Chicken for Sale

Organically Pasture Raised Chicken. Fed Organic Grain and spring water moved to fresh pasture often. Whole Birds are 3.5 to 4.5 lbs, frozen and ready for your freezer. Winter is coming time to stock up on something you can feel good about eating.

$ 4.00 per lb. Buy 20 or more $ 3.75 per lb.

Available on Farm or local delivery Call (802) 644-8341 email twisshill@hotmail.com

Wrap'n at the Farm

Not a great summer for haying, but this winter we bought a bale wrapper. Wrapping bales do not have to be dry and with this summer's weather it is the only reason we have put up any hay.
Turn on your speakers!!

What a Great Day!!

We had a very successful first Open Farm Day. Over 40 folks stopped by for a fried chicken, homemade ice cream and farm tours. I'm not sure who had more fun, the kids, the adults or the animals.

OPEN FARM DAY

On Saturday June 27th we will be hosting an OPEN FARM DAY, from 10 am - 2 pm.

All are Welcome!!! We will have farm tours, fried chicken, maple syrup, and more.

We are located in Waterville, VT. Look for the signs in the center of town and on Rte 109/Marsh Rd.

Any questions give us a Call 802 644 8341.


If you live in or near Waterville and are a farmer or crafter and would like to let folks know what you offer at our farm day, call us.

Everyone is out to pasture

The pigs are happier than Pigs in .... well you get the picture.






It has been a tough week on the farm, but looking at all we have to be grateful for makes it much easier to suck it up and keep rolling.

We loss two calves and a heifer this week plus a number chicks died. Sometimes we might glorify life on the farm through this blog and with friends and family, but the reality is farm life is hard. We love our animals and hate to see then go before their time. You can do everything right and still death will come to remind you that nature is stronger than any medicine. Weeks like this makes us celebrate the new calves' births with a bit more joy and remember that everything happens for a reason.

Sorry about the gloomy post, but it is important that folks know that a farm is more than just a petting zoo. Hope you enjoy the video.

Two More

Meet Fee and Freefall, Twins born on Sunday May 3rd. Fee is the black and white girl and Freefall is the Moorit Boy, who will have horns.

With two sets of healthy twins we are done with lambing for the season. We will keep all three girls, but Freefall will be for sale later this summer.

Although the grass is growing we still need more pasture and Krys has been building fence and getting the old fence ready. Our Animal numbers are growing and the more mouths the more feed.

The first batch of meat bird chicks will arrive next week and if all goes well the piglets will be on pasture by May 17th.

If you want to see all the animals just give us a call.

Piglets and Lambs

The Piglets arrived last weekend and these two lambs were born yesterday afternoon. They are about 2 hours old in this photo. If the weather stays nice the piglets should be out in pasture in a couple weeks. We are very excited about the Lambs, that we named Eden(brown) and Evyl(black) both girls. Their mother, Eve is doing well and gave birth without assistance. We hope to have Flash lamb by the end of the week.

SPRING!!!

Spring has finally come. Welcome Bo(Duke), the first calf of the season. Krys found this little guy Saturday morning on his way down to the barn. It is always a joy when you find a calf by it's mother's side and know it is healthy.

Monday when I returned from work, Lady had a new calf by her side. Lilly is her name and she is full of spunk. Her mother would not let me anywhere near little calf. Protective does not even describe it.

So two calves down, Ten to go. I will keep you all up to date.

Lambs are due in May.

Happy Holidays

Winter is here. It always takes a little bit of -10 to remind you that winter is a hard time of the year. Frozen pipes, frozen water buckets, and of course frozen us.

The sheep don't seem to mind and the cows are content, the chickens though are awaiting spring.

Although it is cold and chores seem to take longer, winter is full of recreational opportunities. Make sure you get out there and enjoy the snow.

Have a safe and joyful Holiday season!

Farm Help Housing

He may be small, but his labor is free.

This is Owen, an up and coming farmhand at Twiss Hill. This summer Owen helped collect eggs(only cracked a couple), and rode with Krys on the tractor during haying. We are always happy to have kids on the farm and if they are old enough to walk we can usually find a job for them.

Winter has come once again, we woke up to a complete snow cover. The animals are all close to the barns for winter and eating the we made this summer. 9 cows are bred, with 2 more as a maybe. Bull has done his job and we will be keeping him for at least one more season. As far as the sheep go, I guess we will see in the spring. Cowboy(our Ram)is very interested in the ladies, but we are not sure if they are taking to him. Time will tell.

It's deer hunting season in Vermont and Krys has told me he will be filling our freezer with venison. I hope he does, but so far all we have seen are does.

Not much more to report, it's winter and sleeping and eating is about it for the animals until spring.

October 29th

SNOW!!! Just a little reminder from winter that it is coming and we need to be ready. Not sure all of the chickens were as excited as this one.

Greener Pastures

Green Pastures in October? Each fall we let the cows into the meadow behind the barn. We have taken two cuts of hay off of it and we let the girls get the third. To get the most out of the grass, every other day Krys moves the fence forward 20 feet or so. This is called strip grazing. The cows do a great job and we save fuel and feed by letting them do the mowing. In the future we hope do do more strip grazing in our pastures, but it takes a lot of time and careful planning of water tubs and fencing.

End of the Season

What a summer! Our busiest season is over. This year we raised 300 meat birds and 10 pigs for our customers. We will winter 18 Black Angus and 6 Icelandic Sheep, as well as our small flock of Laying hens. I put up over 50 jars of pickles(dilly beans/cukes), and 15 jars of green beans. Our freezers are filled with organic chicken, which we will sell through the winter and spring. We are proud to announce that our Chickens are being served at Stella Notte on Rte 108 across from Smuggler's Notch Resort. If all goes well this will open us up to more local restaurants.

The Vet was at the farm this week to Bred check the Angus. Good news 9 out of 12 are bred, this will make for some full pastures next summer and a busy spring. We also hope to have our 4 Icelandic Ewes bred this fall, if all goes well we will have 4-8 lambs in the spring. Hope our neighbors don't mind the sound of weaning.

Krys and I finally have a little bit of time for some fun. The picture above is at the Shelburne Museum in the beach house. We went last Sunday with our friends Sean, Erin and Owen(future farmhand). It was nice to get away for the day and do something totally not farm related.

I will try to update this blog more frequently this fall and winter, also I will once more attempt to get our website up and running.

If you want some chickens for you freezer, give us a call (802) 644-8341.

More Sheep

Welcome Eve, Flash and Teddy!

We bought these three Icelandics from Maple View Farm in Westfield, VT. Eve and Flash are Ewes and will be a part of our foundation Girls with our other two Ewes, Rikki and Vona. Teddy is a wether, a fixed male and will be a great friend to Cowboy our Ram. If all goes well we will have between 4 to 8 plus lambs in the spring. We plan on having them all sheared by October and them having the wool made into yarn. Looks like I might have to start knitting.

Other news on the Farm:
We have chickens for sale!!! All Organic and pasture raised, ready for your freezer. They weigh 3.5 to 5 lbs and are $4.00 per pound. The pigs are almost done for the season with a September 20th slaughter date. We still have a 1/2 of pig available.
Call us if you are interested (802) 644-8341.

Fall is coming and it is time to fill the woodshed and the freezer.

The Story of Whitey

All of the animals on our farm have a story, but none like that of Whitey the Chicken.

As many of you know we raise meat birds on our farm, the breed is called "Red Range". We receive the day old chicks in the mail, last year we had 3 batches of 85 chicks arrive at different times through out the summer. We start them at our home in a small chicken coop with a heat light and access to to the chicken yard. When they are large enough that they no longer need a light we bring them down to the farm where they live in the portable chicken house, that we move around to different pasture when fresh grass is needed. This is where Whitey's story begins.

Whitey was a part of the third and last batch we moved down to the farm, we never really noticed anything different about her, except her feathers were much lighter than the rest of the birds. Red Range meat birds are as their name suggest, red in color. Sometimes they will have some white or black feathers, but the red is predominate.

In the fall Krys and I (Heather) go over to the Adirondacks for a canoe camping trip. During that time in 2007, my mother had the duty of watching over our chickens. My mother who has always been on a farm and has had much more experience with animals than us, is very observant when it comes to odd animal behavior.

When Krys and I returned from our canoe trip, my mother told us about a white chicken that was being attacked by all the other chickens. It seemed that the white chicken would hide in the corner behind the grain can and only come out to grab some food, but when she would peek out form the can the other chickens would attack, sending her back to her hiding spot. Could it be that chickens are racist? We tried not to ponder that thought too long, but there seemed no other reason for the attacks except that Whitey was almost pure white and the rest of the birds were all red. After multiple request from my mother we brought Whitey home to live with our laying birds, all of who were different colors. I can not say that they welcomed her with opened wings, but they did not attack her. She stayed inside at first and was very timid about eating with the other chickens, but soon was accepted as part of the flock. In December all the young layers started to produce beautiful eggs including Whitey.

This would be enough of a story about a chicken, but Whitey is not your average bird.

When spring came all the chickens were laying eggs and production was high, the layers seemed to be in a good routine, eat, drink, peck at stuff and lay eggs. Whitey was no exception, until our first batch of meat birds arrived. As in the past they came in the mail as day old chicks and were placed in the small chicken coop next to the layers. All the layers we curious about the chicks, but Whitey watched them more than any other. We joked about her planning her revenge on the Red Range birds, now that she was so much bigger than them. Nothing could of been farther from what Whitey really wanted.

When it was time we packed up the chicks and brought them down to the barn to the portable chicken house. We had no idea how this would effect Whitey. She wouldn't leave her laying box and she was sitting on her eggs day and night. To make a chick you need a rooster, which we do not have, so Whitey's sitting was all in vane. Krys and I talked about poor Whitey and how much she wanted a chick, so we decided that with the next batch of chicks I would take one out and present it to Whitey and see what she would.

It was a wet rainy friday morning when the chicks arrived and Whitey was still sitting, hoping that her eggs would hatch her a chick. I waited a couple of days so all the chicks could settle in before we attempted the adoption. It was monday afternoon and Whitey was where she always was, in her laying box sitting. I walked in on her and reached my hand under her belly to remove the eggs she had laid, she was not very happy with me. After I took the eggs I put one of the small meat chicks in her box with her, she didn't know what to do. Luckily the chick did. The chick walked up to her and started to disappear into the feathers of Whitey, Whitey seemed very pleased. I left the two alone for a while and checked in to make sure everything was going ok. It didn't take long for Whitey to become very protective of her chick and the chick was happy to have a mother. I did try giving Whitey another chick, but after one warning peck as if to say one is enough, I returned the chick to the Red Range chicken coop.

It has been three weeks since Whitey and her chick meet and they do everything together. Whitey has to be one of the best mother I have ever seen. She is teaching her chick to peck at worms and bugs and even how to stand up for herself.

If you ever find yourself feeling like you are the white chicken in a flock of red birds, or that you are sitting on a loss cause, remember the story of Whitey. A meat bird who became a layer and a mother and not some body's dinner.

July 18 STORM

It was Friday between 3:30 and 4:00pm, a five minute "wind event". I was on the Plot road visiting and it came through. Trees were everywhere, power lines were down and the whole town was out with there chainsaws, clearing the roads.

If you do not live in a small town then you might not know what happens when trouble hits. In Waterville folks stop what they are doing and help out those that need it. There is no waiting for the electric company or the "road crews" to clear your road. So thank you to everyone that help.

I have never seen anything like this before, the wind was so powerful it ripped trees out of the ground, blew windows in and out. It even leveled a barn in North Cambridge. The Storm was about 10 mile long and maybe a 1/2 mile wide, but in some areas there a was smashed tree and 10 feet next to it was fine.

All of our animals are fine, but we have lots of trees to cut and fence to repair. The barn roof will need some tin and our round bale feeder was squished.

It is predicted to rain all week, but clean up will continue.

Mother Nature has made her point, she is still unpredictable.

Welcome Cowboy

We finally have him home. The Ram Lamb that we purchased from Woolambia in Wells, Vermont. We named him Cowboy, since his mother's name is Crystal and we have a naming convention on our farm. The first letter of the Dam is first letter of the offspring.

The girls were a little rough on him at first, but seem to be getting a little more friendly each day. He is about 3 months old, and will be breeding the girls this fall or early winter. I hope to get one more Ewe by the Fall.

First Cut almost done

June was a wet one and it has been a challenge to get our hay dry and baled. We have a new John Deere round baler and although Krys was a little nervous, his first bale looked great.

For those that have never hayed, it is a long process. First you have to mow the grass, wait a day, then ted(fluff it up with a tedder) it once or twice to help it dry. Then if it has been good drying weather you can rake it into nice rows, and finally bale it. Not done yet. Once baled it has to be put up. Loaded on a wagon, transported, taken off the wagon and put under cover. And of course equipment always breaks and you have to fix it before the rain comes.

If we are lucky we can do all this in two days, but most likely it takes three days, if it is during the work week.

2008 Chicken for Sale

Our first batch of chickens is ready for your freezer or grill. The average weight is over 4 lbs. some are over 5 lbs. Give us a call to place your order. Our next batch is growing and will be ready the first week of september. If you need directions on how to cut up a whole bird, just ask us and Krys can give you all the details. Feel free to call or email your order. twisshill@hotmail.com or (802) 644-8341

Out to pasture

Well we finally have all the animals out in pasture. The Pigs are really enjoying their new freedom, and Krys is enjoying the reduction in chores.

The first batch of chicks are in the portable coop and are growing fast. By the end of the month they will be ready for the freezer, so if you would like to place an order let us know.

The sheep are set to be sheared this week and we have put a deposit on a nice Ram Lamb, named Crystal's boy. I think we'll rename him when we pick him up at the end of June.

A note about our web page. I still have not updated it, so just keep checking our blog.