Feb 23
Located in central North Carolina (20 miles south of Burlington), Castlemaine Farm is the pride and joy of husband-wife team Brian and Joann Gallagher. They have a two acre market garden but are perhaps best known for their pasture-raised chicken operation. I visited Castlemaine today as part of my Sustainable Livestock Production class at Central Carolina Community College’s Sustainable Agriculture Program, and it was great to finally see a pastured poultry operation up close!
Castlemaine raises approximately 2500 Cornish Rock broilers (meat chickens) each year. They get new shipments of 225-250 chicks every other week, keeping each batch in a brooder until they are ready to be moved to pasture. Once on pasture they are housed in A-frame chicken “tractors”, based on Joel Salatin’s famous model from Polyface Farm.
Joann Gallagher and one of Castlemaine's chicken tractors
The tractors are 10 feet wide by 12 feet long and are moved to fresh pasture each day. After three to four weeks in the tractors (at approximately seven to eight weeks of age) the chickens are then sent to the processor. Castlemaine uses Chaudhry Halal Meats in Siler City, NC to process their chickens.
Castlemaine offers both a Fruit & Vegetable CSA as well as a Chicken CSA. The Chicken CSA delivers fresh, whole chickens once a month; CSA members can receive two, four, or eight chickens depending on which CSA they care to purchase. Unfortunately, the Chicken CSA shares are all sold out for this season, but they still have both full and half shares of their Fruit & Vegetable CSA left.
You can find Castlemaine Farm at the Carrboro Farmers’ Market on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and the Durham Farmers’ Market on Saturdays.
Feb 23
I can’t find the information on their website–can you tell us how much their chicken CSA memberships cost? I’m curious. I found a chicken CSA out here and want to do a little cost comparison.
Feb 23
Yeah, sorry I should have mentioned that. The cost for the 2 chickens/month was $120 for four months, so thats 8 chickens at $15 a chicken (which is a pretty standard price for most of my area farmers’ markets I’ve found). I don’t know the cost of the other plans, but I do know that the per-chicken price went down if you chose the 4 or 8 chicken plan.
I’m curious to know how much chickens cost at markets out in the LA area – any ideas?
Feb 24
Well, I haven’t found any at my local markets. Sucks. I don’t want to drive to Santa Monica! Gah! The cheapest my meat-buying co-op has been able to find them is for $3 a pound for chickens ranging from 4-5 pounds. Unfortunately, we have to purchase 100 birds to get that price! I think we can do it, but I’m gonna need to buy an additional small freezer. Oy.
The only other SoCal bird farmer I’ve found charges roughly $20-25 pounds per bird when you include shipping and CSA membership costs. Thankfully we have a farmer not too terribly far from me who has beef, chicken and pork–my staple meats. I’m hoping to start sourcing everything through her. Wish me luck!