32 PASTURE-fed
they will make much better use of the pasture.” Hogan is a fan of electric
fencing to support rotational grazing. “You need a good power
source, a good ground and sufficient voltage to shock the animals enough the first time so that they don’t come back to the fence,” she says. She notes that after the
initial work of lambing, sheep are pretty self-sufficient. “The first three weeks are
pretty intensive but then we can let them go out on their own to grow,” she says. Scout, the guard dog, lives with the flock year-round and despite a healthy coyote population in the area, the farm has had no predator losses for two years. Pasture-raised chickens
Members of the South Thompson 4-H Club (blue shirts) and the Chilliwack Lamb 4-H Club pose for judge Barbara Johnstone Grimmer during the interclub competition at the PNE 4-H show, August 18. From left to right are Destrie, Nolan, Rorie and Justin in blue. In red are first-place Chilliwack team members Timothy, Sharleen, Franziska and Fabian. BARBARA JOHNSTONE GRIMMER PHOTO
work well with the lamb business, providing an added revenue stream. “Unless you are lambing at multiple times through the year, you only get one pay period,” he says. “But with chickens, you are selling every eight weeks.”
The sales complement each
other, too. “If I sell a lamb to a customer, they usually come back for some chickens as well,” he says. Working on a shoe-string budget, Morin has cobbled together mobile cages that house 100 chickens at a time and move across the pasture daily.
When the provincial meat
inspection regulations changed in 2007, Haley built a small, 600-square-foot
COUNTRY LIFE IN BC • SEPTEMBER 2019 nfrom pg 31
abattoir, a butcher shop and a sales counter to keep control over her meat processing. “It’s pretty neat,” says Morin.
“We had never been in an abattoir before taking on the farm.”
He says he worked in a butcher shop to learn the cut- and-wrap side of the business and, for the kill side, he relies on the expertise of the inspector from BC Ministry of Agriculture. As the only Class A abattoir
between Vernon and Rock Creek, the facility is in demand. “It’s a nightmare with
processing space in the province right now,” he says. “You need to book a kill date before you get your chicks.” Plenty of lead time is needed for lambs and goats, too.
“Even with two extra staff,
we get overworked and grumpy in November,” he says. The west edge of the
property borders Mission Creek and the bottom land has rich black soil ideal for a vegetable grower. The Okanagan Fruit Tree Project are interested in growing fruit trees on the land. The couple currently lease the land from Haley, who maintains ownership of the property, awaiting final transfer of the land to the trust. Haley is working with the foodlands co-op on its application for charitable status. “It’s very complicated setting up a land trust for farmland in BC, so we are still going through this bureaucracy,” says Morin.
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