It’s been busy here at This Old Farm getting ready for our big event on Saturday May 19th, but we now have all our hens in order! Though the business began as a small diversified livestock operation, over the last several years the emphasis has been to provide processing services to other farmers. This has caused some confusion amongst some customers, as they come expecting a farm due to our name and instead are greeted by a retail grocery store counter at the front of a processing facility.
Having seen this confusion, it’s especially exciting to announce that we now have chicks adjacent to our facility! Once the chicks grow, they will help supply a fraction of the eggs needed to stock our retail area and fulfill orders. But while they’re young, we hope they make an especially cute attraction for our event celebrating local food and agriculture on Saturday May 19th.
We hope to use the chicks (and potentially other animals in the future) to help engage our visitors in agriculture. For most Americans, their experience with food begins at the earliest in a grocery store and ends at the dinner table. But that is such a small fraction of all the work that’s involved in making your food. As the time, property, and funds become available, we hope to turn our facility and the adjacent property into an all-encompassing food hub; displaying an example of how the animals could have been raised (we source product from a variety of farms, none of which have identical practices), and a transparent and traceable processing facility. At one site, you’ll be able to see everything involved in growing your food, from the birth of an animal to the final packaged product in our retail area.
We hope you come check out our new chicks, and all the other exciting improvements such as our pavilion, fire pit, and various outdoor games on Saturday May 19th. The afternoon begins at 2pm with outdoor activities for the kids, a cash bar, raffles, and live music. At 3pm, our butchers will do a whole animal butchery demonstration, and at 5pm a four course locally sourced meal is served with music provided by former Colts player Hunter Smith! Tickets are $60 for adults, $20 for children 12 and under, or $20 for access to everything except the bar and the meal. Tickets are limited, but we still have many to go around, so give us a call at 765-324-2161 to reserve your tickets!