Protocols

What is regenerative farming?  Essentially it means moving animals in a way that mimics the animal's natural foraging ability while simultaneously improving the soil quality of the pastures the animals are on.  Practically for us at Endureth Farms, this means moving our animals anywhere from twice a day to once a week depending on the animal and the season. It is truly a marvel to see what animal manure does to rehabilitate pastures. Each rotation the animals bring more and more life back into the soil!

Pasture-raised for us means our animals are on pasture 24x7, 365 days a year (even in winter). Never are they kept in a barn.

Any animal feed that we use is always Certified Organic. You can have confidence that the animals are receiving the best feed on the market. We contract with New Country Organics for their ultra-premium, organic feeds. We also resell their feed to our customers if desired.  

We currently use feed for our layers, meat chickens, and a minimal amount for our goats. As our pastures improve, we intend to move off of feed for the goats and have them be 100% grass fed.

All of our animal feed is "soy-free". This means we don't use soybeans, soybean meal, soybean oil, or any derivative or soy products in our feed. Since soybeans are high in protein, the main replacement for soy is peas and the animals absolutely love it!

So why remove the soy?

Soy is high in phytic acid.

This can block the uptake of vitamins and minerals in the gastrointestinal tract of the animals.

Soy is high in phytoestrogens.

This can have a multitude of health implications such as hormonal imbalance.

Soy is a trypsin inhibitor.

Trypsin helps break down many different proteins. Inhibition of trypsin contributes to allergies.

Non-GMO stands for Non-Genetically Modified Organisms. This applies to our feed because it does not contain any genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as ingredients. Because our feed is Certified Organic, it is by default also Non-GMO because that is a qualification standard of the Organic Certification. Rest assured that we will never use any GMO ingredients in any of our animal feed.

Nurturing organic pastures is fundamental to what we do. We commit to never using any herbicide, pesticide, or chemical fertilizers on our pastures. We do occasionally reseed or overseed our pastures with our own non-GMO pasture seed blend usually we let nature take its course for its own rehabilitation. Following a strict organic, regenerative model, the only amendment our pastures receive is the manure from the animals that graze it.

We commit to never using any vaccines in our animals, ever. Vaccines are a hot topic lately and we believe that vaccines are unnecessary for animals when they are raised on pasture with enough space and rotation to ensure that they live in a clean, natural environment. When chickens, cattle, goats or any animal is kept in close confinement with others, it is simply not possible to keep the environment hygienic enough to keep the animals healthy. Therefore, the animals are injected with vaccines to prevent issues that would not normally be present if the animals were not kept in close confinement. The industrial food system relies on these types of solutions without considering the health impacts to the people that then buy and eat it! We reject this and commit to raising animals the way God intended!

We commit to never using any hormones or steroids in our animals, ever. We believe that hormones and steroids have absolutely no place in raising animals for food. Profit-driven corporations have taken over the food system where the bottom line has more importance than healthy, nutritious food. We say NO to this and reject any usage of hormones or steroids.

We commit to never using any antibiotics in any of our animals, ever. We believe that healthy animals have a rather incredible immune system and when managed correctly as God intended, animals thrive. Over time, this commitment establishes a robust herd or flock and subsequent generations benefit tremendously from the natural immunities that the parents pass on.

Instead of chemical dewormers, we use exclusively organic, natural, herb-based dewormers. This is pretty much unheard of in commercial livestock. Again, this speaks to our true commitment to growing the cleanest food you can buy. 

We have found effective solutions using such herbs as Wormwood, Black Walnut, and Pumpkin Seeds, among other herbs, to treat and prevent parasite overloads in our animals. Additionally, we breed for parasite-resistance and have seen excellent results in each child generation.

We commit to humanely harvesting all of our animals. For our meat chickens we are able to harvest onsite on the farm under the Virginia Poultry Exemption P.L. 90-492. We take all precautions to ensure that the birds are kept comfortable and the dispatch is as quick as possible. We do not use any electrocution, gassing, or chemicals in the dispatch of our birds. While we are not certified, we have been told that our methods are similar to Kosher.

For our goats, we are required to process them at a USDA inspected processing plant. Our processing partners in this case also follow similar methods to those we would use if we would process the goats on the farm.