Thanksgiving 2025 Newsletter

Happy Thanksgiving! We hope you’re enjoying this beautiful early October weather as much as we are. Summer is definitely wrapping up here, our last batch of chickens will go to the butcher on Monday, and then into our new freezer for sale over the winter! Coming soon is an enclosure where we will be offering […]

Quality Claims: Are you confused?

Descriptors on food labels or in promotional ads range from downright deceptive, to practically meaningless, to credible but imperfect. … If the words used to differentiate a product have no legal definition, then you, as the potential buyer of that product, are relying on the honesty or integrity of the people behind the label.

August 2025 Newsletter

The “Dog Days” of Summer The “dog days” of summer have arrived, bringing us low 30s°C temperatures and no rain in sight. But here in Southern Bruce County, our little patch of earth is still lush and green. The pastures are abundant, and we had the perfect conditions for harvesting our second cut of hay. […]

Canada Day 2025 Newsletter

Zettel Family Farms is a pasture based organic livestock farm. All of our roughly 200 acres of workable land is devoted to grazing for the pigs, chickens and cattle, or the production of hay to feed cattle over winter. The grain that we need for pigs and chickens is purchased from other organic farms, as […]

May 2025 Newsletter

Spring has sprung! The mountains of snow that accumulated in Bruce county in one of the most severe winters in decades, disappeared in short order here on the farm. Early March saw unseasonably high temperatures uncovering the land and setting up for an early pasture season. As I write, on the first of May, (International […]

February 2025 Newsletter

One word sums it up: SNOW! Items currently on sale “In the bleak mid-winter, Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron,Water like a stone;Snow had fallen, snow on snow,Snow on snow,In the bleak mid-winter Long ago.” This opening stanza from “A Christmas Carol” (Christina Rosetti) fits the bill as I look out my front door […]

December 2024 Newsletter

Orders Galore We have had a surge of orders this fall, causing us to run short of some products.  For us, this is a good problem.  It’s a problem, because we are committed to the very best service for our customers.  We strive to fill every order promptly.  When one of the items on an […]

August 2024 Newsletter

Where did summer go? As we write this, the summer break for school kids is three-quarters gone.  These weeks seem to fly by, with long awaited days of vacations, festivals, sporting events and family gatherings sneaking up and then disappearing into memory.  On the farm, a succession of deadlines come and go; Fences to fix, […]

June 2024 Newsletter

Some photos from May and June Hey folks, how about chicken? As we noted in the last newsletter, our chickens are grown only in the summer when they can be raised in moveable hutches and have access to fresh grass daily.  This means we have to estimate how many drums, wings, bone-in and boneless breasts, […]

May 2024 Newsletter

Clearance Sale!  Big Discount on chicken drums and bone- in thighs. As most of you are aware, our chickens are raised on pasture in the summer in movable hutches where they get fresh grass twice a day. Since we like to eat chicken all year round, that means we must estimate the amounts of each […]