Pasture Posts #166
Here’s the weekly roundup from Watson Farms and your direct connection to your farmer. Enjoy the latest edition of Pasture Posts!
Some Challenges with Pastured Chicken
Did you know that many pastured broiler producers across the country have either gone out of the business or significantly changed their production or marketing models?
This is a trend that we’ve been paying close attention to for the last few years. The reasons are varied but can probably be summed up mostly with labor and processing bottlenecks or costs as well as other increasing input prices for the producers. We have definitely been affected by these rising costs as well. Here’s some of the things we’re paying more for than we were a few years ago – some of which you might not have thought about:
Insurance – Even though we hope to save money by processing our chickens on-farm, we do have to carry insurance on our processing facility which is something many farms don’t have to think about. Unfortunately, this policy and all the others associated with our farm business have all gone up significantly this year.
Wages and Labor: We strive to find quality people and do our best to pay wages that everyone can live with. We’re extremely grateful for the great team we have!
Fraud: Believe it or not – as we found out recently – there are people out there that will write bad checks for large amounts of meat. We then have to spend time and resources to recover these much-needed funds.
With all that said, the fact is that the biggest bottleneck for our farm when it comes to producing broiler chickens is processing. We have processed birds at USDA facilities in the past, but this has become very cost prohibitive with all the rising input costs that they face as well. The quality of the product from these USDA poultry plants has been less than satisfactory as well. So we have concluded in the past few years that for us to stay in the broiler business, we have to process the birds on-farm. With our current processing labor lineup, we are limited to a certain number of birds per year.
Another limiting factor is that we only produce our broiler chickens during the warmer months of the year (March – November). This is because broilers don’t do well during cold, wet weather not to mention having deal with frozen water many mornings would be troublesome to say the least.
So where this left us is that as you may recall, we ran out of some chicken back in February. We know this isn’t ideal and we are actively searching for ways to alleviate this. In the meantime, as you probably know we restricted the purchase of some chicken products over the last week or so to Herd Members only. This allowed us to build a good stock in the freezer over several rounds of processing, and we’re happy to announce that we have opened up all of our chicken products to all customers.
For all of our Herd Members, there’s still some great discounts that are available, and there will likely be times in the future when we once again restrict high-demand or low-stock items to our Herd Members. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the current discounts and low-stock items that all Herd Members receive access to as of today:
Herd Member Discounts
-
Beef Brisket$65.95 -
Beef Ribs$22.48 -
London Broil$35.72 -
Ground Beef$10.99 -
Chuck Roast$43.96
Chicken has been re-stocked!
Check out this page to see photos and videos of our pasture raised chickens and learn more about our methods.
Watson Farms HD Customers
Pastured Chicken
These meat chickens are started in a brooder house for the first few weeks after hatching. Once they develop adult feathers they are moved onto pasture where they have shelter, fresh air, sunshine and a new “salad bar” every day. The once-per-day move helps the birds to ingest as much grass as possible and gets them away from yesterday’s manure. We process the chickens under a South Carolina poultry processing exemption for small farmers.
UPS Customers
We’ve received a lot of new reviews lately!
Check them out!
Check out this ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review:
“Watson Farms is beyond good, they are GREAT! The beef is so delicious and tender. Their pasture chicken and eggs are delectable! Professionally packaged. All meals we make with their meats are devoured immediately. I love their delivery service as well! Once a week I have brought to my door everything we need. Purchasing an additional freezer for their whole cow now! Order with full confidence – bon appetite!”
We would greatly appreciate it if you would be kind enough to leave us a review. It helps first-time customers purchase with confidence.
Order Deadlines and Store Hours
Here’s a friendly reminder to get your orders in by the deadline. We have changed our workflow some to help reduce errors, so we have to begin the process of staging orders for the next day’s delivery very soon after the deadlines below. Help us serve you better by ensuring your order is placed in time!
Charleston Area: 12 noon Mondays
UPS Orders: 12 noon Mondays
Columbia Area: 12 noon on Tuesdays
GSP: 12 noon on Wednesdays
Charlotte/Fort Mill/Rock Hill Areas: 12 noon on Fridays
Farm Pickup: Please wait until you receive an email stating that your order is ready to be picked up (usually 1 business day from when you place your order). Farm pickup is done during store hours:
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 10am to 6pm
Saturday: 10am to 2pm
Closed Sunday and Wednesday
Tell a Friend!
It’s now easier than ever to Give $15 and Get $15 through our Referral Program. We don’t spend a lot of money of advertising, but rather we focus on producing products that people love and are willing to tell others about. So we depend on word of mouth to find new customers and ultimately to heal more land.
So in an effort to streamline this process we have made it easier to tell others (via email, Facebook, or Twitter) about Watson Farms. And it’s all automated on the backend, so you don’t have to rely on us to issue the store credits manually. Just head over to our Referrals Page and start sharing!
Thanks again for being partners in this endeavor of local, pasture-raised proteins that has truly transformed our farm. We look forward to continuing this transition while serving you long into the future.
Sincerely,
The Watsons
Pasture Posts is written by Matt Watson.
