The Percys raise hardy mixed-breed pigs, selecting the best-performing animals from their own farm to produce the next generation.  On the diversified farm, they rotate their hog pastures with cover crops and produce, using the pigs’ natural ability to till and fertilize to create lush garden spots.

Rufus and Alice find high welfare to be one of the most important aspects of how they farm. They say, “Our motto is ‘Happy Pigs Taste Better.’  Raising our hogs in a way that keeps them happy and comfortable keeps them healthy, it keeps our land healthy, it makes a better product – and it’s just the right thing to do!”

“As farmers markets and the products of sustainable agriculture become more popular, bringing in new vendors every year, we feel it is important to consumers to have a third-party guarantee that the products they are buying are truly raised using responsible practices.  Animal Welfare Approved certification seemed the logical next step to our organic certification,” they continued.

For more information about Treble Ridge Farm and its line of Animal Welfare Approved gourmet ethnic sausages, please visit:  http://www.trebleridgefarm.com/

At Autumn’s Harvest, Murray Gray and British White cattle are intensively rotated to clean pasture daily. This allows their cattle to eat grass, get exercise, and perform their natural habits outside. This healthy lifestyle reduces the risk of disease and illness and the need for medications or antibiotics. Tim and Sarah also raise Tamworth, Duroc, Hereford and Large Blacks pigs.  They’ve specifically selected their breeding stock for their ability to thrive on pasture and in woodlots and their instinct to farrow, or successfully birth and raise young. The pigs are raised outdoors year round and given natural feed that was developed on the farm and is free of antibiotics. Years of careful breeding and pasture-raising have produced exquisite pork that is moist, flavorful and has marbling which rivals the best beef.

In 2009, Autumn’s Harvest Farm built an on-farm store to better serve their customers.  The attached processing facility has allowed them to provide their customers with a consistent product, cut and packaged to specification.  The addition of a farm store and processing facility has helped them to become a true full circle farm where they can oversee every step of their animals’ lives and processing.  It also allows them to make all of our own sausages, bacon, and hams using custom recipes.

The Haws biggest challenge in managing the 100 acres they own and lease, their farm store and processing facility is not the farming, but the marketing. Getting their name out there takes a great deal of time away from their work on the farm and that is largely why they became Animal Welfare Approved. They were looking for a certification that would assure their customers of the exceptional practices they were using to raise their livestock, without the need for everyone to come out the farm. AWA, says Tim, “has done a ton to help my farm,” and he is seeing an increase in sales as a result. “People love it!”

When asked about the husbandry practices she is most proud of Carol says that she and Peter really try to understand their goats and let them be what nature intended them to be.  “A goat is a goat,” she says.  “They have horns, they want to be outside and they don’t want to eat a lot of grain.” She strives to fully understand the physiology and the emotional traits of the goats.  Carol believe they have a real partnership with the animals and every day they try to learn something new about them in order to take the best possible care of them throughout their lives.  “I’d like to come back as one of my goats,” Carol says enthusiastically, “Happy goats give really good milk so in the end it’s profitable for us as well.”

On deciding to become an Animal Welfare Approved farm, Carol said she had a couple of reasons.  “One is for marketing because we do take care of our animals in the manner that AWA really supports.  We wanted people to know that not just because we said so.  We wanted that back up, that objective third party certifier to say, “Yes, she really does.”’ Carol was also excited to become an AWA farmer because she wanted to be part of a group of like-minded individuals that are all trying to farm this way. “Something about it is comforting knowing that we’re doing it to the best of our ability. I’m happy to be part of the community. We want to do things right and we want to do right by the animals that provide us with so much.”

When Carol isn’t farming, she also spends her time as a green marketer for nonprofits and sustainable businesses.  She’s also a writer, photographer and a sculptor.  In fact, she recently completed a large bronze sculpture of a horse head (she hopes to do goats in the future!) that was commissioned by the town of Peterborough. Oddly enough, the original sculpture had been stolen from the antique granite fountain where it originally stood nearly 100 years ago.  For more information about the latest news at Dancing Dog Farm, the goats and the farming classes offered, please visit http://dancingdogfarm.wordpress.com/.

In 2008, despite not having any type of farming background, Marc and Meredith successfully started Hopewell Farms.  Marc, who previously ran an internet finance company found farming to be much easier than he imagined.  Marc says, “We thought it would be grueling. I wish I did it 10 years ago.  The rewards outweigh the labors.  I’m glad we read up and didn’t get caught up in the monoculture and government sponsored agriculture.”

The Morans are most proud that they are able to raise animals as close to their natural environment as possible. They live outdoors in 40 acres of mature maple trees.  They eat what they’re supposed to, live outdoors and they thrive.   Marc and Meredith are also very proud of the health of their grass and soil.  The farm had been neglected when they first purchased it, but they’re convinced that their beautiful pastures are the result of rotational grazing and always keeping their animals on the move.

Hopewell Farms decided to become Animal Welfare Approved because they wanted to have a way to legitimize what they thought were the best husbandry practices by having AWA come out and certify the farm.  Marc says, “AWA helps to refine the intuitive part of farming and helps consumers see that AWA farmers truly care about the lives of their animals.”  Marc went on to say, “We’re honored that we passed the AWA audit.  The woman who visited the farm was really, really good at what she did.  She wasn’t just looking at a checklist.  She looked at the whole picture.  Everyone at AWA has been great to work with.”

“It’s an honor to be the first Animal Welfare Approved farmer in New Hampshire,” says Marc.   “NH has some really fantastic farmers that are doing great things.  We really appreciate the work that Animal Welfare Approved is doing.”

Jeanette and Dominick also raise Animal Welfare Approved dairy goats—as Dominick’s mother had—and laying hens on their 115 acre farm. Another AWA grant, off-setting the cost of mobile solar-powered chicken coops, allows them to move their hens to pasture following their ruminants as they rotationally graze. This has the benefit of disturbing the pest cycle in their pastures and allowing their chickens to roam more widely.

Dominick and Jeanette had their cattle, goats and chickens Animal Welfare Approved because the standards and philosophy matched the mission of their farm: to raise their animals as nature intended, with high-welfare practices. Now their customers know that someone is behind the assertions they make regarding the welfare of their animals and Jeanette and Dominick know they are doing the right thing.

After more than 30 years of farming experience and 40 years of marriage, Dominick and Jeanette continue to expand their business. A certified kitchen on-farm will allow them to begin selling homemade goat cheese and their new slaughter facility and chicken coops will let them continue to grow their herd and flock sizes and improve the welfare of their animals.

One of the Wilcoxes main goals is to allow their animals to be animals. They make sure their goats are able to climb, explore and sample as many types of forage as possible. The herd has year round access to a lightly wooded five acre paddock and during the growing season they browse on an additional 30 acres of raspberry, grasses and various species of saplings.  The rotational browsing system provides the goats with their needed forage and exercise while also improving their soil and vegetation. Ardith Mae established an every other year breeding program which alleviates the health stress of a yearly pregnancy and increases the longevity of the herd. The goats are never given hormones or unnecessary antibiotics.

For more information about Ardith Mae Farm, please visit http://www.ardithmae.com/.

Peter and Anne started bee keeping about 20 years ago and over the years they’ve gradually expanded their farming endeavors.  Their farm gets its name because Peter is a painter and a goal of the farm is to integrate the two practices of art and agriculture.

Peter and Anne’s farming practices yield a huge range of different products.  They aim not to maximize production of a given product but to establish an equilibrium between many varied species and to focus on the contribution they make to each other and thus to the overall productivity and health of the farm.  Peter said, “One of the things we’re exploring is a model for making farming viable.  The community we live in is an old farming community, but it’s very much in distress.  We’re trying to develop a new model of contributed farming—all these activities contribute to each other and revitalize agriculture communities.”

Peter and Anne recently started the Foundation for Art and Agriculture to further develop these kinds of models of contributed farming.  The foundation supports programs that give young artists and students the skills to be useful in farming communities.   One of the goals of the program is to get the artists to move into these communities, do their art and then contribute to the farming.   They’re trying to regenerate the communities as well as regenerate the farming practices.    Another foundation program involves the artists working with farmers on the aesthetics of their products.  The artists can help with the aesthetic of the farm products and the farms will hopefully turn higher profits for their products.

When asked why Old Field Farm applied for AWA certification, Peter said, “We applied for AWA certification because it seems to be the highest recognition for the best practices in animal welfare.  We try to keep the animals as best we can in a natural environment and having AWA’s input made our management practices better and more beneficial to the animals.”  In addition to its recent AWA certification, Old Field Farm was also awarded a grant for genetic improvement for pastured pig production.   Peter and Anne needed better fencing to establish the breeding program for their Tamworth pigs and fortunately AWA was able to provide the funds to help with this project.

For more information about Old Field Farm/Art & Agriculture please visit http://artandagriculture.org/

Leona is most proud of her symbiotic approach to agriculture which she describes as looking at nature’s most basic relationships and utilizing them to provide excellent animal husbandry practices while protecting natural resources.  She rescues llamas and alpacas and the laying hens help with parasite control.  When the llamas and alpacas are done grazing, the chickens follow them.   This is a very effective approach for HespeGarden and the farm requires no pesticides and no unnatural fertilizers.

HespeGarden decided to join AWA because as Leona says, “The principles behind the AWA certification are very compatible with the way I approach all aspects of my farm and ranch…I believe AWA certification holds a heck of a lot more weight [than organic and other certifications] for the promotion of sustainable agriculture as well as for holding humans to a much higher standard for the animals that are under our custody and control.  AWA makes sure we’re doing right by them.”

In addition to farming and camelid rescue, Leona recently published her first children’s book, “The Unicorn with No Horn” and she also paints indoor land and seascape murals.

Angus Glen Farms

Brett and Maria Jose Chedzoy and their children Ian, Clara and Joe raise 100% grassfed Animal Welfare Approved black Angus cattle at Angus Glen Farms in Watkins Glen, NY.  The Chedzoy’s farm location is quite unique as the original Grand Prix course of the United States runs through the center of the farm.

Angus Glen’s top priorities are rotational grazing, outwintering and the development of a hardy herd through the use of Old-line Aberdeen Angus genetics.

The Chedzoy family is proud they are able to respectfully and humanely raise cattle producing delicious, healthy 100% grassfed meat that’s affordable to consumers.

Since 2007 Morgan and Rebekah Hartman have been running Black Queen Angus Farm in Berlin, NY with their children Gable, Graziella and George and their partners, good friend Pete VonSchilgen and Rebekah’s dad, Terry Lamphere.  As their farm name would suggest, the Hartmans are raising 100% grassfed Black Angus cattle.

The top priority for Black Queen Angus is soil improvement and animal health based on soil fertility.  And as far as their animal husbandry goes, the Hartmans are most proud of their grazing practices and always calving in sync with nature.

On their reasons for becoming an Animal Welfare Approved farm, Morgan says, “It just seemed to make sense.  We’re doing the things that qualify us anyway, but becoming certified was a  better  way to communicate that…We believe in what AWA is doing and we thought it was a good idea to join.”

Black Queen Angus’ grassfed beef flyers include an important disclaimer, “Please eat responsibly. You may find this product too good to resist.”