The Scoop on Our Feed

Some of our customers hit us up with feed questions, so for those who want to nerd-out on the details, I want to give some thorough answers. Here we go!

Grass-Fed Beef and Lamb

Our beef and lamb are 100% grass-fed. That means all the way from start to finish - no cheating! (The grocery store “grass-fed” label allows for 90 days of feeding grain. What?! I know. It sounds like some sort of joke, but it is true - they are actually grain-fed “grass-fed” beef.) Cattle and sheep are magical ruminants that can actually ferment the goodies out of grass. Not so for pigs and poultry! They don’t have magic fermenting bellies.

Pigs and Poultry

Our pigs and poultry are moved VERY often to fresh pasture. (Our meat chickens are moved seven days a week. Trophy please!) This makes them all the more inclined to eat those very fresh and nutritious perennial grasses and forages, but pigs and poultry have been bred for thousands of years to thrive on a diet that also includes grain. They do not have a magical fermenting belly to fully access the grasses like the cattle and sheep do. Hence, we supplement them with grains on top of what they get from foraging bugs, grass, nuts, and berries from our pastures and woods.

Sunrise Farm Feed

I have been using Sunrise feed since we started our farm in 2009. They are a Mennonite family-owned business in the Shenandoah Valley, and they do a great job. I still remember driving my 1980 tiny Toyota pickup truck to Stuarts Draft, Virginia in 2009 to pick up way more feed than that truck could carry back to Warrenton. (Now, they deliver to us, but that was just me starting out and figuring things out.)

Here are some reasons I like their feed:

• Their feed is non-GMO feed raised without toxic chemicals. (It is tested for non-GMO and chemical spray residue, so there is true accountability that this is non-GMO and is not grown with herbicides, pesticides, or fungicides.)
• Supporting a local, family-owned business
• Feed is ground fresh for Whiffletree’s delivery with no toxic preservatives. This is really important because when grains are ground, they begin to oxidize and lose nutritional value. the feed at the typical feed store has toxic preservatives to try to mitigate this nutritional loss. No preservatives in this feed!
• Their rations are designed by the guru of pastured poultry nutrtition, Jeff Mattocks of Fertell.
• Their feed uses Fertell’s all natural mineral supplement.
• Much of the feed is grown by Sunrise, and what is not is grown locally or regionally.
• Their prices are reasonable and fair.

Not Soy-Free?

We currently feed our pigs and poultry a non-GMO, no chemical, no antibiotic feed that includes roasted non-GMO soybeans. We have raised chickens on a feed without soybeans, and I was not happy with it. There was a higher mortality rate and a higher number of birds that were sickly and runty. The proof was not in the pudding for me - just boots on the ground observing the animals. That being said, I am sensitive to the concerns about the nutrient-blocking and phytoestrogen aspects of soybeans. The thing is, when feed doesn’t have soybeans, it will have other legumes that, like soybeans, also have nutrient-blocking and phytoestrogen issues. So, soy-free feeds are not a silver bullet to solve that issue. Most feeds also do not contain roasted soybeans, but ours does. Roasting helps mitigate the nutrient blocking issue.

Finally, the soy in our feed is not the bad, conventional, hexane-extracted, GMO, herbicide-laden soybean meal. Hexane-extracted, GMO soybean meal is in more and more processed food. This has rightfully upset people and sparked a witch hunt against soy.

However, as usual, the devil is in the details, and I am not yet convinced that the soybean alternative legume (field peas, alfalfa, etc.) feeds are better than roasted, non-GMO soybeans in animal feed. I will continue researching and will let you know what I learn.

Thank you for tracking with me on all this! Thank you for caring about how your food is raised! Thank you for going out of your way to patronize us. We cannot do this good work without your support!

Let me know what questions or issues I did not address. I am happy to take multiple swipes at this issue!

-Jesse Straight