Frequently Asked Questions

Please see below for a list of questions commonly asked by our customers. Should you have a question not addressed on this list, feel free to drop us a line or give us a call and ask us! Info@whiteoakpastures.com (229)-641-2081

Yes, we are committed to the principles of sustainability and stewardship. All animal remains are composted into organic fertilizers for our pastures. We tan the hides; we grind the bones and we sell the meat. Each part of the carcass is utilized, wasting nothing.

Regenerative agriculture is a system of farming principles and practices that seeks to rehabilitate and enhance the entire ecosystem of the farm by placing a heavy focus on soil health with attention also paid to water management, fertilizer use, and more.

We believe the local food movement is not about 10 miles or 100 miles. We believe that the local movement is about the decentralization, deindustrialization, and de-commoditization of the American food industry. Most of the United States cannot cost-effectively produce high-quality grassfed beef year-round. Because of our favorable climate, we are able to do this in the Gulf Coast Plain.

We also believe what passes as “local” is, in fact, case-specific. For instance, “local” eggs and tomatoes probably should be sourced from your county. There is not a county in all 50 states that can’t produce eggs or tomatoes during certain months of the year. For consumers in the Deep South, “local citrus” should mean Florida citrus and not Mexican citrus. We feel our grassfed beef, lamb, and poultry are local to the Southern region of the United States.

The USDA describes "free-range” as “having access to outdoors”. A lot of chickens that are labeled “free-range” were raised in conventional chicken houses, so we choose to not use the words "free-range" because of this intentional confusion caused by labeling. Our pastured chickens are raised completely outdoors walking freely on our pastures. We provide a portable roosting house for them. Our chickens could walk to Atlanta if they wanted to. They are completely unrestricted. This is our pastured model.

The USDA has their own standards for organic animal production. We do not like USDA’s definition of “organic," principally because it allows the confinement feeding of corn. They just require it to be organic corn. We feel that we go far beyond the USDA certified organic standards with our grassfed beef and lamb.

Heck, no. We take our animals apart the old-fashioned way: a man with a knife and a saw.

No. Hormones and antibiotics are not used on our farm, which results in healthier, leaner, beef.

Our ruminants are vaccinated. We vaccinate against pinkeye, vibrio, lepto, and respiratory illnesses. Our chicks come already vaccinated. Our hogs have no scheduled vaccine at wean. Dewormer will be used if any issues come up later in life, but this does not happen often. We try to do everything we can to avoid any vaccines.

We want our customers to know that we will not vaccinate our animals with mRNA vaccines. We believe vaccinations have a time and place, but they must be used sparingly. If livestock is raised in an environment where they can express their natural instincts, they probably won't need many (if any) vaccines. We hope to one day move away from all vaccines on our farm-we are close, but not there yet. For more information on this, read our full blog statement, linked here

We grow no genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on our farm.

We do not produce any dairy products. We do offer some selections from our neighbors in our General Store.

In the field, our poultry is our best insect control, but we also attract insect-eating bats and purple martins with bat houses and martin houses. Cattle egrets congregate in the pastures and eat a wide variety of insects, ticks and grubs. At our processing facility we use sticky lines and chlorine granules.

Temple Grandin, the internationally recognized animal handling expert, designed our red meat processing abattoir. The animals are handled humanely throughout the process according to USDA standards. The animals are rendered insensible to pain using a captive bolt. Once the animal is rendered unconscious, the animal is then exsanguinated (bled out) until it is no longer living. This whole process takes about 3 minutes to complete.

We would love to be able to report to you that our animals experience no pain when we slaughter them. But that would be disingenuous. We can tell you that the physiologist tells us that, when the sensory receptors are disrupted, pain should be mitigated. We can tell you that our focus is to dispatch our animals without inflicting pain or panic. This is important to us. Everything that has ever lived has died, or will die. None of us are promised a pain free death. Certainly, in Nature, predation almost always involves pain and panic. We control everything that we can, in our system, to minimize this.

Temple Grandin, the internationally recognized animal handling expert, designed our red meat processing abattoir. The animals are handled humanely throughout the process according to USDA standards. The animals are rendered insensible to pain using a captive bolt. Once the animal is rendered unconscious, the animal is then exsanguinated (bled out) until it is no longer living. This whole process takes about 3 minutes to complete. The carcass is then eviscerated and cleaned prior to putting it into the chill cooler where it is chilled overnight to ensure it meets USDA standards for carcass chilling. The day after slaughter, the chilled carcass is then broken down by our butchers into the cuts that we market. These cuts are packaged on our equipment and then moved to the blast freezer for a quick freeze.

All of our products are available in our online store.

Our grassfed ground beef is available at all Publix supermarkets. If you don’t see it, please ask the meat manager to stock it.

You can also find our grassfed ground beef in Kroger stores in Atlanta.

Our grassfed steaks, roasts, offal, ground beef, and chickens are available at Whole Foods Market in the Mid-Atlantic and South Regions. Our pastured eggs can be found in Whole Foods Market locations in Atlanta and select restaurants.

ALL of the products we raise, harvest and craft on our farm are available for direct delivery through our website.

We often are asked about the age and weight of our animals at slaughter. The following chart is our minimum age and weight for each species.

SpeciesBreedAge/Live Weight
CattleAngus BasedMin 24 mo/1000 lbs
SheepKatahdinMin 12 mo/100 lbs
GoatBoer/SpanishMin 10 mo/100 lbs
ChickenImperial Red/Robust WhiteMin 10 wks/ 5-10 lbs
DuckPekinMin 8 wks/6-12 lbs
GeeseGerman/EmbdenMin 12 wks/12-14 lbs
GuineaLavenderMin 10 wks/4-8 lbs
TurkeyNicolas WhiteMin 12 wks/10-30 lbs
Holiday TurkeyNicolas BlackMin 16 wks/15-40 lbs
RabbitAmerican ChinchillaMin 12 wks/4 to 8 lbs
Heritage PorkBerkshire/ Tamworth and Gloucester Old SpotsMin 12 mo /320 lbs

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