Neversink Farm
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We believe that the quality of an egg is directly related to the hen's quality of life and their feed. We work hard to create the best life for the animals in our care. Our laying hens are all heritage breeds which are adapted to living and foraging outdoors. We have no hybrid chickens bred for factory laying.
All
of
our chickens have free access to pasture everyday from early spring
through late fall. We continually put them on new pasture so they have
fresh grass through the season. During the winter they are in a hoop house getting lots of sun. We clear pasture for them in winter
months to run around on the snow. Feed is usually where a farm tries to save money and as a result gets the cheap bagged poultry feed. These feeds normally contain GMO corn, ground up chicken, fish or crab meal, factory waste and medications. At our farm, hens receive organic fruit and vegetable culls throughout the season. Additional
feed is a custom mixture of local certified organic whole and ground grains. We never feed animal by-products to our birds. The eggs produced under these
conditions are the best tasting you could find. We
are proud and eager to show off our birds, their food, and their living
conditions to any visitors. Eggs can be purchased at our Farm Store, Farmers Markets, and Local Food Stores.Neversink Farm Slow Grown - "The BEST chicken I ever had" Chef Patrick Connolly of Bobo NYC
A chicken's cost and quality is directly related to the quality of feed and the length of their lives. To produce cheap chickens, fast growing hybrids are used pretty much universally. There are generally four types of poultry raised for meat in the world. There are some hybrids produced by very small scale breeders which are not mentioned.Cornish Cross Hybrid - This is the predominate broiler chicken in the United States. It was bred for extremely fast growth, 4 to 7 weeks from egg to slaughter. It is best suited for confined factory production. Unable to reproduce or live past 14 weeks, this is the least sustainable or humane choice. It is the bird used by Tyson and Purdue. It is even used by Joel Salatin though he puts them on pasture. The parent lines are owned by Aviagen, Hybro, Hubbard, and Cobb. These companies control 90% of broiler production in the world.We choose to raise a combination of Heritage breeds and slow grown hybrids to red label standards that we do not
Redbro, Freedom or Colored Rangers or Rouge Hybrid - There are many fancy names for this Hubbard hybrid. It is medium growing, 8 to 10 weeks from egg to slaughter. It is bred to forage on pasture, though it spends much of its time laying down and eating at the feeder. Its parent lines are owned by Hubbard Breeders. One of every Six meat birds sold in the world are produced by this company. Medium growth hybrids in the US are commonly sold, raised and advertised as slow or red label when they are not.
Slow Growing Hybrids or Red Label Standard Hybrid - This is a slow growing bird, 12 to 15 weeks from egg to slaughter. This is the only hybrid that passes the French Label Rouge standard that a chicken must live at least 11.5 weeks before slaughter. It is produced mostly in Europe. The parent lines are owned by Hubbard, Sasso, and others.
Heritage Breeds - These are dual purpose chickens that are raised to provide both meat and eggs. They are ready for slaughter in 16 to 20 weeks. This is how meat birds were raised in the past. They are usually males since the females would be kept for laying but both could be used. They are not hybrids and a small farm could more easily hatch their own and thus, all things being equal, they are the most sustainable choice. They are small chickens at about 3 pounds but due to their long life foraging their taste can't be beat. No one owns these breeds genetics.
source from Hubbard or Sasso genetics. We do not feed them animal products. We give them the same custom organic grains fed to the laying hens. We follow better than "Label Rouge" standards and we do not use the common pasture cages or chicken tractors. Our birds are free to roam all day, every day. We only raise the meat birds spring through summer. We slaughter the birds every two weeks. Call ahead if you wish to reserve a fresh bird.We are very committed to keeping our bees naturally. We
never use any chemicals to treat our bees, even though organic standards allow
for the use of chemicals such as Terramycin and fumagillin. We use essential oils like
wintergreen and thyme, and sometimes organic powdered sugar in our treatments.
We give additional feed only when it is required for healthy bees and never
during the honey flow. The feed we give them is organic evaporated cane juice or
honey as opposed to corn syrup which is what is commonly fed to bees. 
We are
also lucky to be in the part of the Catskills where there is no commercial
farming so our bees do not have the likelihood of running into pesticides
during their foraging. After extraction we do not boil or finely filter our
honey. It takes much work to produce honey this way but we believe our honey to
be of the highest quality available. Bee products in addition to honey that we
sell are propolis and pollen. Honey is seasonal and we extract in the spring and fall.
We begin taking reservations for honey three weeks before extraction.
The next honey extract date will be late spring 2012.
Pork
We raise the oldest breed of English pigs, the Tamworth, which are ideal for
our farm where they get acres of pastures and are outside their whole lives. They are regularly moved to fresh grass so they can root all day long. Their feed is our own mix of certified organic grains with no animal by products. They are then finished with buckets of apples each day. We have pork available in all cuts plus sausages and no nitrate smoked bacon.
Trout
We raise the oldest breed of English pigs, the Tamworth, which are ideal for
our farm where they get acres of pastures and are outside their whole lives. They are regularly moved to fresh grass so they can root all day long. Their feed is our own mix of certified organic grains with no animal by products. They are then finished with buckets of apples each day. We have pork available in all cuts plus sausages and no nitrate smoked bacon. Trout
We wild raise trout in our pond on the farm. We believe that we have the only wild raised trout in the country. They are never fed pellets which are made from GMO corn, chicken, and other things trout shouldn't be eating. Our trout are left to fend for themselves to forage for minnows and insects. This year the trout have spawned in the pond and we now hope to have a sustainable population. To maintain sustainability we limit our harvest each week to very few trout. Trout is sold out for the season.