getting pigs again and will start taking deposits for pork as soon as we get them. The pork sold fast this year, but the beef has been selling even faster. We sold out all our bulk beef this fall (quarters, halves, and whole beeves) and even have people wanting to put down a deposit for next spring. Once we get all our beef delivered this fall, we will start taking deposits for next spring. Sign up early so you don’t miss out! We will have some individual steaks, roasts and hamburger that will go on the website when we get it back in early November. If you have any questions or comments about the farm, you can post them below.
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