A day trip to a petting zoo revealed my heart’s desire for a herd of goats. Yes, goats!

As my husband,  Steve, and I talked and dreamed about our next season in life, our amazing God revealed in each of us a desire to build a farm, where we could have goats, chickens, a big garden, and wide open space all around us.

With a new sense of purpose and adventure, and a love for Tennessee in our hearts, we searched and found what we thought was the perfect plot of land, right here in McKenzie.  And just like that, Bakers’ Acres Farm was born.

Our dream for our farm is to manage it holistically; supporting all of the different systems in nature so they can work together to produce meat for us. This means that rather than actually focusing on the goal of producing chickens or goats, which is the main part of what we want to do, this instead becomes the by-product of regenerating soils and harvesting sunlight.

Our chickens will help us do this by following the goats in our rotational grazing system so they can eat parasites left behind by the goats. In turn, the chickens will leave behind fertilizer to help regenerate the soil. The healthy soil, with the help of the sun, will grow good forage which the goats and chickens will then come back around to eat.

By supporting each of these smaller systems (growing pasture, then rotating goats and chickens), the larger system, (meat production) will also be supported. We are just helping nature do what it does so well. Or, rather, nature is helping us to create a sustainable farm.  Isn’t our Creator amazing?  

We have just obtained our first herd of goats and helped all 7 of our nanny goats through kidding season.  They brought 12 new kids into the tribe!  

Now we are beginning to  plan our rotational grazing process, bringing us closer to that dream of holistic, sustainable farming.

I hope you can share in our farming experience by enjoying one of our farm fresh, premium, pasture-raised chickens today.