I am actually glad to be closing the chapter to the 2025 year.
While it wasn’t our best year ever, I’m not mad about how much it taught us. We were actually able to learn several valuable lessons during our hardships in 2025, and moving ahead into this new year, we are looking at things quite differently.
We had tremendous loss in 2025 - losing 4 or 5 cows to illness (I lost count after the 3rd), having 3 escape that cost us well over $1k in expenses to get back (including hiring a couple cowboys to catch and retrieve), losing several hens to predators, which led us to getting rid of our entire laying flock, losing 300 meat birds in one night to a catastrophic event, losing another close to 100 meat birds another night, losing almost all of our quail & pheasants another night.. It just wasn’t our best year for animals. Lots of lessons learned!
Sometimes farming can really make us question.
Questioning things like are we really meant to do this? Are we doing too much? Not enough? Not the right niche? Is this too much for us to manage? Do we really have the time to do this?
All of these are questions we need to ponder & consider.
I think one of the reasons I really covet our customers feedback is so we know with certainty we are doing the right thing. This is the main reason we quit doing CSA boxes a few years ago, and pivoted to just berries & beef. That led us to doing more pastured chicken & turkey as well. There is more demand, and we couldn’t ignore that!
So one of our goals looking into 2026 is to increase our time management skills. The goal is to work smarter, not harder.
We are aiming to increase our pastured chicken sales, continue on with grass-fed beef and pork, and replant our beloved raspberries like we had been hoping to do the past 4-5 years.
These things can only succeed if we have the customer base to purchase. And only time will tell if that’s the case.
Our goal is to scale back the amount of different animals we raised last year, and focus on the ones that do really well here at our farm. We also have a big goal of adding more videos to our YouTube channel. Make sure you’re subscribed over there so you don’t miss any updates! I also have a dairy cow who is likely due to calf in April or early May. So adding the chore of milking daily & dealing with lots of raw milk is on the list to learn!
We will soon be opening up deposits for beef, whole chickens, and pork. Purchasing in bulk from your local farmer supports and strengthens the whole community. Your support literally puts food on our table & yours. And we value you.
We are hoping 2026 is the year we “figure things out” and see what really does well here at Berryhill, and devote our time & best attention at doing those things well.
All of us are so incredibly thankful for your continued support in 2025. Every purchase, share, comment, subscription, like, engagement, and the telling of a friend brings support to our business and we wouldn’t be able to continue without you.
We love our community and love what we do. Here’s to hoping we do it even better in 2026. Serving you all is at the top of our list and we cannot wait for a new year of growth, realignment, & success.
The top of our list:
Plant raspberries.
Get cows.
Order 300 meat chicks.
Get 3 more hogs.
Streamline meat cut sales.
Countdown to blueberries!
Happy 2026! Praying it’s your best year yet! And ours too.
Chris & Sarah
