TBF 014 :: Selling Meat, Chickens in the Freezer, and a Hard Lesson Learned

If you are a beginning farmer like I am there are plenty of things that can be intimidating. I mean if you're raising animals for the first time ... managing breeding for the first time ... raising crops for the first time ... marketing for the first time ... and so much more, it can be very intimidating. Then you have to factor in ol' Uncle Sam and the rules and regulations for selling meat off the farm and in retail settings. Those can be very scary if you don't know what you are doing ... and when we were starting out it meant many phone calls to various governmental organizations.

On this weeks show I take some time to answer a couple of listener e-mails about some of the legal issues surrounding meat sales and why we decided to go to an "official" poultry processor instead of doing it ourselves on the farm. For some farmers on-farm poultry processing is the only option, but we are blessed to have both a poultry processor and an "everything else" locker so near the farm. My biggest piece of advice when it comes to questions like this is to find farmers in your state that are doing what you want to do and pick their brain a little bit ... the begin calling the state offices of Inspection and Appeals ... and be ready for a little confusion ;)

If you have a question for The Beginning Farmer you can leave a comment below or send us an e-mail.

Beyond all of that it has been a very good week on the farm. Thanks to our amazing customers we had a great week at the farmers' market. For the first time this season we have our pasture raised whole chickens in the freezer. And, on top of all that ... we were able to pick up some nice Hereford feeder pigs from a farmer in Illinois who met me when I took the chickens to the processor. Sometimes if feels like everything is falling apart on the farm and then sometimes it just seems to be working like a well oiled machine. Even though the "well oiled machine" weeks seem few and far between they are awesome when they happen ... and this was one of those weeks!

As always, I want to thank you so much for listening and supporting the show with your encouragement and reviews on iTunes! I am continually working to produce a better show, and I'm thankful for all of the listeners sticking with me as I learn. If you do enjoy the show, don't forget that you can subscribe on iTunes and leave a five start rating and review (by clicking the link or the image on the right). If you are an Android phone user you can also subscribe on the free Stitcher App. It is so very encouraging to know that people are listening and enjoying the show!  I would love to hear your questions, show ideas, or comments about the show. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail! As always you can follow along with The Beginning Farmer and Crooked Gap Farm by checking out these links ...  Crooked Gap Farm Crooked Gap Farm on Facebook Crooked Gap Farm on Twitter TBF Show 014 :: Play in a New Window | Right Click to Download

**Special Note :: Because iTunes and Blogger were not playing nicely I now have a different feed for the podcast episodes. You can find a The Beginning Farmer Show specific feed at this link if you use an rss reader. I hope this also helps with some download problems others had been having as well.**

(if you are interested in the music in this episode check out my brother's record label, Historic Records)