Our December Newsletter

Welcome to our December Newsletter. In this edition we share an update on our activities as we enter the winter season. It is the season of gift giving and we have many healthy and attractive small and large items to share with your friends and family.

Please visit our website to learn more about our full inventory or, please stop by our decorated Kinloch Farm Store, Thursday through Sunday from 10 am to 6 pm, at
4559 Old Tavern Road, The Plains, Virginia 20198.

Notes from the Farm

Throughout the month of November, we were in preparation for our fall breeding season.
We calve once a year in the fall, and turn our bulls out just before Thanksgiving.

Cows have a nine month gestation period and we leave our bulls in for approximately two and half months to catch a minimum of two heat cycles on the cows, sometimes it’s three months. Before we do this, we sort our cows into 8 different breeding groups, ranging in size from 10-45 cows per group.

To successfully match up 220 cows and heifers to bulls, our farm manager Kevin, works through registrations of the genetic records of our animals to determine which cow or
heifer should be with each bull. This is a meticulous process, but it’s important to the longevity and health of our genetic lines.

Notes from the Apiary

Earlier this month, we bottled our last batch of Perfectly Raw Honey for 2022 and will resume production in the spring. Like many other agricultural products, honey is a food that is often found year-round on store shelves despite being a seasonal gift to many climates only a few times a year. Here at Kinloch Farm we harvest honey, twice a year, in spring and late summer.

Constructed hives provide our bee colonies with their home and workplace. Our harvests are taken from the interior frames called “supers,” and we always leave some honey behind in the honeycomb for the bees to feed on in winter.

We have a “honey hut,” two rooms in a building which is Health Department compliant and annually inspected. Here we have all of our equipment for extraction of the honey from the wax honey combs. After we separate our honey from the protective wax, we bottle our honey with a bare minimum of heat, never to exceed temperatures of a hive to maintain our raw honey objectives and our “Certified Naturally Grown” promises!

You may pre-order a bottle for in-store pick up below. Of course, you may also come by our Kinloch Farm Store, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, 10am-6pm, at Archwood Green Barns, 4559 Old Tavern Road, The Plains, Virginia 20198.

Producer Spotlight: Living Pastures Farm

This month we are highlighting Living Pastures Farm. Living Pastures is one of two local producers that supply our Kinloch Farm Store with pastured chicken.

Jonathan (pictured) and Ellen Elliott are the owners of Living Pastures Farm located 15 miles south of Kinloch. All of their chickens at Living Pastures are raised in an environment which allows them to forage naturally. This practice is not only more humane than conventional farming methods, it also improves the quality of the soil health through the chicken’s natural activities of scratching, foraging for insects and worms, and fertilizing the soil. A beneficial full cycle relationship!

Reserve Your Whole or Half Grassfed Beef

“Celebrate the whole animal and cook your way through it!”
- Mike Peterson, Director of Kinloch Farm & Conservation

As we have begun the holiday season of entertaining, as well as acquiring your winter month food provisions, we are now taking your orders for Kinloch Farm Whole and Half Beef. For additional flexibility, we also offer quarter beef bundles.

Currently, we are accepting reservations for Whole & Half Beef that will be available for pickup or delivery in January and February of 2023.

For questions on our whole & half beef ordering process, you may consult our online buying guide or contact us at sales@kinlochfarm.com / (540) 253-5266.