Our Mission.

Maranatha means “O, Lord come”. At our farm, we believe in Jesus and we believe in what He did for us on the cross. We are waiting joyfully for the day that He will make His return! In the meantime, we also believe that we are called to be good stewards of the land, animals, and resources He has given us. Therefore, we farm in a manner that supports healthy, happy animals and supports the stewardship of the land.

We are located in central Virginia and more specifically Forest, Virginia. Our farm is located in rolling pastures with the Blue Ridge Mountains as our backdrop.

We are 100% GMO free

As a matter of principle we are against the routine use of pesticides. However, if an animal is sick(i.e. Pink eye from fly bites during the summer) we will treat the flies with insecticides. We will endeavor to utilize as many natural resources as possible until these means are proving ineffective. We do not spray our pastures or land with any pesticides.We do not use pesticides routinely like in conventional farming but we are not “absolutely” against them.

We do not use vaccines. When we first purchased layers from a hatchery they were given a vaccine but we have not purchased from them again. We no longer have any vaccinated birds as we hatch them ourselves. We do not vaccinate our beef, pork, or lambs.

We are very much against the routine use of antibiotics in/on any of our animals. However,we administer therapeutic antibiotics if an animal has a severe illness or a life saving need. There are times where we will treat a specific problem with an animal that we know is curable with a particular antibiotic and is necessary for the survival of the animal. If the animal does not recover quickly, then we sell it to the stockyard and do not process it for meat. In this way, we do not sell any meat with antibiotics and continue to improve the genetics of our certified herds.

We do not use any herbicides.

We do not use any chemical fertilizers.

We use natural fertilizers including poultry litter from our mobile chicken coops that are rotated throughout our fields on a daily basis. We also use natural fertilization of pig, cattle and sheep manure across our fields. We use naturally occurring lime occasionally to improve the pH of the soil in our particular acidic Virginia soil.

We use a Non-GMO feed from Sunrise farms. The feed is used as an added supplement for out pigs and chickens.

Clean food by definition is polysemous with an interpretation that is determined by each individual as to what is clean or unclean food. Each farm and farmer have their own view of clean food leading to difficulty in truly knowing what kind of meat you are purchasing. The only true way to know is to ask the farmer. There is a multitude of “philosophies and principles” that dictate each farm's decisions on the practices of an animal's birth until processes. The key is to ask farmers exactly what their practices are and understand that each farmer will have different answers.

“Closing the loop” is a term we use to describe farming the entire life cycle of an animal. The cycle would begin before birth and go all the way through processing. The only true way to know the quality of an animal is to raise them for their entire life span. We have accomplished this with our chickens, pigs, lambs, and very soon our cows.

We hatch all of our layer chickens and meat chicken in our incubator. Once the chicks hatch, they will be placed into our hatchery for 1-2 weeks. After this time period they will go into our brooder barn for another 2 weeks and begin growing to a size suitable for being out on pasture. From here the chickens live the rest of their lives on our pastures. Once the meat birds become of age they will be processed on property where they will be packaged and stored in our freezer until purchase. Our layers will spend 2 years laying eggs on pasture in our mobile chicken coops. We are able to humanely raise and process all of our chickens by having control over their entire life cycle.

Our pigs life cycle is secured as well. We birth our pigs on the farm and raise them in “Pig Paradise” for the duration of their lives. When their time comes to be processed we take them to Honest Meats (our slaughterhouse). Honest Meats is a USDA certified slaughterhouse with humane processing practices.

Our lamb is similar to our pigs as we birth all our lambs on the farm and pasture raise them until it is time to process them at Honest Meats.

We are currently building our cow herd to the point where we can achieve a complete “closed loop”. We currently raise them through slaughter but not from the point of birth. In the next coming years, we will achieve this.

“Pig Paradise” is a 35 acre paddock that our Berkshire and Mangalitsa pigs call home. These 35 acres are all woodland providing a large amount of space and shade for our pigs, and contributing to a well balanced diet. The woodlands provide an abundance of acorns, roots, insects, and many other consumables that our pigs love. This space has multiple paddocks so we are able to rotate the pigs to allow the land to be worked and then given a period of rest. Pig Paradise provides our pigs with an environment they were created to live in leading to higher quality meat and better tasting meat.

Honest Meats is our USDA slaughter house for our beef, lamb, and pork.

420 acres