Local
Farm Fresh Eggs
in Berryville, Virginia

Condrey Farmstead

We are a first generation family farmstead that follows Joel Salatin's methods of regenerative farming to raise healthy animals which in turn heal the land and heal our bodies with nutrient dense food. We homeschool our kids and our sons are the primary caretakers of our laying hens. We raise Dexter cattle for grass fed and finished beef and milk/breed mini-lamancha goats. Our Regenerative Farming Methods: Hens produce the healthiest, highest quality eggs when they are able to keep themselves clean and healthy with a varied diet that includes a quality feed plus grass, various broadleaf plants, even leaves from those thorny wild roses. Ever had an egg after a chicken got into some spring onions? The flavor goes straight into the egg. That's why the feed and forage matter so much. Commercially, "cage free" just means they aren't kept in tiny cages and "free range" means a giant chicken house might have access to a small run (like a prison yard) where the hens can get a glimpse of daylight and a blade of grass before being pushed along by a line of hens vying for the prime real estate. Pasture-raised chickens live cage-free and free-range of course, but they can also care for themselves well by dust-bathing in the sunshine, scratching up roots and pecking around for worms all day, and doing all of the things chickens do to live their best healthy chicken life 24/7. Cows (we say cows even though they're not all ladies) are similar. They need nutrients and plant material to balance out their rumen so that the bacteria in the rumen can process the grass and forbs and even tree leaves into amino acids (basically raw protein) that the animal uses to build out the various muscle groups that we call steak and roast and ribs. The nutrition value and ability to convert grass into beef (the best kind of plant-based meat) is heavily dependent on the life and nutrients in the soil and the plants growing in it which benefit from the high volumes of manure cows produce. That amount of manure would be a health concern for the animals if they were in a feed lot, but that manure is broken down quickly into food for the soil by the millions of bugs and microbes that inhabit thriving pasture. Dexters are a breed of cattle that are very efficient grazers. Although it takes longer than grain fed operations, we only feed our cows forage, including grass, hay and grass based alfalfa pellets and the longer wait is worth it for the best tasting grass finished beef.