The Davis Square Community

What do you mean by "free-range"?

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inahandbasket

I'd love a local place to get good sustainably farmed meats.
I'll have to make a point of stopping by.

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Actually I just looked at the carton and it says "from free running hens," and it also says "pure grain fed," "no additives," and "naturally produced." I don't know what "naturally produced" means because I'm scared to think of what an unnaturally produced egg might be. The eggs are from Coll's Farm in Jaffrey, New Hampshire.

And that's all I know about the eggs.

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starry83.livejournal.com

I especially love the concept of buying local meat and dairy products alongside my cupcakes. Could they maybe sell some off-dry riesling, so I wouldn't have to shop anywhere else?

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Not the same hours as the regular store, though:
Mon-Sat 10-7, Sun 10-6

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You can get your local eggs, butter, and cheese (no milk though), plus the riesling at Dave's Fresh (http://davesfreshpasta.com/). Just sayin'.

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enhf94.livejournal.com

I dunno what the original poster meant, but "free range" requires merely that the chickens have an available door in the coop, whether or not they choose to range freely. "Free-running" may be an unregulated phrase meaning that the chickens do, in fact, stroll about. Or not.

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icecreamempress.livejournal.com

All of these terms are voluntary, actually; there's no USDA enforcement except for "Certified Organic." Here's (http://www.hsus.org/farm/resources/pubs/animal_welfare_claims_on_egg_cartons.htm) the Humane Society of the US's guide to what the various claims on egg cartons mean.

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I know.

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>I'm scared to think of what an unnaturally produced egg might be.

I'd say that's an appropriate reaction. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_cage)

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icecreamempress.livejournal.com

And the OP clearly didn't. Why did you decide I was arguing with you rather than expanding on your comment and including a helpful link?

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canongrrl.livejournal.com

http://www.chestnutfarm.org/ - my meat coop - I know when the Arlington Farmers Market starts up, they will be there selling their meat and eggs - which are not just organic free range blah - its a zero sum farm much like the one in "Omnivore's Dilemma". Plus the meat is pretty out of this world too.

And personal pet peeve about organic cage free eggs - why or why do almost all the brands that say that add "all vegetarian diet" to the eggs? That's cruelty to chickens since, to my knowledge, those guys love to eat grubs, worms and other pests.

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I didn't decide that, but you did.

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I've signed up for their meat CSA, but I'm on a waiting list. So for now, I usually drive out to Codman farm in Lincoln for meat and eggs. At least, you get to see the animals there, and you know how they are treated. The down side is that you get to know the animals by name, and then one day when you arrive, the animal (cow or pig usually)you know by name is gone, but the freezer is crammed with meat.

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m00n.livejournal.com

I just want to add another vote for making local meat available at the new dairy bar. Later today I'll go over there and ask for it in person. :-)

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It is better to avoid using feel-good terms like "free-range" unless you are aware of the circumstances in which the animals are raised. See this site (http://www.peacefulprairie.org/freerange1.html).

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mattdm.livejournal.com

Shaw Farm quarts in glass jars: $1.76
Shaw Farm half gallon (plastic): $2.79
New England Creamery Organic half gallon (plastic): $4.19 (hmmm.)

For comparison, Garelick Farms milk (non-organic but rBGH-free) from Hodgkins Spa is $2.69 for half gallon.

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syntheticnature.livejournal.com

...and I just bought a quart of High Lawn whole milk at Pemberton Farms for $2.79.

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makoshark.livejournal.com

I'm getting a Page Not Found error on that link.

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makoshark.livejournal.com

Awesome. Will be sure to check it out.

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mamajoan.livejournal.com

Do they still charge the 90¢ deposit on the glass bottles when you buy a quart?

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mattdm.livejournal.com

I didn't ask.

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Yes, 90¢ deposit on the glass bottles.

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Anyone know why the glass quarts are 25% more than the half-gallons. I like the idea of reusing the glass quarts, but it seems like a steep premium for the same milk, doesn't it? I know it's not KickAss's doing, the pricing comes from Shaw; I pay roughly the same (±10%) at the other place I get Shaw Farm milk.

Only roughly on topic, does anyone know anything about the farming practices of our semi-local, semi-industrial cheese & butter giant, Cabot (aka agri-mark)?

From:

pekmez.livejournal.com

Chickens do love to eat grubs, worms, and other pests, but given a choice between eggs from factory farmed chickens whose feed might be mixed with random non-vegetarian food scraps from meat of larger animals on the food chain, and eggs from factory farmed chicken whose feed is from a bag of grain that they claim not to have mixed food scraps into, I'll pick the one without the food scraps. I'm sure that in either case there are going to bugs, if not as good ones that are carefully encouraged to be there as a polyface-farms like operation.

I've passed by Coll's farm before - I used to buy their eggs as "compromise" eggs when Wild Oat's in Medford sold them. This is all pretty much speculation from seeing the signs and the size of the buildings on both places and knowing who stocks their producs, but they seem to be a fairly small farm, but large enough to sell to supermarket chains, and to at least make some efforts to label their eggs as if they raise the chickens somewhat sustainably. I think there is an industry in that part of NH - I've run across other egg cartons from other egg supplying supermarkets from that region of NH too that don't have things like "free running hens" and "vegetarian fed" on the label.

I have no good way of knowing that Chip-In farms (the eggs that Dave's sells, in bedford) is that much different in scale or philosophy than Coll's. Both have probably been farming eggs since nobody cared as much about whether the chickens were happy, and both are probably small enough operations not to be what I think of as a giant factory farm.

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lyonesse.livejournal.com

do they have ice cream??

(i'm already a richardson's fan, but i'd love to try shaw....)

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This was such an interesting question that I did a little googling to find out more about Cabot. It sounds as if the 1300 farmers in the cooperative get paid only 50 cents per 100 pounds of milk!

From an Agri-Mark press release:
Agri-Mark’s profit allocation to the co-op’s 1,300 dairy farmers will be $.50 per hundredweight for all of the milk each farm family shipped to the cooperative during the 2007 fiscal year. This represents allocated earnings of roughly $9,000 for the average Agri-Mark member milking 100 cows and producing 1.8 million pounds of milk per year.
Agri-Mark announced a record profit after taxes of $17.6 million for fiscal year 2007. This passed the previous record of $11.4 million the cooperative earned in 2003.

This USDA document makes it sound as if the herds are mostly corn fed:
Agri-Mark is a cooperative that has done what many experts advise farmers to do: it purchased a popular consumer brand of food products, and is now marketing that brand to the hilt. Agri-Mark handles 40 percent of New England's raw milk supplies. New England provides only 3 percent of the nation's milk supply vs. 16 percent from Wisconsin, the second largest milk-producing state. The region's rocky terrain puts a damper on the corn acreage needed to support larger dairy herds. Milk production is also curbed by a short growing season and wide temperature swings. Just outside New England, neighboring New York state and Pennsylvania are major dairy-producing states. Although some 300 to 500 cow herds exist here, the Northeast herd size averages 75 milking cows. By comparison, 1,000-cow herds are common in California, the country's leading milk producing state. Today, it takes only 1,500 Agri-Mark members to provide 2.3 billion pounds of the total 3 billion it markets annually. The average member produced 1.54 million pounds in 1999.

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Thanks. I saw much of that. I suspect that anything not marketed as "grass fed" is almost certainly mostly corn and/or alfalfa fed, including organic milk. Even High Lawn (http://www.highlawnfarm.com/feed.php) feeds corn and alfalfa, although they claim to grow most if it themselves. Also, I read Agri-Mark's "profit allocation" to be a profit sharing payment over and above what they are paid for their milk. The current wholesale price for milk (http://future.aae.wisc.edu/data/monthly_values/by_area/6?tab=prices) appears to be about 18¢/lb ~ $1.50/gal so the Agri-mark farmers are making about a 3% premium from the profit sharing. The co-op might be paying its farmers an up front premium too, who knows.

This is all very interesting; I wish I knew more about where all of my food comes from. I really only get satisfaction on that count from my CSA and the farmers' markets in the summer, and from my eggs (see below), but I'm still mighty curious about Cabot's (and Shaw's for that matter) cow happiness and sustainability factor, since I'm paying a premium for their product. I wish there were some kind of website or directory which compiled that kind of information. Anyone know of one?

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Yes, ice cream. Not a huge selection, but I remember at least chocolate and cookie dough, and I'm sure there were others. Half-gallons for $5 and change or so.

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I can answer a bit about Chip-in (http://www.chip-infarm.com/) eggs. They run a very small farm out by Hanscom field in Bedford. It's only a 20 minute or so drive from here so if you're curious, you can go visit yourself; the farmstand is open every day from 10-6 and they sell their own eggs (cheaper than at Dave's), chicken, and chicken pot pies, Shaw Farm milk (15¢ cheaper per quart than at KickAss) and ice cream, along with various overpriced veggies and groceries, although some veggies are reasonably priced and local during the summer. They also have a very small petting zoo (a few goats, a sheep or two, a hog, a few good looking free-running chickens, some rabbits, a cow) which my kids enjoy when they're not freaked out by it.

The laying chickens are not free range. About 1000 of them live uncaged in a second floor barn, above the petting zoo and I presume they're fed a commercial feed since there's not nearly enough land around to grow their own. The whole place smells good if sometimes a little strong, so there's no large-scale waste disposal problem; I can assure you that their Bedford neighbors would raise a stink if there were. They sell composted chicken manure if you want some, and I'd guess they use it on-site too. The The Boston Globe did an article on Chip-in (http://www.boston.com/ae/food/articles/2007/04/04/all_theyre_cracked_up_to_be/) about a year ago.

Sorry if I sound like a chip-in fanboy, but I'm not related to them at all except as a satisfied customer, although I will probably be there significantly less now that I can get my milk right here in Davis.

p.s. oh yea, the eggs are delicious.

From:

pekmez.livejournal.com

Yeah, I have been buying Chip-In at Dave's often since the Wild Oats in Medford closed; I used to buy Coll's Farm eggs there. Occasionally Chip-in eggs supplement the eggs at Codman farm in Lincoln (where I *have* seen the actual free range chickens free-ranging outside, but they are an educational farm that sells a small refrigerator shelf worth of eggs and has maybe a vew dozen chickens, not a commercial one).

Thanks for the info!

I've only been past Chip-In Farm at times when it wouldn't make sense to stop in and deal with eggs, but I do know exctly where they are. (I should have thought to peek at the chickens even if not buying eggs...) FWIW, a fit biker could zip down to the end of the bike path and it's just a short trip from the end of the bike path... And for some reason we also didnt' stop at Coll's farm on our way to Mt Monadnock to do research, but a hiking trip there is when we passed it. It also does not look like a particularly huge operation, but I don't know numbers of chickens and how big the barn really is and stuff.

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