by Meredith Chilson   One week as a turkey rancher. Wrangler? Farmer? Mostly…watcher. Just as I do when there are new chicken peeps under the heat lamp in the garage, I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time sitting in the lawn chair pulled up next to the little turkey pen.         […]

by Jennifer Sartell of Iron Oak Farm If you’ve been following me here on Community Chickens, the Iron Oak Farm Facebook Page or on our You Tube Channel, I’ve been documenting the progression of our Black Spanish turkey hatch. I’ve been sharing videos and photos covering each step of this exciting time. Some of the […]

by Jennifer Sartell of Iron Oak Farm I have a goal this year. And that goal it to increase our turkey flock. We chose a heritage breed of turkeys because I wanted a breed that could sustain itself year to year after we harvested the birds that we plan to eat. Turkey poults are expensive […]

by Jennifer Sartell of Iron Oak Farm “Variety is the spice of life.” This old saying also applies to the farmyard scene. I love the mix of animal species that graze, peck and pluck around our property. We have Angora goats that give us beautiful fiber, and Nubian and Alpine goats that give us milk […]

by Meredith Chilson Does it seem like this has been a really long winter? Are you wishing for a break in the weather, sunshine, anything that might indicate springtime? I’ve been leafing through seed and hatchery catalogues for months. Seeds are ordered, the garden is planned, and in about a month I’ll be starting the […]

by Jennifer Sartell of Iron Oak Farm I remember when I was a kid we had one of those electric carving knives that my dad ordered from an infomercial. It was a serrated knife blade attached to a handle with a motor that moved the blade back and forth in a kind of violent vibration. […]

by Jennifer Sartell of Iron Oak Farm Fall…Such a descriptive term for a season. The only season to have two names really,… sometimes called “Autumn” and then the less formal verb “Fall” which comes from the phrase “fall of the leaf“ coined in 1545. Dictionary.com. I find it interesting that no other season warrants a […]

by Jennifer Sartell of Iron Oak Farm Every time I think I’ve witnessed all the quirky behaviors that our turkeys display, they prove that animals are always full of surprises. As you may have read in my last turkey post Trimming Turkey Feathers, the turkeys are really enjoying their new freedom to explore the larger […]

by Jennifer Sartell of Iron Oak Farm So for the past 6 months or so we’ve had a turkey dilemma…how to keep them in the yard. As a last resort, I think we found the solution. When we first got the heritage turkeys we set up an indoor pen in the barn connected to an […]

Lally Broch Farm is located in beautiful mid-coast Maine on a little over 4 acres of land in a very rural community.  Sean and Sonja began “farming” about 5 years ago, though at the time, they merely thought they were going to keep a few backyard chickens as pets and for their eggs. They answered […]