Blog Post
Vision Farms Blog
Puppies, Pullets and Poults!
savocas • Jan 04, 2024
What we have going for 2024!
It's hard to believe that it is 2024 already! We hope your past year was a good one, in spite of the craziness going on in the rest of the world.
Puppies
As you can see, we have an adorable litter of Great Pyrenees puppies getting close to needing jobs of their own. There are 8 of them altogether, and they were born November 10th. Last week they started going out into the field during the day, with mom and dad, and are loving there new found freedom! They are quite fascinated with the sheep, buddies with all the kittens, (like the one that photo bombed the picture above), and still a little intimidated by the rooster. These cuties come from a long line of working guard dogs, and not only have it in there blood, but also get to observe mom, dad and grandpa in action every day. Whether you are needing something to keep the coyotes, foxes, bears, and now even wolves away from your livestock, or you're just wanting extra eyes watching over your 2 footed loved ones, these guys will fill the bill quite well! Besides that, they are just plain fun to cuddle!
Pullets
It's time to start thinking about the laying hens you're going to need this year. The website is all updated, and we are now taking orders for pullets for the 2024 season. We will have them available from April through July, 8 weeks old and ready for their permanent chicken coop. We are only doing pre-orders, so if you need pullets in 2024, please go to our store page to get your order in soon!
Poults
We will also have a limited amount of 6 week old turkey poults, ready to go July 13th. They will be the White Broad Breasted variety, and they will be at the optimal size and ready for you to butcher the week of September 16th. They free range very well, are great grasshopper and insect control, and provide a lot of yummy meat! Our favorite thing is to smoke the large breasts for sandwich meat to have all winter, and cut the brown meat off the bone to grind for turkey sausage, besides the one we put on the table for Thanksgiving. Again, these will only be available by pre-ordering, so head on over to our store, if you're hankering to have your own turkeys this year!
All Posts
Happy 2023! We hope you all had a blessed and prosperous 2022, in spite of all the challenges, and pray that you are ready to jump into 2023 with both feet! We are doing our best to do the same, and thus, we are now taking orders for pullets for the spring and summer seasons. Thankfully, availability of chicks does not seem to be a problem at this point, and we are planning on having an abundance of pullets available. We are taking orders for 4 different pick-up dates, at which time, your pullets will be 8 weeks old, and ready to get settled into their new home: April 8, May 6, June 3 and July 1. We will only be selling through pre-orders, so if you are planning on getting some replacement hens, or are just getting started in chickens, we recommend that you get your orders in as soon as possible. Pullets will be $12 each this year, and we require a $5 deposit per bird. Click on the button below, to place your order today!
Well, a lot has happened in 2020, and we hope you have fared well through it all! We have been very blessed here, throughout the year, as so many folks were seeking food source alternatives, starting their own flocks of chickens, and looking for puppies to enjoy with all the extra time on their hands. Thus, we have kept very busy, and have been able to meet a lot of new folks, during this time when interacting with people has been so discouraged. We are so very thankful for this farm, and thankful that we have been able to share it with so many of you. Please continue reading to see what we have to offer this fall, and from all our family, we wish you the most blessed Thanksgiving. We hope you are spending it with friends and family!
From our family to yours, we hope you had a blessed holiday season, and are ready to embark on this new year, with a hopeful outlook for the future! As we always do this time of year, we are busy making plans and preparations, for the products we will be able to offer you in the coming year. We are always working to fine tune what we do, to get the most from our investment of time and money, and to be able to provide the best quality products that we possibly can, for you, our customers.
Our schedule is set for our pasture raised broiler harvest. We are only planning on 300 this year. As our children get older, and have their own busy lives to tend to, we don't always have the ready help that we need, so we are cutting back this year. If you are planning to order this season, we urge you to get your order in as soon as possible, so as not to miss out! Our broilers are raised on freshly ground, non-GMO feeds until they are 3 weeks old. At that time, they are moved out to the pasture in our portable brooders, where they get fresh grass and bugs every day, supplemented with the non-GMO feed, until they are about 7 1/2 weeks old, when they are ready for butchering. Their dressed weight averages between 3.5 to 4.5#. Cooked up, they are tender, extremely tasty, and so nutritious. After you get the meat off the bones, you can make a nutrient rich, delicious bone broth that beats everything you could ever buy in the store. Get your order in soon, and fill your freezer with this nutrient dense meat that you will feel great about feeding to your family! http://www.visionfarms.org/cornish-cross-broilers
It is time to start planning for our 2018 chicken crop. The schedule is set for 5 batches of sex-link, Golden Comet pullets . We do these in batches of 100 at a time. We raise them up until they are 8 weeks old. At that point they are fully feathered, and quite ready to take up residency in your chicken coop, or free range in your yard. These chickens are actually a hybrid cross, usually between a Rhode Island Red or a New Hampshire Red male and a White Plymouth Rock, Rhode Island White, Silver Laced Wyandotte or a Delaware female. This cross produces golden red hens, with white highlights, and cream colored roosters with red highlights here and there. The best part of this cross though, is that it creates a chicken that lays huge eggs and lots of them. They start laying at around 5 months old, they lay almost every day, and will for sure lay through their first winter. They are very calm and like being around people. We were given 2 dozen of these chicks for a wedding present, and we have been raising them ever since! If you are looking for a great laying hen, then get your order in for some of these really productive and easy to keep hens. Check out the schedule of availability on our website. http://www.visionfarms.org/sex-link-pullets
As hard as it is to do, when a mother beef cow no longer can contribute to the herd, we have to cull her. We currently have a cow in that situation, so she will be butchered and made into ground beef. Older cows like this are not suitable for steaks and other tender cuts, but they do make really good ground beef! Youth promotes tenderness, but age promotes great beef flavor! The ground beef will be available mid December, in 1# packages, for $5.00/#. Our family of 7 generally goes through 4# per meal, with a few leftovers......sometimes. Three big boys and one growing one can really put away the food! Click on the link below, and get your order in while we still have plenty available! http://www.visionfarms.org/store/Grass-Fed-Ground-Beef-p96806945
Our last butcher day for 2017 here at Vision Farms, was this past Saturday. We still have some chicken available, so if you want to stock up for the winter, now is the time! We won't have fresh chicken available again until June of 2018. If you would like a sample chicken to try before you buy, please contact us by phone or email and we will get one to you. Buying meat is a big investment, and we want you to be confident in what you are buying. These chickens have been raised on non-GMO feeds, and have been on fresh, daily pasture since they were 3 weeks old. The fresh grass does wonders for the flavor and the level of nutrition these chickens will provide. Get your order in today!
The baby turkeys have arrived and are doing well. They have been so much fun to watch, popping in and out from under their mothers. Their instincts are so amazing, knowing right off that under mamma it is safe, warm and a good place to be! The turkey pen had been very quiet for the last 28 days. While the hens are setting they make virtually no noise at all. I knew right away, as I walked out to the pen last Monday morning that the hatching was in progress, because the little ones are not quiet at all. As soon as they are out of the egg and moving around they are chirping....loudly, and mamma is constantly answering them. They grow quickly too. They already have tiny little wing feathers, and are running around pecking at everything and trying to catch every bug that they see. We are very thankful for these new arrivals!
It's hard to believe, but Spring is upon us! As everywhere in Western Colorado, Spring has hit our farm early. The forsythia and daffodils have been blooming for a couple of weeks now, the fruit trees are blooming one right after the other, the lilacs are budding up, and the turkeys are setting on their nests! It's exciting to see them start setting, because 28 days later we get to have little turkey poults running around. It is amazing to me, the sacrifice a mamma bird goes through to hatch her eggs. 28 days (for turkeys) of sitting in the exact same spot, staring at the wall, getting up for only very short periods of time to get a little food and water, and then getting back onto her eggs before they get cold. It is a lot of devotion, that God has put into the family of birds, enabling them to procreate and carry on. What a blessing to watch them and see their diligence, doing whatever it takes to bring about the next generation. These turkeys are a heritage breed called Midget Whites. Heritage breed turkeys are just like wild turkeys, in that they are able to breed naturally. The broad-breasted breeds which are the types you find in the grocery store at Thanksgiving time, are not able to breed naturally, but have to be artificially inseminated. Other advantages of the heritage breeds are that they are much better at foraging for themselves, are a lot hardier, especially as babies, and their meat is very rich and delicious! If all goes well, we will have a limited number of these turkeys to offer for your 2017 Thanksgiving table! Stay tuned!!
First of all, we would like to welcome you to our new, Vision Farms website! Believe it or not, it has been two years in the making, mostly because I am a farmer, not a computer person. But, thanks to a lot of help from one of our tech savvy sons, we finally have the finished product! Please peruse the entire website, and see all that we have to offer. Of course, due to the time of year, not everything we offer is currently available, but we are gearing up, looking forward to a busy summer! We invite you to visit the website often, to see what is coming up, and we also invite you to visit the farm in person. We would love to have you! Currently, we are excited to introduce you to our new milk cow, Lily. She has been with us for two weeks now, and is settling in nicely. We got her from a small Jersey dairy on the east slope, where she had recently freshened with her first calf. I don't think she had been around any other animals but other Jersey cows, so it took her a few days to get used to our menagerie. She is extremely sweet, congenial, and loves being around people. She is a good producer, gives lots of cream, and her milk tastes great! We are so thankful to have her as a new addition to our Jersey herd. Thanks to her, we now have herd shares available, so if you are hankering for a glassful of cold, fresh, yummy milk, give us a call and we will get you all set up!
Contact Us
Vision Farms
4525 U Rd
De Beque, CO 81630
P: 970-623-2939
E: visionfarmsco@gmail.com
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