Keegan-Filion Farm
Free-Range Chicken, Turkey, Pork, and Beef
Grass-Fed
Hormone Free
Antibiotic Free
NO Animal By-Products
KNOW YOUR
FARMER
Supplying Lowcountry Restaurants:
SNOB High Cotton
Monza Woodland's
Carolina's
Anson's
Fish
F.I.G.
Cypress
The Inn at Palmetto Bluff
Glass Onion
Cassique Club
Sanctuary
Maggie's Pub
FOOD
Call today 843 538 2565 1475 Keegan Drive Walterboro, SC 29488
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About The Farm
Today's modern agricultural model is built with factory farms and mono-cropped fields where the animals and crops are sold to giant conglomerates that control our food supply. The family farm that we all have in our memory is a thing of the past.
Keegan-Filion Farm is a working farm that raises livestock and crops in a sustainable, environmentally safe way.
The farm is known for its pastured poultry that is served at some of the finest restaurants in the Low Country.
Chickens are raised year round for eggs and meat but turkeys are also raised for the holiday season.
The farm also raises heritage Tamworth hogs and grass-fed beef.
About Us
Free-Range Poultry
By free-ranging poultry, birds are allowed to exhibit their natural tendencies to scratch the ground in search of insects and to eat fresh green grass. We provide the consumer with a great tasting, healthy product that has been raised in the most environmentally friendly and humane way possible.
Do The Chickens Really Run Free?
It is possible to let chickens roam free in pastures, but it is not the safest for the birds. Foxes, hawks, raccoons, and even the neighborhood dog are all considered predators and create a real threat to chickens that are loose in a field. Allowing chickens to roam free offers no protection from rain, summer heat, or winter cold.
How Are The Chickens Housed?
Large scale producers can house their chickens in "factory farm" style houses and call their birds free-range if they keep the doors open, giving the birds the opportunity to go outside. These houses are dimly lit, hold large quantities of birds in a small area, and provide the birds with dirty litter to scratch around in. The litter is cleaned out of the houses as many as 8 times a year to as few as 1 time a year. Chickens raised in these environments are often sick and require antibiotics in the feed to keep them healthy.
Our birds are housed in shelters called "chicken tractors". Our "chicken tractors" have no floors. This allows our birds access to fresh grass and insects while providing them with a safe, clean place to live. The shelters are equipped with feed troughs and a water system that supplies them with clean feed and water at all times. Our birds have heat in the winter and fans to keep them cool in the summer. Our "chicken tractors" are moved daily providing the chickens a clean, healthy environment while providing us a steady supply of fertilizer.
What Are The Chickens Fed?
Along with fresh grass and insects, our chickens are fed a diet that is formulated especially for them. Our feed consists of corn, soybean meal, Fertrell Nutri-Balancer and a probiotic. The Fertrell Nutri-Balancer is a mineral poultry supplement which contains high levels of vitamins A, D3, and E, as well as trace minerals. The probiotic is a naturally occuring micro-organism that increases the absorption of protein, starch, and fat. A probiotic is not a drug and is used only to increase the effectiveness of the bird's own immune system. All of the ingredients in our feed are organic except for the corn and soybean meal (sufficient amounts of organic corn and soybean meal are not currently available in the local area). Our chickens are NEVER fed feed containing antibiotics or arsenic, and we never apply commercial fertilizer or chemicals to our chicken's pastures.
Why Buy Keegan-Filion Farm Free-Range Poultry?
When you buy Keegan-Filion Farm poultry, you are buying direct from the farmer. You are receiving a great tasting, fresh, chicken that is as healthy for you as it is good tasting. Recent studies show that free-range chicken is lower in saturated fat than commercially produced chicken yet is higher in vitamin A and omega-3s. Our chicken is processed in a federally inspected packing plant.
Raising chickens in a free-range system creates true "sustainable" agriculture. This system requires less fossil fuels and is more environmentally sound than the current conventional systems while maintaining respect and providing humane conditions for the animals.
Chicken can be produced and sold at a lower cost than we offer our product. However, all of the extra care and attention our birds receive, along with our specially formulated feed, free of any antibiotics, produce the best tasting, highest quality chicken available.
What type of hogs are on the farm?
All of the hogs raised on the farm are Tamworths. The Tamworth was originally brought to the US from Europe in the 1800s, is considered a heritage breed, and is no longer raised by the commercial hog industry.
The meat from a Tamworth hog is prized by chefs for its reddish color and marbling of the fat. It takes time to achieve this marbling. In fact, conventional factory farm hogs are processed at about 5 1/2 months old; our Tamworths are processed at around 8 months of age.
How are the hogs raised?
All of our hogs are born in open pens and spend their whole life on pasture. In addition to eating grass, weeds, and roots that they forge, they are fed a ground feed that consists of corn, soybean meal, vitamins, and minerals but doesn't contain any antibiotics or animal by-products. We purposely feed them lower amounts of protein which allows them to grow slower and produce a more flavorful meat.
Once ready, our hogs are processed at a federally inspected, Certified Humane, facility. All of our meat is packaged in vacuum sealed packages and frozen to insure freshness.
Free-Range
Read How To CookGrass Fed Meat Here!
Updates
Beef products now available
Turkeys have already been ordered! Send us an email
from our "Talk To Us" page and get on our sign-up sheet
for Thanksgiving 2010
Whole Chickens ranging from 3-5lbs
Price:69
5lbs Boneless/Skinless Breasts, 5lbs Thighs, 5lbs Legs, 5lbs Wings
Price:74.5
Roll mouse over image to view product description
3lbs Bacon, 3lbs ground pork, 5lbs chorizo, 4lbs pork roast, 5lbs pork steak
Price:118.5
5lbs Breakfast Links, 5lbs Pork Cutlets, 5lbs Garlic Bratwurst, 5lbs Pork Roast
Price:120
5lbs Sliced Country Ham, 3lbs Pork Chops, 5lbs Hot Italian Sausage, 3lbs Ribs, 4lbs Pork Roast
Price:124.5
4lbs Garlic Brats, 4lbs Hot Italian Sausage, 4lbs Chorizo, 4lbs Chicken Leg Quarters, 4lbs Chicken Legs
Price:88.8
4lbs Plain Wings, 4lbs BBQ Wings, 4lbs Lime-Chipotle Wings, 4lbs Chorizo, 4lbs Hot Italian Sausage
Price:90
5lbs Ground Beef, 5lbs Chicken Sample, 5lbs Pork Sample, 3lbs Cheese Sample, 2lb Butter Roll
Price:116.55
2 Pork Roasts, 2 Whole Chickens (app. 8lbs), Mixed Pork (Ground Pork, Breakfast Links and/or Cutlets)
Price:99.99
2 Beef Roasts, 2 Whole Chickens (app. 8lbs), Mixed Beef (Ground Beef, Stew Beef, and/or Cube Steak)
HOW TO COOK GRASS FED MEAT
KEEGAN-FILION FARM
GRASS FED CHICKEN, TURKEY, BEEF AND PORK ARE MUCH LEANER, HIGHER IN OMEGA 3, AND LOWER IN CHOLESTERAL. THEY HAVE NO ADDED ANTIBIOTICS OR HORMONES.
THEY ARE FED NO ANIMAL BY-PRODUCTS AND HAVE NO ADDED WATER OR SALINE (PURE 100% MEAT).
THEY ARE RAISED ON GRASS FOR SUPERB QUALITY AND TASTE AND ARE PROCESSED IN A CERTIFIED HUMANE FACILITY.
ALL OF THIS ADDED CARE MAKES KEEGAN-FILION FARM MEATS A MUCH
HEALTHIER CHOICE FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY.
SINCE GRASS FED MEAT IS MUCH LEANER (LESS FAT) IT REQUIRES A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO COOKING. HERE ARE SOME HELPFUL HINTS
ADD OIL TO YOUR MEAT
FOR BAKING, BROILING, OR GRILLING YOU WILL NEED TO RUB YOUR
MEAT WITH OIL.
FOR STOVE TOP COOKING YOU WILL NEED TO ADD OIL TO THE PAN.
COOK LESS TIME
COOK GRASS FED MEAT ABOUT HALF THE TIME AS CONVENTIONAL MEAT.
IF YOU OVERCOOK OR DO NOT ADD OIL YOUR MEAT WILL HAVE A TENDENCY TO BE DRY.
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Pork
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Family Packs
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Orders
March 2010 Newsletter
The Bradley Pear trees are blooming; a sure sign that spring is here. I'm not going to make the same mistakes I have in the past and plant our summer vegetables before Good Friday, especially since we had thunder in February. Three years in a row we had thunder in February, and three years in a row we had a late frost in early April.
Our early spring vegetables: carrots, collards, broccoli, kale, turnips, spinach, and cabbage were all planted a month later due to the colder and wetter than normal winter. The field that we planted a lot of these vegetables in had water standing in it for over a month and was planted before parts of it were really dry enough to plant. We felt we had no choice but to get the seeds in the ground or it would be too hot to grow these vegetables successfully.
We have our first field ready to plant green and wax beans and our squash in, and we will plant it on Good Friday. The second, larger field will be planted in green and wax beans and field peas about 2 or 3 weeks later. A third field, which is currently being used by chickens, will be planted in okra, melons, cantaloupe, and possibly pumpkings in late April to early May. We also have a fourth field that will probably be used for green and wax beens and squash and will be planted in late April to early May.
We will begin putting broiler chicks in a new field this week that is planted in rye. The chickens should be able to graze in this field until July providing us fertilizer for our fall crops. Our laying hens will be moved in the other half of this field in the next couple of weeks.
The past 3 years, we have bought laying hens that were raised on Amish farms in Pennsylvania and Ohio. The hens were 3 to 4 weeks from laying which saved us a lot of time and money on feed. The last group we bought just never laid well; in fact, we get less than 50% laying on a daily basis when we should be getting 85 to 90%.
We decided to bring in our own chicks and raise them on our farm, eating our food and grazing on our grass. The cold winter stopped us from doing this when we wanted to. We hope to have the birds in our brooder in the next couple of weeks which will have them producing eggs in late August. Hopefully we will be able to handle the increase in egg sales that we expect once the farmers market opens.
Annie ordered our turkeys in January; we will have both the Bronze Broad Breasted and Conventional White. The first birds will be sent to us in June. Due to past demand, we have already started a reservation list. Please contact us if you want to be assured of a turkey this Thanksgiving.
At this time we have a good supply of turkey products including maple & sage sausage, breakfast sausage, hot Italian sausage, ground turkey, and turkey legs and wings.
The demand for our beef has been astonishing; the last steer lasted 2 weeks. We have a couple of roasts and a few packs of hamburger left. We will be setting a date at the processors for the next steer and hope to have meat available in late April to early May. We have 3 steers that will be available this year and 1 for next year. We have bought 8 more calves that won't be ready until spring of 2012. We just don't have enough land to run the number of steers that we need to meet our demand. We will try to meet this demand with steers produced by friends of ours that raise their steers the same as we do.
We have had 5 litters of pigs in the last month. Our sows gave us a respectable 9 pigs per litter but the gilts have averaged only 2. Gilts are first-time breeders and don't know what to do. Unlike sows, gilts will plop themselves down, crushing whatever is under them. Though the gilts had 8 to 10 pigs in their litters, they crushed all but 2. The fact that they had 8 to 10 pigs each gives us encouragement for the next time they are bred.
A couple of weeks ago we brought the remaining 3 Tamworth gilts we had in the Upstate to the farm. Along with them, we brought in 3 Berkshire gilts that will be ready to breed in 3 to 4 months. We are now holding 22 females in our breeding herd and are planning on increasing that number later in the year.
The Summerville Farmers Market will open for the season on Saturday April 3. The new location is the bank parking lot next to Town Hall. As of this time, we are unsure of where our booth will be located, but should be easy to find thanks to our truck. We will have the normal meats, butter, milk, and cheese available but don't expect to have any organically grown vegetables until sometime in May.
We have appreciated everyone that participated in our bi-weekly deliveries during the winter; this was the best "off-season" yet. We also appreciate the new customers that several of you have brought to us the past few months. As we have in the past, Annie will send the list of available items out on Wednesdays (every Wednesday during market season). Send in your order by noon on Friday and we will have it for you at our booth on Saturday. In the past, we have tried to pack orders received after noon on Friday but will be unable to do so this year due to the amount of time required to pack orders, pack extra items for sale, and do the evening chores.
We hope you had a good winter and look forward to seeing everyone at the market. As always, we invite you to come to the farm and see how your food is grown; try going to a Tyson chicken farm.
Marc & Annie
Newsletter
Farm Tours
The farm is open in the fall for school and other group tours in October and November and opens again in March, April, and May. Tours include a discussion on modern agricultural practices, and the alternative, sustainable agricultural practices that are becoming increasingly popular. Visitors will see baby chicks, pigs, calves, and turkeys in season and take a hayride through the farm to see all the enterprises up close.
School groups may want to bring a bag lunch and eat under the old hickory nut tree and breathe in the clean fresh country air.
Group rates: $5.00/person
Grades 2 and under: $3.00/child
Farm Store
Farm-produced meat, eggs, and vegetables are available year round in the farm store. Come out and enjoy some time in the country. Learn about alternative, safe methods of producing food.
Store Hours:
Mondays 1:00-6:00
Fridays 1:00-6:00
Other times by appointment only
Visit Us!
These feeders are mobile and hold approximately 350 pounds of feed.
Photos
Read About Us
The Post and Courier
Bringing it back home
The Lowcountry Weekly
Palmetto Poultry
Lowcountry Field Feast
A Family-Style Supper
Watch Us
The Connection: Independent Television
Episode Three: Organic, Local, and Sustainable Farming
Media
Send us an e-mail with any questions you may have or leave us some feedback about the site and/or our farm. We'd love to hear from you.
Thanks,
Marc and Annie
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