Livestock Program
World Hunger Relief raises many animals at Spring Lake Farm for various purposes.
Currently, our livestock includes:
World Hunger Relief raises many animals at Spring Lake Farm using sustainable principles we learn from nature. These principles allow us to produce food for a growing population while caring for the environment and our neighbors. This type of management requires minimal inputs and does not rely on chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides thus empowering communities around the world to produce food in an economical, safe, and environmentally- friendly manner. Our current livestock enterprise includes our Flerd (a multi-species mix of sheep and cattle) with their Livestock Guardian Dog protectors, rabbits housed in our colony-style “Bunny Barn,” honey bees, and urban homestead chickens and ducks.
World Hunger Relief raises many animals at Spring Lake Farm using sustainable principles we learn from nature. These principles allow us to produce food for a growing population while caring for the environment and our neighbors. This type of management requires minimal inputs and does not rely on chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides thus empowering communities around the world to produce food in an economical, safe, and environmentally- friendly manner. Our current livestock enterprise includes our Flerd (a multi-species mix of sheep and cattle) with their Livestock Guardian Dog protectors, rabbits housed in our colony-style “Bunny Barn,” honey bees, and urban homestead chickens and ducks.
All our animals (except the bees) enjoy rotational grazing—the practice of moving livestock between pastures frequently to prevent overgrazing. This allows the grasses in one pasture to regenerate while our livestock eat from another pasture. The benefits of rotational grazing are:
- Animals get the best forage available, improving the nutritional quality of the meat
- Reduced fuel, as we don’t use vehicles to transport feed, animals or manure; instead, we move animals to the food
- Nutrients from animal manure cycle back into the soil, reducing the need for fertilizer and improving soil health
- Reduced parasite populations
Many of the cost-saving techniques of industrial meat production have come at the expense of treating animals as mere materials to be manipulated and manufactured in factory-like conditions. Not only does this create major environmental issues, it also lessens the nutritional value of the meat. Rather than treating meat production as a series of isolated ventures, WHR sees it holistically.
The health and well-being of our animals are connected to the health and well-being of the humans that consume them; in all of our work, we seek to mimic the patterns in nature. We raise and tend to our animals in such a way that they’re able to live in a manner resembling their native environment, as closely as we’re able to accommodate.
All our animals (except the bees) enjoy rotational grazing—the practice of moving livestock between pastures frequently to prevent overgrazing. This allows the grasses in one pasture to regenerate while our livestock eat from another pasture. The benefits of rotational grazing are:
- Animals get the best forage available, improving the nutritional quality of the meat
- Reduced fuel, as we don’t use vehicles to transport feed, animals or manure; instead, we move animals to the food
- Nutrients from animal manure cycle back into the soil, reducing the need for fertilizer and improving soil health
- Reduced parasite populations
Many of the cost-saving techniques of industrial meat production have come at the expense of treating animals as mere materials to be manipulated and manufactured in factory-like conditions. Not only does this create major environmental issues, it also lessens the nutritional value of the meat. Rather than treating meat production as a series of isolated ventures, WHR sees it holistically.
The health and well-being of our animals are connected to the health and well-being of the humans that consume them; in all of our work, we seek to mimic the patterns in nature. We raise and tend to our animals in such a way that they’re able to live in a manner resembling their native environment, as closely as we’re able to accommodate.