FAQ

We have different reasons for not feeding soy vs corn. There are well-validated scientific concerns against the recent surge of soy as a ubiquitous animal feed, especially when it’s used at such high percentages in feed as we have seen in the last 30-ish years. 

For corn, it’s true that pigs and chickens digest corn well, there’s historical precedent of raising healthy livestock of these species with corn as part of their diet, and it is a nutritive feed source for them. However, we don’t use it for other, perhaps more “aesthetic” (ascetic?) reasons.

Our primary concerns about soy in animal feed include:

• the possibility of the transfer of bio-significant amounts of soy isoflavones and soy protein isolates from meat to humans that consume the meat 
• the bio-mimicking chemical structure of soy isoflavones and their potential ability to cause goitrogenic and estrogenic effects in humans
• the relatively historically recent yet sweeping reliance on this crop (Nick thinks this is true for corn as well but Danielle thinks corn has a longer history of being grown for animal feed). This has two important effects: 1) it makes farmers who grow it and who feed it susceptible to boom/bust years 2) soy’s current place of predominance in industrial ag production is primarily caused by economic factors and not animal health or welfare concerns (editor notes that this is also true for corn)
• the mono-cropping agricultural practices used to grow soy have negative effects on animal and plant diversity, as well as require large amounts of pesticides, as well as high carbon footprints, as well as disrupt wildlife and natural waterways, etc. 
• by not feeding soy to any of our animals, we can provide meat and eggs to people with soy allergies, and there’s some evidence that the recent ubiquity of soy in human foods is correlated to a rise in soy allergies in humans

Our primary concerns about corn in animal feed include:

• although not relevant to our farm, corn has become such a lucrative crop for big ag that it’s being used as a primary feed source in species of livestock that are not well-equipped to digest it (cows, sheep, goats, rabbits, other ruminants) despite well-documented negative effects to health and wellness of those species
• corn is mono-cropped as well so all those concerns apply
• corn is the original big-ag “success” crop, so its development, deployment, and growing is closely tied with monetary drivers (including large governmental subsidies) instead of good agricultural practices
• by not feeding corn to any of our animals, we can provide meat and eggs to people with corn allergies

Sourcing, shipping, and using exclusively soy-free and corn-free animal feed is horribly expensive, vanishingly rare in the US, and time consuming. Cutting out corn and soy from our animals’ diet means that they consume a wider variety of grains, legumes, and feedstuffs and we believe this is another variable in the equation of why our meat tastes so exceptional.

Why we are committed to corn-free and soy-free is complex, as it goes beyond the scientific and quasi-scientific reasons listed above. It’s become a “be the change you want to see in the world” sort of experience for us. This is reinforced when Danielle was told by a Connecticut feed mill that if she wasn’t going to feed soy or corn to her chickens, “she might as well shoot them.” That’s wrong! There are other options, other ways of thinking about animal feed including what it is, where we get it, and how we grow it. We want to demonstrate that. 

Animal Welfare Approved (AWA) standards are so high that very few farms can meet them, and the farms that are certified don’t normally enroll all their species. It’s not possible for any industrial farm to meet the standards. The certification is birth-to-slaughter and this seemingly-simple thing rules out the majority of livestock farms, especially pork farms, who usually buy in piglets from breeders. The slaughterhouse also has to be audited and certified in order for animals to be AWA and the certification is ISO 17065 accredited. So, the pool of certified farms is quite small and they don’t have marketing budgets like big ag to promote the certification. Honestly, we hadn’t heard of it until we started farming.

Also, lots of companies make label claims and many of those label claims are intentionally misleading. We wanted to have a meaningful certification and be able to make the correspondingly meaningful label claims that go with it and AWA is one of the only third-party verified USDA-sanctioned label claims (organic is another). Of course we wouldn’t badmouth any certifications in writing on our website (lol, yes we do in person) so for a succinct and well-researched discussion of label claims regarding animal welfare, see The Animal Welfare Institute’s PDF. Or, come visit us and we can discuss the lack of merits of most label claims and give you a pocket version of the PDF.

Being first-generation farmers, we didn’t really know the specifics of how to build our initial farm infrastructure, such as the linear footage of roosts needed for 200 hens, how many square feet a market pig needs during transport to the butcher, and how much portable shelter we needed for our sheep and goats during winter. We started using the standards for Animal Welfare Approved to help answer these questions. Because we were literally building our infrastructure to meet AWA standards, it was an intuitive decision to actually get the certification.

No, we are not certified organic. We only use certified organic feed for our pigs and chickens, all year round. The hay that our sheep and goats eat during colder months is not certified organic but we know the hay farmers are using organic practices without pursuing the certification. This alone makes us non-certifiable for organic, but we’ve never wanted to pursue organic certification ourselves. Why not?

Organic certification, in our opinion, gets some things right for vegetables, fruits, and grains. When it comes to meat-producing animals, we think it clearly lacks considerations for animal welfare. For example, antibiotic use in food-producing animals. Factory farms and big ag use antibiotics as a growth-promoting agent in livestock by giving antibiotics in sub-therapeutic amounts and we absolutely don’t agree with this. But, organic standards do not allow the use of antibiotics in food-producing animals, ever. This is completely unacceptable for us — when we have a sick animal or one with an infected wound (remember, our animals are out on pasture and in the woods and getting into all sorts of situations) and our veterinarian recommends antibiotic treatment, we believe it would be unethical to withhold antibiotic treatment to conform with organic standards. This is also directly conflicting with our Animal Welfare Approved certification, which requires natural remedies to be used as a first line of defense, but antibiotics are to be used when necessary for the welfare of the animal and at the direction of our veterinarian.

Yes and yes. Since our animal feeds are certified organic, they must be non-GMO. Part of organic certification is a requirement that the product does not contain GMOs.

We raise heritage breed animals and use old-school breeding techniques, so none of them are GMO.

All of our animals are Animal Welfare Approved by A Greener World (AGW) and raised on pasture year round eating grass for as long as the season provides, then given hay for the remainder of the season. Our sheep and goats are Certified Grass Fed by AGW, which means they only eat grass/hay and nothing else.

Pigs and chickens are monogastric animals so they cannot subsist on grass alone and require supplemental feed.  Our pigs and chickens are supplemented with a soy-free, corn-free, non-GMO, certified organic custom feed.

It depends. Our chickens are vaccinated as day-old chicks for Marek’s disease. The vaccine is an attenuated virus type (not an mRNA vaccine) and has been used for decades. We’ve never had any Marek’s disease in our flocks, but it is so prevalent and so deadly that it’s standard to vaccinate for it.

We do not vaccinate our sheep, goats, or pigs but at the recommendation of our veterinarians and after careful consideration, we would be willing to vaccinate them if it makes sense for their welfare. Because most diseases and viruses that have vaccines in this species are contagious, our best line of defense against these is to run closed herds and maintain strict biosecurity measures to limit our animals’ exposure to outsiders.

In the rare instance when we have a sick animal or one with an infected wound and our veterinarian recommends antibiotic treatment, we believe it would be unethical to withhold antibiotic treatment. Withholding antibiotic treatment also directly conflicts with our Animal Welfare Approved certification, which requires natural remedies to be used as a first line of defense, but antibiotics to be used when necessary for the welfare of the animal and at the direction of our veterinarian. We never use antibiotics in subtherapeutic amounts or as growth-promoting agents.

Personally, no. Also we don’t use hormones in our animals.

If we get to rank the questions we get asked, this may be our least favorite question.

If you’re asking this question, the simple answer we think you’re looking for is ‘no’, but since one of us is a very literal-minded scientist we can’t help but point out: everything is made of chemicals. Technically, water is a chemical and our animals drink water and have water in their bodies.

What we think this question is really getting at is whether we use pesticides, fertilizers, hormones, antibiotics, egg colorants, growth supplements, etc. The answer to all of those is ‘no’ except for occasional antibiotic use in single animals when ill and directed by our veterinarian. See other questions on antibiotics for more info.

So, no?

The main content of our website is built like our perimeter fence – to last forever. We’ve spent months writing the website and look forward to updating it as little as humanly possible. So, for numbers of animals we breed, birth, and slaughter each year, you’ll have to refer to a document that we do have to update at least once a year, our animal health and management plan. Find it linked in Deep Dive section.

We have options! You can find our products at our on-farm store, at multiple farmers markets, and in a few select stores. Head over to our Find Us page to learn more.

We now offer self-serve pickups every day. Place an order through our online store, select self-serve pickup, and we’ll put your order out for you to pickup. [Note: we will not be there to meet you.]

Each week we post on social media our current menu of items available with prices. It’s also on the front page of our website. Our online store also reflects what’s in stock and has prices.

Our online store. You can place an order for any of our markets. Payment can be made online or in person when you pick up. Pre-ordering for our markets really helps us know what to bring.

Due to our farm’s humane standards, we don’t sell live animals for any reason, unless you’re a farm with current Animal Welfare Approved certification for the species in question. Honestly, we’ve never even sold to another AWA farm. We do not sell animals for on-farm slaughter, religious slaughter, or ritual slaughter.

No, we do not sell any live animals. We do not sell animals for religious or ritual slaughter or as Halal.

Because of food safety concerns, legal issues, and quality reasons we generally do not ship meat or eggs. If a customer is particularly interested in having meat or eggs shipped to them, to assuage these concerns we would require the purchaser to assume the costs of packaging as well as guaranteed next-day shipping as well as the potential loss of product due to shipping damage/mishandling. In our experience, this requirement is cost prohibitive (hundreds of dollars). If you’re still interested, let us know what you want and where you want it shipped and we will consider and work up pricing.

We encourage pick-ups from our on-farm store or market locations, but if you really want something delivered, we will try to accommodate your request. Minimum delivery fee is $15, total fee depends on mileage and time, and unless you’re our direct neighbor it’s going to be more than $15.

Cash and checks do not carry additional or hidden fees with them, whereas our business always has to pay a fee to process a credit card. Depending on the amount of each credit card purchase, we lose 3-12% of the total sale to processing fees and the same goes with PayPal, Venmo, ApplePay, and debit cards.

Due to logistical issues related to getting meat fresh (not frozen) from our slaughterhouse, we do not offer fresh.

Thanks for that great question, yes, if you’re interested in lumber we’ll schedule an appointment with you. Lumber sales are not available during our normal on-farm store hours because the lumber is on a different part of the farm from the store. Contact us to make an appointment!

Because of the demand for our products, we don’t discount the price when we sell to the co-op/distillery/brewery. They add their own markup on top of the price they paid us, and voila, they sell our products at a higher price than we do at our farm store.

This sounds like a great opportunity, right? To have a steady purchase agreement, year-round, with guaranteed money coming in?

Unfortunately, this is not how animals work. Chickens don’t lay eggs consistently year-round, so to satisfy this order during the winter (when chickens don’t lay as often), we’d have an enormous number of extra eggs in the summer (when they lay more often). Our chickens have a 2.5 year lifespan, so we’d need a commitment for their entire life. Financially supporting the entire lifecycle of laying hens paying for feed during the first 5 – 7 months when they’re too young to lay, as well as buying the stew hens at the end, not to mention the additional infrastructure and land requirements needed.

As for pork chops, what do we do with the rest of the pig? We’re much more interested in working with restaurants who support nose-to-tail eating or who want 80 lbs of bones/heads each week to make stock/ramen/soup. Or 80 lbs of pig skin to make chicharron. Or pig feet to make meat jelly. Or stuff like that.

No, we don’t raise any cows so we don’t make or sell beef.

No, all the milk that our sheep and goats produce goes towards feeding their young. We never milk them for our purposes so we don’t sell milk or dairy products.

Tallow refers to the fat around a cow’s kidneys, so no we do not have tallow because we do not raise cows. However, in some areas people use the term tallow for kidney fat in any animal. We (and our butcher) use the term leaf fat for the kidney fat of a pig, and we do typically have leaf fat both unrendered and rendered as leaf lard.

Nope.

According to regulations, we as egg producers have 36 hours after eggs are laid to have them refrigerated and eggs must be clean. Although our eggs have a largely intact bloom we do use a moist cloth to remove any coop litter, grass, funky poop bits, etc. We do not use any cleaners, bleach, or sanitizers. But once the eggs are cooled, we cannot recommend keeping them unrefrigerated.

The fresher an egg, the better. However, we have customers who routinely purchase a month’s worth of eggs at a time and we’ve heard stories of people keeping eggs for several months without the eggs going bad, but they do lose quality.

Nope! Different breeds of chickens lay different colored eggs, as well as different sizes (although egg size can also change based on the age of the hen and the time of year). Egg flavor is mainly impacted by what the hen eats, what she forages for, and how stressed she is.

The color of an egg yolk has a lot to do with what the hen was eating about three days before the particular egg was laid. Foraging on lush summertime pastures lends a deep orange to egg yolks, but so does a diet with corn in it. Once consumers showed a preference (and willingness to pay more) for deep-orange egg yolks, companies developed synthetic and natural dyes/colorants, which are added to the hen’s feed and will result in deep-orange yolks no matter how little pasture access or corn she has. We don’t feed corn or dyes/colorants, so during lush summertime months, our eggs have deep-orange yolks. During the winter, they are not as vibrant and more yellow than orange. The color of our yolks changes almost constantly, reflecting what that hen was getting into three days ago.

All of our pet treats go to our “Lab” for testing, that is, we see if our part-Labrador farm dog is excited about eating them. She has given all our pet treats two paws up, would-do-again ratings.

But seriously, the pet treats are mostly just parts of dead animals and depending on your pet and what they like to eat, your mileage may vary. We have lots of repeat customers for pet treats, so they do work for a lot of dogs but have also heard that some dogs will refuse some treats or make disastrous piles of fur inside their owner’s nice living room. We always recommend feeding treats outdoors and supervising the first time!

As of winter 2020 we are no longer raising rabbits and we do not have rabbit meat available.

According to USDA regulations, if a meat product (bacon, sausage, ham) contains a nitrate curing salt, it’s a cured product. All BOTL Farm bacons and smoked chops are cured according to this definition. As farmers who think about meat and meat labelling, like, all the time, we’ve carefully made the decision to sell cured products. Why, since uncured products are marketed as more healthy/natural in stores?

We consider bacons, hams, sausages, and other meats that are labelled uncured to be misleading, as most customers understand the term ‘uncured’ to mean ‘no nitrates/nitrites.’ Instead, the ‘uncured’ label designates that extracts, such as celery juice and celery powder (or cherry or beet root, etc.), are used in place of curing salts. This is disingenuous because celery, beets, cherry, etc., have natural but variable amounts of nitrates! Since the amount of nitrates/nitrites in vegetable extracts are not measured or regulated, the customer ends up with a product with an unknown and variable amount of nitrates/nitrites, even if they expected their uncured product to be nitrate/nitrite-free. It’s entirely possible that an uncured product can have higher nitrate/nitrite levels than a cured product.

We’re much more comfortable with making our bacon with curing salts, which have a carefully-measured amount of nitrates/nitrites because they use a known amount of a regulated product.

Also, let’s note that adding nitrates to meat doesn’t do much until it reacts with naturally-occurring bacteria in meat, which chemically converts nitrates -> nitrites, which starts the curing process.

So yes, our bacon has nitrates/nitrites because we believe it’s a more consistent, better-quality, not-misleading product.

However, some of the value-added processors we work with only offer ‘uncured’ products. In these cases, we only work with processors that make consistent final products, but we openly acknowledge that these products contain unregulated amounts of nitrates/nitrites. They’re still delicious. As of this writing, our soppressata, liverwurst, and hot dogs are ‘uncured.’

The ingredients in our bacons and sausages are dictated by our excellent slaughterhouse. They make great products… but.. to be honest, they do a relatively poor job of following ingredient labelling laws, or at least good practices. They do try to make changes when we point out their errors, and we point out a lot of errors, so the ingredient lists change quite often. We do not feel it’d be useful to reproduce their lists or attempt to correct them.

If you have specific questions, don’t hesitate to contact us and we’ll be happy to answer based on current ingredient lists.

The world is overrun with foods that come from corn. Our slaughterhouse makes most of our sausage using pre-mixed seasonings and we have not been able to convince them to do a special seasoning mix for us. As of winter 2024, we are starting to hand-make sausages for sale and these do not have any corn derivatives in them.

We don’t feed corn or soy to any of our animals and have had other people with severe allergies who can tolerate our products, but not everyone can tolerate everything. We suggest staying away from sausages/bacons/treats and sticking with whole muscle cuts like chops, tenderloins, roasts, ribs, ground, and of course our eggs.

Yes, we take all our animals to USDA-inspected slaughterhouses.

The biggest cost driver for us is animal feed. Because we’re sourcing North-American grown, corn-free, soy-free, non-GMO, certified organic feed for our chickens and pigs, it’s wildly expensive and not available locally, so on top of paying for premium-quality feed, we’re paying for shipping. We limit the number of animals we grow to what our land can support with rotational grazing, so we’re optimizing for animal welfare and not for price point.

We wish we could!

Because we have such goofy/awesome requirements about what we want and don’t want in our animal feeds, our feed mixes are custom made for us. None of the local mills can or will produce a custom mix that meets our requirements. Instead, we work closely with two different feed mills, one in Hudson Valley NY and the other in Virginia. We’re happy that both mills are dedicated to organic products and only make 100% certified organic mixes — it’s hard to overstate how unusual that is. Plenty of mills don’t think they have the market to sustain any organic lines or they’ll run a small organic line alongside their conventional lines. Or they’ll try to split the difference by offering a non-GMO line that isn’t certified organic (one of the mills talks about the difference between organic and non-GMO).

If you know of a local feed mill that is doing certified organic feed, or who is even considering it, we’d be happy to talk to them!

Many things, see the rest of our website.

Historically, much larger percentages of people were farming and raising animals for food production. Slaughterhouses were more centrally located in cities and butchering was much more visible and public. Since industrialization, less people farm and slaughterhouses moved to the edges of cities or to rural areas. Meat now shows up in scentless, sterilized, plastic packages in brightly lit stores and is completely removed from the living animal it once was. So, we don’t think farming animals for food in the most humane way we can imagine makes us monsters, but perhaps it makes us old-fashioned. This is why we became livestock farmers in the first place: if we’re going to eat meat, we want to know how the animal was treated from birth to slaughter!

We both firmly agree that our farm animals are not pets. They don’t live in the house with us, socialize with us throughout the day, or snuggle with us for warmth in the evenings. Instead, the animals live in family groups out on pasture, socializing with their siblings, and snuggling with their cousins for warmth in the evenings. Our job as humane livestock farmers is to facilitate this lifestyle for them, giving them the opportunity to lead rich social lives with each other, right up until the point where we eat them. Yum. Okay, maybe we are monsters.

Start with a farm’s website. When we see a livestock farm website that has no pictures, a small number of pictures and most of them are in a barn, or a small number of pictures that look perfect/are repetitive/might even be stock photos, we take that as a potential red flag. Another red flag is if the website uses ambiguous, vague, or misleading terms like ‘natural,’ ‘humanely raised,’ ‘no added hormones,’ etc. Another thing to look for is organic claims without the corresponding USDA organic symbol — this technique is actually illegal but we see it in more places than we can count.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions, either by calling the farm or directly at farmers markets! Are animals on pasture all year? Does the farm birth their own animals, or are they buying in? Are ruminants grass fed all year? Are ruminants grass finished? Not all farmers at farmers markets are raising to high levels of quality, but farmers who are focusing on welfare and quality are usually open, transparent, show pictures, and are happy to answer questions.

Although not a question, we’ve heard this from many people at farmer’s markets. Social media is not our strong suit but we do believe in the importance of taking and sharing lots of photos of our farm and animals. People see what’s going on, how we raise animals, good days, bad days, and everything in between. It builds trust between us and our community that we’re doing what we say we’re doing. We wish other livestock farmers posted more pictures!

Our farm is not set up for farm tours and since we don’t have kids, it’s not kid-safe or kid-friendly and includes lots of electrified fences, muddy access trails, and some aggressive male animals. We’d hate for anyone to get hurt! Further our insurance does not allow public tours. However, we are always happy to show our customers where their meat and eggs are coming from and our growing practices. We can do a “driveway tour” where you can see some stuff, but because we are on 40 acres a lot is not visible from the driveway/road. Although not a tour of our farm, there are some videos of us and our farm in the Deep Dive page. Thanks for your understanding!

Many people think BOTL (pronounced ‘bottle’) is our last name, a combination of our names, or some other clever thing. When told it’s an acronym and asked to guess what it stands for, people most often guess “back on the land.” Close!

The short story is BOTL, which stands for “back of the line,” started as an inside joke.

The long story is that during grad school Danielle worked nights at a grad-student-only bar. We were living in different states, but sometimes on weekends Nick would show up and help bussing glasses, setting up, and cleaning up at the bar. One super-busy night, the bar was understaffed so Nick and another staff member’s partner was asked to pinch-hit by working the door checking IDs and collecting cover. As the line of people waiting for entrance backed up, Nick noticed a very drunk person approaching the door and knew door staff were trained to not allow entry to obviously drunk people. Usually the door person would call the manager on shift (in this case, Danielle) to deal with the drunk person, but she was running around because it was so busy. Not wanting to cause conflict with the drunk person, Nick noticed he didn’t have his ID out when he got to the front of the line and told him to “go to the back of the line” and be ready next time. The wait for Danielle-the-manager continued, so the drunk person got back to the front of the line again, but had not managed to get both his government and student ID prepped, so Nick again sent him to the “back of the line.” Amazingly, Nick sent this poor drunk person to the “back of the line” four times before Danielle managed to intervene and tell him to go home. Danielle and the other bar staff were surprised that repeatedly telling a really drunk person to go to the back of the line worked and that Nick didn’t get punched in the face, so it became a running joke at the bar and our life.

When it was time to name the farm, BOTL came to mind. It is short and easy to remember, almost nothing else at the time was using the acronym (Brothers Of The Leaf, a small cigar club was the only one that came up in a search). It just worked and it stuck. We started calling it Back Of The Line Farm at the beginning but now we never use the phrase and only use BOTL Farm. 

None of our property had been farmed recently, unless you count piling up trash and hazardous waste as some sort of post-modern farming. When we bought the place, the only structure on the property was the house. We put in fences, a storage barn, and everything else we’re currently using.

According to the information we have been provided, the main part of the house was built in 1820, so the house is just over 200 years old. The ell was added in 1856 and included the current garage. We delight in the challenges of living in such an old, drafty, definitely-not-haunted home.

According to the USDA, our farm is actually 41.07 acres. The land only has two open fields at this point, both are visible from the road, and they total about 4 acres. The rest of our land is made up of varying density wooded areas and silvopasture. We’ve also been told that our lower (western) field looks very fore-shortened from the road because it slopes down and if you’re standing at the barn it looks bigger. #science

We have lots of information on our website, especially the Deep Dive section. If you’re looking for more, check out our Consulting page.

We use a USDA-inspected butcher, Meatworks in Westport, Massachusetts for our pigs, sheep, and goats. They do everything from slaughter to hanging, cutting, sausage making, smoking, and packaging for just about all our products. Because our Animal Welfare Approved (AWA) certification covers birth to slaughter, we must work with an AWA-audited slaughterhouse, which Meatworks is. We must transport all our animals to Meatworks for slaughter. Unfortunately this means you cannot use your own butcher.

When we harvest chickens, we used to do them on-farm but now we’re happy to use Steadfast Poultry Processing in Bethlehem, Connecticut.

Our sawmill isn’t portable so we can’t move it around. Even if you brought your log to our sawmill, we can’t saw it. Bringing people and vehicles into the heart of our farm where the sawmill is poses a biosecurity hazard for our animals. Also, sawmilling is a side project that we get around to when we have time and we’ve never gotten very proficient at it, so we don’t offer to cut anyone else’s logs.

Unfortunately we don’t know anyone else raising to extremely high-welfare standards locally. To find other Animal Welfare Approved farms outside this region, visit their farm directory.

We don’t have any employees, so no, we’re not hiring. Occasionally we need extra hands to help on sheep shearing day or rooster slaughter day, but this only happens a few times a year. If you’re interested in helping, contact us.