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Our Visit to Primal Pastures

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At Primal PAstures, looking out to the Santa Ana Mountains in the west.

Hi all! It’s Andrew, Kelly’s husband, here to tell you about our recent visit to Primal Pastures and offer you the chance to win a box of their primal meats.

We choose the Temecula area in California as a place to move to for the reasons like it’s affordability, it’s position between LA and San Diego, etc. What we didn’t expect was just how much of health-foodie place it is. We’ve got Organic Roots (and other health food grocery stores); Snackin Free, a gluten-free/Paleo cafe, Eat Market Place, a local food cafe, so many local/organic/gluten-free/Paleo restaurants like Burger Lounge, Bush Fire Grill, Earth Bistro, and Leoness Cellars.

Rounding out our local organic foodie area is PRIMAL PASTURES, a family farm raising free-range, grassfed, humanely-treated animals in over very own town, Murrieta. They sell their meats locally and ship nationwide. Farm tours (and other events) are hosted regularly, and we visited last month.

We arrived to a crowd of about 30+ visitors. Some people came as far as suburbs of  San Diego, others Los Angeles (we only had to drive for about 10 minutes). The kids were amused by the kittens playing in hay bales as we waited for the tour to begin. That sunny day Farmer Paul lead us from chickens, to pigs, to a herd of sheep (with a couple cows too). They were all lounging or grazing in spacious grassy green fields. The tour ended in their little orchard where we munched on apples and peaches, followed by samples of their fantastic sausage. It was good to see such well cared for animals in such a natural setting.

We enjoyed meeting all the animals, but it was the chickens’ story that was the most interesting:

The Farm Dogs and Wile E. Coyote

After the hay barn kittens the next animals we met were Jane the guard dog and her puppies. The Primal Pastures folks learned the hard way that a farm with free range animals needs night watchmen of the canine kind. Their story sounds like the plot to an old Warner Brothers cartoon:

A few years ago when the McDaniels family got their very first flock of chickens some coyotes squeezed through the fence and gobbled up dozens of birds. McDaniels quickly installed an electric fence. That discouraged the predators for a while, but then the hungry coyotes realized they could simply jump over the fence for their free chicken buffet.

Duke, a Great Pyrenees / Anatolian Shepherd mix, was their first guard dog. Duke successfully scared off the persistent coyotes… until they returned with a female. While Duke was distracted chatting-up the lady coyote, her pack mates hopped the other end of the fence and ate up more chickens. Finally, Jane the Great Pyrenees was brought in to help patrol the farm. She chases both the coyotes boys and coyote girls.

The chickens are protected further with large mobile pens, but that hasn’t ended the dog’s work. Bobcats are able to rip open the chicken pens, and coyotes still cast hungry eyes on the farm’s other animals.

Primal-Pastures-chickens

The Primal Pastures chickens (a heritage breed) eat right what’s under their feet: grass, seeds, bugs, etc. (with occasional supplemental organic grain). They’re kept in large open-bottom pens that allow them to to walk around and peck to their hearts’ content. When the patch of grass below them is exhausted the pens are wheeled back, exposing fresh food. Why have pens at all? With hungry hawks, bobcats and coyotes prowling about, it just isn’t safe for them to be out in the open.

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Primal Pastures raises Dorper sheep, which are a meat breed.

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The Primal Pastures pigs are Kunekune, a breed from New Zealand.

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Ashley, Ginger, and Andrew in the orchard.

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Farmer Paul showing off their eggs.

The giveaway (now closed)

The folks at Primal Pastures are offering their Ranch-hand Stash, a box containing a variety of meats: 1lb Ground Beef, 1lb Spicy Lamb Merguez, 1.3lb Chicken Wings, 10oz Petrale Sole, 1lb Top Sirloin, 1.75lb London Broil, and a 12oz Flat Iron Steak. This is a retail value of $110. For a chance to win, enter the widget below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Comments

  8. I will definitely visit your ranch when I am in the area…..my niece raises chickens and she also has trouble with predators. The squirrels eat her pumpkins lol.

  9. I would love to win. Pick me pick me! My husband and I strive to shop sustainably.

  13. Love these guys and live close enough that I should do a farm visit too! Thanks for the giveaway.

  16. Thanks for sharing your experience and introducing your readers to Primal Pastures. What a great giveaway!

  19. Thanks for the giveaway! My husband and I recently relocated to CA and love hearing about/experiencing local companies and farms!

  20. Wow- what an incredible giveaway! Anyone would be a lucky duck to win this haul 🙂

  23. I’ve lived in San Diego my whole life and didn’t have a clue this place existed so close to home. Thanks for sharing.

  27. love. love. LOVE. your recipes and blog. i just made your vanilla bean cake to test for my son’s first birthday cake with a few small changes and fell in love. would love to win this deliciousness! thanks for some amazing recipes!

  32. I’m imagining a homemade pastured chicken pot pie made with your Scone and Pie Crust Baking Mix! Fingers crossed!

  36. I love the area we live in for the same reasons! SoCal is a wonderful place for so many paleo/gluten free options, after visiting family in other places, I’m so much more grateful for all of the options we have here! Thanks for the giveaway!

  37. Wow – what a neat place! Great job on the virtual tour, y’all!
    Probably the most important thing for me about the meat I put into my body is how humanely the animal was treated during it’s life. Grassfed is equally important, but one without the other won’t work for me. Thank you for sharing this!

  38. Sounds like an amazing farm. And an even better area to live. Fingers crossed for some wholesome meats

  46. I wish I had a place like that to visit! So cool. I hope I have some good luck coming my way!

  52. Life on the farm….we city folk are grateful there are sustainable farms out there we can support! keep up the good work.

  54. Cool farm. My dream is to have my own farm some day! Would love to try these meats!

  55. Looks like a great farm. I would love to win this to try their products. Thank you for such a great giveaway.

  61. I love all your newsletters, FB posts, Pinterest, and books. Thanks for being such an inspiration. I live in Alabama the home of deep fried foods. Being paleo is very rough. It also hard to find free range farms that are not 100 miles away. I really hope to win this box.

  65. Thank you for the opportunity to try this meat company. Always looking for healthy farm raised meat to put on the table.

  66. Sounds like a great place to visit. So glad there are those who can and will grow food the way God intended it to be grown. We need more farmers like this!

  77. Looks like you had a great time! What a wonderful farm. The animals look so healthy, and the give away is very kind. Would love to win and try the meat. I’ll hook up with their web site. Thanks, Vickie

  83. I’ve been wanting to visit Primal Pastures every time I’ve visited the SoCal area but unfortunately just never had enough time to include the drive up to Temecula/Murrieta. Next time I visit San Diego or Irvine, I’m definitely making the trip to Temecula/Murrieta to see the farm as well as Eat Market Place and the various wineries in the area. So nice to see a farm that is doing things the right way! They seem like genuinely kind and down to earth people too. Thank you for offering such an amazing giveaway! Wish we had more farms like Primal Pastures in the Phiiladelphia area!!

  88. What a great giveaway – and the farm looks like a wonderful place to get your meat. Thanks for sharing this visit with your readers!

  89. It looks like a happy farm. I wish there were more of them. Thank you for this wonderful giveaway!

  90. not satisfied with packaged pastured meat from supermarkets – would like to find a place to buy good quality raised and marketed by honest farmers – this farm looks great – I am across the country but if they ship – that’s a winner!!!

  93. This sounds like a really cool farm. It makes me want to tour it.
    Thanks for the opportunity at the giveaway.

  98. This would be awesome! I’m trying to get back into Paleo so a pack of pastured, healthy meat would sure help get me jumpstarted!

  99. Loved learning about Primal Pastures. great giveaway too! Thanks for sharing.

  101. Great giveaway! I wish I lived closer to Primal Pastures, I’m sure I would be there hanging out with the chickens and sheep all the time!! What a great post!!

  111. Thanks for all the great pictures in this article about this wonderful farm! And, thank you for the opportunity to win a sample of their product!

  112. My parents live in Menifee so I’m looking forward to stopping by Primal Pastures when we are in town next. Maybe we could swing a workshop there.

  115. Farming sustainably is hard and honorable work. Thank you for sharing their story!

  117. I wish I had known about this place when I still lived in SoCal. Now I’m in CO, but would love to be the winner.

  121. Thank you SHARING this Beautiful Place! I never new there was a place like this in Socal. I would love to take my family their! I also love all the pictures this amazing loving place has to to offer from the pastures to the animals!
    ME ands my Kids would be so THANKFUL if we were to win! 😉

  122. What a great giveaway! We love taking farm tours of our pastured local farms and knowing where are meat comes from.

  126. Thanks for sharing about this farm. I think we’ll need to take a tour there soon! I’m in the process of looking into local farmers for our meat. We’re in Corona, so it’s not far for us. I’d love to win the giveaway and try out their meat!

  128. Awesome website very informative! I love The Spunky Coconut 🙂 thanks for the great recipes

  129. Thank you so much for what you do every day! Clean eating is so important in my life and I love that you find the best resources like this farm to support local businesses, and organic farming.

  130. I would love to win! I live in Murrieta and never knew they existed until now! Thank you for helping us find wonderful small natural farms to buy from.

  134. What a great giveaway for those of us who are Paleo style eaters! Thanks for the opporuntiy.

  141. You guys have the best give-a-ways! I would love to win organic free-range meat! Thank you so much!❤️

  144. Thanks for the blog post. I was previously unaware of Primal Pastures. I purchase only grass-fed beef, grass-fed dairy, free-range eggs, raw milk, etc. This is good to know there is a local source.

  146. I have been wanting to take the kids to this farm. Would love to have this giveaway!!! Thank you for sharing

  147. This farm sounds great! I’d love to try their meat. Thanks so much for this giveaway!

  148. This is awesome! We live in Long Beach and will definitely be making a trip out there this summer!
    Loved the story about the dogs and coyotes. My daughter can’t wait to seed the dogs!

  149. Grew up in the mountains outside of temecula. Glad to see there will be quality options for food the next time I visit family.

  150. This would be absolutely amazing! It’s hard to be able to afford food like this let alone find such good quality.

  153. I just want to thank you for sharing your visit to Primal Pastures. It sure looks like you all had lots of fun learning about this awesome place. I know my granddaughter would love to visit something like this. Her mom will stop by the side of the road when she sees cows so that they can look at them together and she enjoys it so much. Thank you again.

  155. Primal Pastures is not far from my home in Northern San Diego county. I definitely need to check it out. Would love to win this box of delicious local meats.

  156. Oh no! I wrote my Pinterest name was kbmama… It is kbmamas! But the widget won’t let me fix it! Yikes! Hope you see this and I didn’t just ruin my entries! 🙁

  157. I had to move away from Murrieta because my husband is active duty Marine. I can’t wait until he retires so we can move back and make Murrieta my forever home. I am very health food conscious and am very interested in learning more about Primal Pastures:)

  159. What a great farm. We are doing chickens, so it is really exciting to read how other people have moved into bigger livestock and such. I think knowing your farmer is so important. I would love to do a visit.

  161. We’re moving soon from Arkansas to North County San Diego and I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get local pasture raised meats. So glad I saw your blog!

  164. Would love to be able to try their products! Thank you for sharing this, excited to see who wins the awesome giveaway!

  169. I have heard of Primal Pastures, but it was great to see pictures of the farm. How wonderful and I wish there were more small sustainable farms like this.

  170. What a wonderful giveaway.
    Thank you to both of you for a great opportunity to win.
    My fingers are crossed…

  172. Sounds like a hard working family! Thank you for introducing them and their products to us.

  182. How fantastic to live so close to this farm! Thank you for hosting this giveaway. It’s extremely generous!

  195. I enjoyed seeing your photos and the stories about the animals and farm life. Great photography.
    Thanks for the opportunity to win this giveaway. I hope I’m lucky.

  196. What a wonderful opportunity to try these products! We have been looking for a source of excellent meats like yours. Thank you!

  203. Pastured Chicken Eggs…yes! Once you’ve had day-glo scrambled you don’t want to settle for anything less!!

  205. Thank you for sharing your experience. This would be awesome for me to win. Have a great weekend!