The Freckled Farm Soap Company

Author: Crystal

  • Happy Birthday Breckin!

    Today our amazing farm boy turns 6!

    6 years old?! How is that even possible!? My sweet boy, you made us parents. You changed our lives. You made our world brighter and happier than we could have ever imagined. You are the most amazing little man. You baffle me everyday… I can’t get over how smart you are. You are also so loving, and compassionate. You are the best big brother out there! Bryce is lucky to have you. We are so proud of you. You are going to do amazing things! We love you more than you can imagine. Happy Birthday my love.

  • Fun Farm Facts Friday October 2nd

    When you hear facts about when to breed goats you will likely get different answers from different farmers. Some farms like to breed their goats right when they reach sexual maturity, while others, like us, like to wait until they are 18 months old. The general rule of thumb is not to breed before 7 months and 77 pounds. This is the baseline for when it is safe to breed. Breeding a goat any smaller than this could cause serious complications for the dam. Some farmers decide to breed their goats right when they reach this size and age limit… and they have success doing it. However there are a few downsides to doing this. Some say that it stunts the goat’s growth. The farmers who breed early will insist this isn’t true, while others claim they have seen it first hand. I’m not sure there is any scientific proof to this. The reason most wait to breed is that it allows the goat to get some size on her and reduces the likelihood of potential compilations during kidding.

  • Why Shop Local

    I hate to say it, but the holidays are right around the corner. A lot of people have already started their Christmas shopping. So whether you have already started or will be starting soon please consider shopping locally when purchasing your gifts this year. I am sure you hear it all of the time, but what does it really mean and why is it important?

    Shopping local doesn’t mean going to your “local” Walmart, or Target. It means purchasing your items from companies that are based locally. When you purchase from small local companies you are supporting families and your community. You aren’t supporting the pay checks for big CEOs. Shopping locally supports your community and keeps your money where it can do the most good. Money spent local stays local.

    Lets make this a little more personal… When you purchase from us you support a family of four and a farm full of animals. Your money goes to feeding our animals and their care. It goes towards helping us take steps to build our farm and making it self-sustaining. It goes to feeding our family, paying our bills, and allowing us to live our dream. It’s pays for our children’s activities. It is what we live off of! You can see where your dollars are going and know that is going to actually support someone.

    This is the story behind most local companies. They are families. They are people working to make a life for themselves and live their dreams. We should support them because they are our neighbors, our friends, our community members.

    So why shop local? Because we are all one big family and we want to support one another. Because we want our dollars to do good, to support families and to build our community, and finally because it feels amazing to know that you are playing a part in supporting someone’s dream.

  • The Giving Heart Fundraiser!

    The Giving Heart is a Central Virginia charity that provides food, fellowship, and essential items to those in need. Every year they throw a large thanksgiving dinner serving around 3,000 guests. These guests include the homeless, elderly individuals, working class families, local military servicemen and those who otherwise would be alone during the Holiday. It is an important event that many depend on. This year will be the 10th anniversary of The Giving Heart’s Community Thanksgiving Feast! In honor of this big anniversary and in order to help fund this event The Freckled Farm Soap Company is running a week long fundraiser! Starting tomorrow September 28th and running until October 4th we will donate 10% of each order placed on the website using the promo code: thegivingheart.

    This promo code can be used with other codes, like 4for20. And as always, orders of $50 or more receive free shipping!

    The Freckled Farm Soap Company's - The Giving Heart Fundraiser

     

    For more information about The Giving Heart visit their website. They are always looking for volunteers!

  • Fun Farm Facts Friday… September 25th

    With all of these facts about goat breeding I thought it would be nice to have a fact about llama breeding… even though both of our llamas are gelded (castrated) males.

    Llamas do not have cycles. They are induced ovulators! Ovulation usually occurs 24-36 hours after they are bred! Generally females are first bred at 14-18 months of age.

  • Canine Shampoo Testimonial – Goat Milk Soap

    We absolutely love hearing from customers! Over the weekend we received a message from Sandy about her experience with our Canine Shampoo Goat Milk Soap:

    “We purchased a bar of your Canine Shampoo when we attended the Harvest festival at Monticello for our Jack Russell/Beagle rescue dog. Barkley had his first bath with it today.  All I can say is WOW!

    He smells great and his coat is so soft.  He appears to be shedding less and is not scratching his coat. His white coat is so bright.He loved being rubbed down with bar and we loved how easily it rinsed off.

    Thanks again for recommending it.  It is definitely Barkley approved.”

    Goat Milk Soap - Canine Shampoo - The Freckled Farm Soap Company

    If you are interested in trying our Canine Shampoo you can find it here.

  • How the rest of our animals eat

    Back in May I wrote a post about what we feed our goats (here). Since the products that come off of our farm come from the milk that our goats supply we felt that it was important that our customers have an insight to the quality of our milk. The health of our animals is #1 to us so I thought our readers might also be interested in how the rest of the animals on The Freckled Farm are fed.

    Llamas

    Our llamas are strictly grass fed. They spend their days eating grass from the two pastures, munching on blackberry brambles and evergreen trees, and eating mountains of hay. During the winter we are literally stuffing the hay feeders all day. Because we do not give our llamas grain the quality of the hay is incredibly important. It is what keeps the weight on them, so the hay has to be nutrient rich. I have talked about the quality of our hay before. It’s something that we take very seriously. Most farmers that grow hay are small and only produce it for a small number of farms, so they do not want to go through the process and cost to be certified organic. The hay we use, however, is as close to organic as we can get! It’s chemical free and the farmer never uses drying agents. Good quality hay is one of the most important (and largest) purchases we make each year for our farm.

    Chickens

    Chickens eat everything. I’ve said it time and time again… chickens are not vegetarians like many big name chicken farmers would like you to believe. We feed our chickens a wide diet filled with proteins, veggies and greens, and grains. Our Chickens get a non-gmo grain and whatever food scraps that come out of our kitchen or garden. Our chickens also pick up lots of greens and bugs while they free range around the farm. You can tell if your chicken is getting a balanced diet by the color of their yolk, and our girls have bright orange yolks. I wrote an article about that as well (here).

    On The Freckled Farm the health of our animals is incredibly important to us. We do everything we can to make sure all of our animals have a well-rounded, nutrient-rich diet.

  • Fun Farm Facts Friday… September 18th

    We are continuing with our goat breeding facts this week…

    I have had many people ask me how I know when the goats are ready to be bred. When goats go into heat they are generally more vocal (I’m talking screaming in some cases), flag (wag their tail) often, hang out as close as they can to the buck pen (our girls lay along the fence line closest to the boy’s pasture), and they have noticeable discharge.

  • Wholefoods Market – Short Pump, VA

    We are so excited to announce that The Freckled Farm Soap Company’s goat milk soap can now be found at the Wholefoods Market in Short Pump, VA. We are thrilled to continue to add to the list of stores that carry our line!

    The Freckled Farm Soap Company's Goat Milk Soap at Wholefoods Market Short Pump

  • What to do with that last little sliver of soap

    What to do with that last little bit of soap? You know, that thin little sliver that is left after you have been using the bar for a while. It begins to have a softer constancy and you use it up quicker. So how can you prolong the life of this little piece of soap?

    There is an easy solution to this… Add it to the next bar of soap. It’s as simple as that! It keeps that sliver from washing away quickly, so you get more bang for your buck! There are a few ways of doing this…

    1. Get both bars of soap wet. Press them together. Make sure that you rub and press the edges of soap sliver against the new bar of soap so the whole sliver is firmly against the new bar and it makes a seal. Allow the soap to dry entirely before you use it again. The soap will have melded into one new bar. If you use it again before it has had a chance to dry completely the bars may come apart again. This is how I do it and it works quite well!

    2. A friend of mine, who works with clay, suggests combining the two bars like you would combine two clay pieces: With a knife score one the side of each bar. Wet both bars, then press the scored sides together. She swears that it holds the bars tightly together quicker and that you don’t have to allow it to dry for the bars to successfully stick. This friend of mine also likes to combine the Deep Sea and Tea Tree bars to make what she calls “The perfect bar of soap.”

    3. Finally I have had customers tell me that they collect all of their slivers and once they have a good collection (I can imagine this would take a while considering the longevity of our soap) they get all the slivers wet, then press them all together to make this organic shaped soap hunk. Like with the first method allow the “hunk” to dry completely so that it will hold together tightly for future uses.

    I hope you found this helpful to make your soap last longer!