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Welcome to Heritage Farms Northwest's online home. We are a small family run farm that is excited to be raising, promoting and preserving rare breed farm animals. Many of our animal breeds have been selected from the American Livestock Breed Conservancy's (ALBC) list of critically endangered farm breeds. These are breeds of livestock that have been around for years and years and might have been found on your grandfather's or even great grandfather's farm. These are old style farm animals that have unique characteristics in both personalities, as well as outstanding meat qualities. Our goal is to give our animals the very best life that we can. By raising healthy and happy animals, we are ensuring that the meat they produce is the best and healthiest it can be. Additionally, by being good stewards of both the land and the livestock we are showing respect for them and the ultimate sacrifice they will make. In order to raise livestock in a natural, humane manner, we pasture raise all our livestock. This means little or no confinement. The animals are allowed to roam the pastures freely and to indulge themselves in all the activities that come naturally to them. This means that the cows graze grass and sit under the big fir tree chewing their cud each afternoon. The hogs are also out grazing in the pastures. If they want to dig a bit in the soil, they are able to do so. Many pasture pork producers put rings in their hogs noses so that they will not root in the pastures. We never use nose rings and while, yes, the fields do get the occasional rooting treatment, we think that the advantages of letting the hogs be hogs far outweighs keeping the pastures in "pristine" condition. We've also got plenty of mud for the hogs to play in. Everyone knows that hogs love to wallow in mud. Yep, it's true, hogs love to wallow. It helps keep them cool in the warm weather. All our hogs have access to mud wallows, even the 2 week old piglets. A muddy hog is a happy hog! Our poultry is free ranged. They spend their days working in the pastures alongside or behind the cows and hogs, doing what poultry does; Scattering manure and doing larva and bug patrol. The poultry are an important part of our pasture management program! Please join us on Facebook by searching Heritage Farms Northwest. We try to post pictures and updates on a regular basis. We also have a blog site that is just starting up at http://heritagefarmsnw.wordpress.com/
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