Pastured Eggs at Dolce Farm and Orchards

  

Pastured means they have unlimited access to grass and weeds. Mother Earth Magazine printed an article and had several farmers who sell pastured eggs have their eggs tested by a lab.

They found that pastured eggs have

• 1/3 less cholesterol
• 1/4 less saturated fat
• 2/3 more vitamin A
• Two times more omega-3 fatty acids
• Three times more vitamin E
• Seven times more beta carotene

And 3 to 6 times the vitamin D of typical grocery store eggs.

Pastured eggs from our farm, deep yellow, orange yolks- so much flavor!

The difference is unlimited access to grass, weeds and greens. Not to mention bugs and worms. 

During the winter months, despite having a deep cycle marine battery and a solar panel to recharge, our hens just lay fewer or no eggs during the winter months. During this time, they eat a substantial amount more than when the sun is shining and the grass and bugs are flourishing.  

We have noticed new farmers with chickens will figure what their feed costs are when they have just bought some laying hens. Lo and behold come the winter months and the hens aren't laying for 3 months and eating 25 - 50% more feed and not bringing anything in to cover the cost of feed. If your feed costs are $21 a week and there are no eggs to sell for 3 months, lets see -

21x4= $84 per month x 3 months is $252 in the hole once they start laying eggs in the spring.  So many fellow farmers haven't sat down with a pencil and paper and figured out what it is really costing. And oh yes, the solar panel at $90, the deep cycle marine battery $75 or so, pine shavings every months, etc. etc.  Pastured chickens are not in a controlled environment, and lay fewer eggs than commercial chickens. Plus small farms tend to enjoy the heritage chickens which have good meat qualities as well.  We like to keep our hens for as long as they are still laying. So they have a longer life than just 1 year or so for the commercial chickens.

 hens out on pasture

To find a farmer with pastured eggs for sale near you - go to Local Harvest.org

You can enter your town or zip code.  

Do try the taste test - crack and scramble a store egg in one fry pan, and a pastured egg in the other.

See and taste the difference for yourself~!  

We have pastured eggs from our heritage hens available spring - summer - fall. In the winter
months inquire about availability

Icelandic Lamb featured in Portland dining event!

The Ethical Butcher - also known as Berlin Reed, will be serving Icelandic lamb from

Dolce Farm and Orchards - this Friday, March 5th, 7:30 P.M for the Heritage Breed Supper Club: Icelandic Lamb in Portland, OR.

This dinner is a unique and wonderful opportunity to taste cuts from the whole Icelandic lamb-(including some of the offal) served in many varied styles! The date, times and menu follow-

Berlin is amazingly creative, ambitious and innovative chef. He is also a strong supporter of local farms, sourcing as much as possible raised nearby to add to his dining experiences! He has been featured recently in the Oregonian Food Day, and also creates Bacon from heritage Red-Wattle pigs/hogs (including Icelandic Lamb bacon-featured in the March 8th event) utilizing natural seasonings, some with fruits, spices, herbs, salts and? Wow!

Make your reservations soon - seating is limited-

Here is the menu and more info:

Friday,March 5th 730pm-Heritage Breed Supper Club: Icelandic Lamb

*10% off for those who attended the first Heritage Breed Supper Club, email for details.

savory lamb baklava and stuffed dates
pita, labneh & tabouli

tea, 5-spice and Italian plum roasted rack of lamb

cocoa rubbed spareribs glazed with aleppo pepper and orange

dukkah* loin chop with roasted fennel and mint coulis

*dukkah is a mixture of hazelnuts, sesame seeds and many spices ground finely to a paste. delicious.

lamb tangine with candied pumpkin and herb-pistachio rice

dessert

$28/person, 2 for $50
Guests encouraged to provide personal beverages. Limited seating.

609 SE Ankeny Unit A

Portland, OR 97214

Seating is limited , reserve a place by contacting

The Ethical Butcher

Sage - Icelandic Ewe Matriarch Extraordinaire

Sage's lambs from 2009, a moorit ewe and her flashy black and white spotted brother on the right.

Sage's most recent fleece-

Below, Sage in all of her glory

When I first saw Sage, I was impressed by her sheer size and holstein black and white big spot pattern! Now that she has been a member of our flock and farm for several years, she's made steady contributions - having some of the largest, fastest growing and lovely fleeced lambs! Not to mention, her own fleece which many have spun and I've had made into a heathered black and white blend roving.

She is a pushy gal, very clever - first to the feeder and the last to leave. She carries the spotting pattern to her lambs if she has been bred to a ram who also carries that recessive spotting gene.

And the color moorit too, reddish brown - such a stunning color!

A while ago someone who had been involved with Sage in her earlier years asked to visit her.

Several years had passed since their last meeting. When he walked into the paddock to visit, she

walked right up to him and looked into his face. I was very moved and so glad they could re-connect again.

My father always asked how Sage was, she was his favorite for some reason... last year as

my Dad was ill - he was so sad because he was unable to come down to see the latest spring lambs, we were at least able to share a photo of Sage's lambs with him before he went to the great Art Studio in the sky.

Blue Truck

The blue 69 Ford F 250 is a real work horse -

today it hauled a load of beautiful, dark compost to nourish olive trees and transplanted lavender. Then it made two hay runs to stock up the barn with a couple loads of local hay. It is a simple machine - we get it worked on once in awhile, and the mileage is not so hot. Sometimes we need to charge the battery - it might need a new one. And maybe someday it would be great to have a new fancy truck with AC and better mpg. But for now I am thankful to have a big truck that can handle a ton of hay at a time.

Delaware Chickens - Our favorite bird

After much research on dual purpose chicken breeds, we've settled on the Delaware Chickens. We were looking for a breed of chicken that was an excellent laying of large-jumbo eggs, and one that would lay well for over 1 year. Plus, have some nice chicken for the family table. Delawares are a cross between a New Hampshire (selection from Rhode Island Red) and a Plymouth Rock. Great egg laying and meat attributes.

We've found the Delawares to be prolific egg layers, the roosters grow quite quickly and make a nice bird for roasting as well. They are excellent foragers, and the roosters tend to look out for their girls, often alerting them to approaching hawks - or finding tasty tid-bits in the fields and calling the hens to "Come and get it!". One rooster I observed picked up an earthworm and dropped it - then made his special call " Took took took" the hens. He picked the earthworm up again and dropped it, and made his call again- then hens came running towards him - than another rooster - when then grabbed the worm intending for the hens and ate it!

Next to our pastures we have nesting Red-Tailed hawks, I've also seen Merlins and Eagles on occasion. We haven't lost a Delaware chicken yet to the hawks. They are a big chicken - perhaps the hawks realize this. Even though our neighbor have told stories about "Seeing a chicken fall out of the sky" - it wasn't one of ours.

By choosing one breed of heritage chicken to focus on - we decided to choose only the largest and fastest growing roosters with the best conformation - and hens that lay only size large or larger eggs. Our hatching eggs are collected several times a day - we use lots of pine shavings to keep the next boxes clean. I'm looking into an incubator and we are all looking forward to improving this wonderful breed of American chicken!

Our free-range pastured chicken eggs have a dark yolk full of flavor - we feed a

locally milled pellet that is soy and corn-free - sourced mostly from locally grown grains here in Oregon. Since we also offer hatching eggs - there are certain minerals and vitamins that the baby chicks need for proper development - hence using a feed that is correctly formulated by a nutritionist.

Food for thought - literally

Shed is Ready!

The sheep shed is ready to shelter our ewes with their newborn lambs! Here is Beau the Llama being feed a tasty tender branch of hazelnut sucker last fall. The shed withstood the horrific rain and winds storms of last December 2007. It is a true shed, from a USDA plan from the 1960's. We can store almost 5 tons of hay, and wish we had even more room for hay! I visited a neighbor recently who has a huge giant shed, and he says his is not big enough - either. Hmmmm. Family activities and life and outside work have taken me away for awhile from writing/blogging, so hope to make a little time to make regular entries from now on. We did have many wonderful pounds of Icelandic rovings processed recently, we have creamy white, smokey black, morrit/reddish brown, ligth gray/buff, a sturdy black with white, and even our first batch of lambs roving that spins up a heathery gray! You may view the rovings at our website www.Dolcefarm.com Back to the lambs, they are arriving any day - we started a waiting list for lambs, and after the people on the list make their choices we post it for everyone else. I'm getting ready to send in several beautiful lamb pelts, we sold out pretty quickly on our first batch we posted.

Back to Blogging

Coconut - a Gray Moorit Ram and Salty - a Moorit Gray Badgerface Ram

It's been awhile since I've blogged - school started, we entered sheep at the wonderful Flock and Fiber Festival in Canby, Oregon, lots of work going on here at the farm and Turkey Day has come and gone... We've gotten our breeding groups together - using 3 herd sires (2 rams and a ram lamb) and 17 ewes. As far as herd sires go - I like them to have a very nice fleece - lots of thel - soft undercoat, and nice tog - not too coarse - outercoat. Size is important - we're looking at passing on good genes for fast growing lambs as breeding stock and grass fed lamb. Conformation - how the body is put together - straight back, horns far from face, back legs straight (not cow hocked). Personality counts too - so far our rams just run away from us, but if any ram turned aggressive, he would be turned into sausage quickly! So some pictures of our two rams - Salty and Coconut, and I need to get a photo of Romeo - a Black Gray ram lamb (my favorite of all the Icelandic colors, and I must say he has the most stunning fleece! So we are eagerly anticipating lambs starting around mid April 2008...