Caledonia Hills Farm LLC

Greetings from Caledonia Hills Farm LLC! The seasons fly by but before we’re waist deep in snow wondering when we’ll see green again, we wanted to thank our customers for your purchases and encouragement. We’re grateful for your financial support but also thrilled to be able to share what we’ve put our hearts, minds and hands into producing.

This has been a challenging and difficult year. We doubled the number of birds we raised from last year, built a new brooding house, got a better cooling system for processing, and finally got a few heifers to “mow” the grass to a tasty height for our pastured birds. That growth, paired with other hurdles, makes your support even more special to us.

Next year will bring another change. Instead of growing more poultry we have decided to focus on the heritage breeds and building sustainability. Heritage birds fit our life, dreams, and taste buds much better. Our heritage breeds (Wyandottes and Dark Cornish) have proven to be very hearty. Mortality among chicks is low and as adults these birds thrive free-ranging on our mix of tree and shrub cover and pasture. Beyond that, of all the birds we’ve taste tested, the Dark Cornish is our absolute favorite. In our research of breeds we see again and again the Cornish used in the development of other breeds to bring in flavor – we see why!

Our goal is to have more and more chicks hatched right here on the farm. After all the research and analysis of sales numbers, it just feels right to see baby birds hatching under a hen and to see the hens foraging in the woods. Our chickens aren’t really wild animals any more than we are – they like the creature comforts of a predator-proof house to sleep in and a little extra
grain when the bugs are sparse – but we'd like to get just a little closer to a natural, wild lifestyle.

Our visits with everyone during chicken pickups are one of our favorite things. We’re hoping that narrowing our focus and refining our goals will make for an even better experience for all of you when you come to the farm. We're also hoping to free up more time to work on renovation of our prairie parcel and make it more visitor-friendly in the future.

I’m working on compiling a few recipes to send to our customers and we’ll send out our usual order notice early in 2009 (if you're not a regular customer drop us a request and we'll get you an order form). Also, for anyone interested, we’ve kept more laying hens this year and are looking for more regular egg customers. In the meantime, enjoy the fall and the upcoming holidays!

Happy Eating!

Jeff Konkel & Toby Linzmeier
Caledonia Hills Farm LLC
N4309 Konkel Rd.
Portage, WI 53901
608.445.4004
CaledoniaHillsFarm@yahoo.com