2009 Annual Newsletter to our Customers

Attention friends of Full of Life Farm, LLC:

Greetings from the Smith family here at Full of Life Farm. We trust you are well and looking forward to some warmer and drier weather (as we are).

This is our first newsletter to customers. I've spent a lot of time thinking about what to write in this newsletter. There are so many things I'd like to talk about with regard to the current state of our food system, it's relation to human health, and why buying food from your local farmer, where you can see for yourself how your food is grown, is so important.

I encourage you to come visit and see for yourself just how we do things here at Full of Life Farm. If you like what you see and if our products work for you, I would love to have the opportunity to provide your family with nourishing food, raised in a manner that mother nature intended. The positive feedback we received from several of you who purchased our chicken last year confirms we're on the right track.

A few words about how and why we process our chickens on our farm and how that affects you
Our number one goal is to produce the best food possible for you, our customers. Stress is one important factor that affects meat quality in animals. If we crated up our chickens in boxes and loaded them in the back of a truck and hauled them more than an hour to the nearest commercial processing facility (in Willamina Oregon), and had them wait who knows how long in crates (without food or water) until the processor got around to processing them, our chickens would obviously be stressed during their last few hours of life. We believe this stress impacts the quality of meat.

The answer to eliminating this stress is to slaughter animals on the farm. Oregon's laws governing processing of farm animals make this easy for all animals except poultry (and rabbits). With poultry, if a farmer wishes to sell them processed, he/she must either ship their poultry to a "state inspected" facility or build a state inspected facility on the farm. We know of only two farms in the entire state of Oregon who have managed to come up with the funds to build their own state inspected facility (we are not one of them).

So rather than accept high animal stress that that the current "system" seems to encourage, we have chosen the following business model when selling our pastured poultry:

First, our contract with you, our customer, is for live birds (i.e. not processed). When you purchase chicken from us, your invoice is clearly marked that you are purchasing live birds.

Second, We have an open-air processing pavilion with the equipment and expertise to dress your birds cleanly and efficiently and we will gladly do this at no additional charge to you, right here on our farm. Utmost care is taken to maintain a clean environment while we work and we chill the birds immediately in an ice water bath. If you choose to have us process your birds, they will be whole (i.e. not cut into pieces) and on ice when you come to pick them up. So let us know if you'd like us to process your birds, or pick them up live.

Please also remember, we invite you to show up early on pickup day and observe us processing chickens. We firmly believe that working under the watchful eyes of our customers holds us to the highest standards.

Now let's get down to business.

Chicken (broiler/fryer)
We're going to raise three batches of chickens this season (pickup dates in June, August, and October). The first batch of baby chicks has already been ordered. Only 50 chickens are available for sale from this batch and it's first come, first served. You can place orders and pay your deposit with visa or pay pal via our website (http://www.fulloflifefarm.com/order).

For the August and October batches, we'll take orders for up to 150 birds per batch. Again, first come, first served. You can go ahead and place these orders now also.

Chicken (stewing hens)
We keep layers for two production years. At that point, they don't lay enough eggs to be economical so we "retire" them. Although they are tougher than the young broilers, the taste is superior and the broth is exquisite. Stewing hens must be slow cooked in order to be tender. We will only have about 10 stewing hens available for sale in October. Again, it's first come, first served so if you're interested, go ahead and place an order via our website (http://www.fulloflifefarm.com/order).

Turkey
We will have approximately 12 turkeys available for Thanksgiving. They are the Broad Breasted Bronze breed and will likely be 20 lbs, give or take. As this is our first time raising turkeys, I'm not sure exactly how big they will be. Based on the date that we are receiving chicks, we are told to expect them to range from 16 to 24 lbs. But we ask you to be flexible on size and forgive us if we miss the target by a few pounds.

Also, we are trying to hatch some heritage breeds here on our farm. We should know in the next 30 days whether any of these will hatch. As heritage turkeys grow slower than the Broad Breasted Bronzes, they should only weigh 10 to 14 lbs by Thanksgiving. Or we could just wait until Christmas and let them grow bigger. But again, this is our first time raising these as well and we aren't really sure what to expect. One important consideration - these heritage breeds won't have the large breasts that the Broad Breasted Bronzes have. If big breasts are important to you, you should stick with the Bronzes.

If you are interested in purchasing a turkey, I recommend you go ahead and place your order and pay the deposit now (http://www.fulloflifefarm.com/order). We'll handle the orders on a first come, first served basis. If we don't have enough birds to fill all of the orders, we'll refund those deposits on orders that can't be filled.

Chicken Eggs
We have chicken eggs available now. Our hens are on grass and clover pasture and the egg yolks are bright orange and full of nutrition. We've got about 85 laying hens of various breeds that give us a colorful assortment of eggs. We don't grade our eggs and we wash them by hand with water only (no bleach or chemical rinse). Eggs sell for $5/dozen and you pay when you pick them up at our farm.

If you're considering purchasing eggs for the first time, call us before you come out to the farm so we can be sure to be here and show you around.

Rabbit
Ask us about rabbit if you are interested. We do have them available from time to time.

Beef, Goat and Pork
We won't have beef, goat or pork available until 2010. However, we have purchased foundation herds of these animals and you can see them when you come to visit or to pick up your orders.

If you'd like more detailed information about how we do things here at Full of Life Farm, you can visit our website at www.fulloflifefarm.com. And by all means, please send us your questions or feedback on what we are doing so we can continue to get better at what we do.

Lastly, we gain customers through word of mouth advertising. If you like our products, please tell a friend about us. And feel free to forward this email. Thank you.

Sincerely yours,

Bernard and the rest of the Smiths at Full of Life Farm, LLC