Partner Farms and Businesses
Village Acres Farm
We work quite closely with Village Acres organic fruit and vegetable farm in Mifflintown, PA. Not only is Village Acres a well-known and respected organic farm in central Pennsylvania, it is also the home of Roy's parents and the farm he grew up on. Roy L and Hope Brubaker and their four children moved to the farm in 1982. All four of the now-grown children put in long hours and creative energy to the ever-transforming farm. Now that the Brubaker children have moved on to pursue other interests, Village Acres has become a place for other young farmers to learn about running a diversified organic farm as well as managing a farm-share program (CSA). We at Blue Rooster Farm make our grassfed lamb and beef available to the subscribers of the Village Acres CSA.
Joshua Farm CSA
This season, summer 2008, we will be making monthly deliveries to members of the Joshua Farm CSA in Harrisburg, PA. Joshua Farm is an urban farm CSA farmed and managed by Kirsten Reinford. To become a member of Joshua Farm CSA or to have meat delivered this drop site in Harrisburg, email Kirsten at joshuafarm@pa.net .
Wilson College CSA
We will also be making monthly deliveries to Wilson College CSA in Chambersburg, PA during the 2008 CSA season. If you would like to join the Wilson College CSA or pick up a meat order at their distribution site, email Christine Mayer at cmayer@wilson.edu .
Prestige Meats
Prestige Meats is a family owned and operated butcher shop in Three Springs, PA. We've worked with them for nearly ten years and have come to trust their excellent craftsmanship as well as their feedback on our meat. Recently they have opted to not extend their USDA inspection to the packing part of their operation, although they do have an inspector on the floor on kill days to ensure their business maintains a high standard for cleanliness and animal care. Nils and Bob, the brothers who own the Prestige Meats chose to focus their business on custom butchering since that is the vast majority of their local business and this way they can keep their costs down. We go to Prestige for our orders of wholes, halves, and quarter. They offer a full range of fresh, cured, and value-added products. They dry-age our beef in climate-controlled coolers for ten days before it is cut to your specifications, vaccuum-packed, and frozen. The lambs are cut, vaccuum-packed, and frozen with-in 48 hours of slaughter.
Benners Beef
Benner's Beef is a family ownd and operated, USDA inspected butcher shop in Thompsontown, PA. They have a retail butcher shoppe on the premises and so are required by law to have an inspector on hand for processing and packaging of meat. This is the first year we've used Benner's for our retail cuts and so far are very pleased with their work. Because of the added cost of a fulltime inspector, they have to charge more than custom butchers. For now we use Benner's only for our retail cuts and continue to use Prestige Meats for our bulk, custom orders. This allows us to keep our prices for bulk orders a little lower and we get to support two local businesses. Benner's also dry-ages the beef for up to ten days, cuts to our specifications, and vaccuum packs our cuts.
Octoraro Angus is Sam and Sherrill Wylie's seedstock angus farm in Bedford County, and have been our mentors in the fine art of cattle breeding. Read more about them on our angus cattle page
Monsour Sheep Farm is Jack and Kathy Monsour's place in Bedford County. We purchased our initial North Country Cheviot commercial ewes from Jack, as well as our border collie Mac. (Read about these ventures on our sheep and border collie pages.) On top of running a 900+ commercial sheep operation, Jack and Kathy provide lovely vacation homes in a pastoral farm setting.