My name is Seth, your guide and farmer, and my wife is Stephanie, the reason this farm is so pretty.
I am an 8th generation farmer from Harford County, raised on a traditional small farm with Black Angus and sheep and hogs. Stephanie and I got hitched in 2019, and bought this farm that winter. With a new slate, we sat down to decide what type of farming we would do. We wanted a small, high quality, niche, and completely natural. What we found was Rare Heritage Livestock.
So, welcome to Redemption Springs!
How We Relate to The Animals
We spend time with all animals, and keep them in good environments with all they need. Thus, they’re not stressed and always stay calm. It’s well known that stress is stored in the muscles, and adrenaline affects the taste of the meat. So, a calm animal will naturally taste better. Many of our animals act like pets, and we can even ride our cattle.
Our Farming Methods
As consumers of our own products, and raising a young family among all the health issues of the past decades, we have committed to living as close to an all natural environment as possible. In the house and on the farm, we use natural products and practices for cleaning and health.
On the farm we use symbiotic, regenerative practices such as Rotational Grazing. This system is designed to mimic the great plains or savannah, where different animals move though areas in groups, then all animals are off the grass for weeks at a time to let the grass recover. The critical part of this system is our chickens that follow the livestock. They scratch through the leftover manure, spreading it out, scratching it into the soil, and eating the fly larva out of it.
This has huge health benefits to the soil, and naturally reduces the fly population on the cattle. The old saying is a good farmer doesn’t raise animals, they raise grass. If you rotate well, you get better organics in your soil, better grass, and better animals.
Meanwhile, we use French Pearl Guineas to keep the tick population down for the health of our livestock. We also use a LGD (Livestock Guardian Dog) to keep predators away instead of trapping or poisoning. Hence, we maintain a healthy predator/prey population surrounding the farm. In our garden we use companion plants and natural insect and deer repellent plants.
One of the very few things we bring on the farm is grain feed for chickens, turkeys, and hogs. We buy the products from the Amish in Lancaster, in order to get the healthiest, all natural, GMO Free feed possible.
So we raise the best tasting animals, in the best way, in the best environment, on the best feed. Thank you for visiting and supporting our work here! Every purchase helps support these Rare Heritage Livestock, and helps increase their numbers toward graduation from the conservation list.
Welcome to Redemption Springs once again!