Stonewood Farm

by Shane Smith, Outreach Coordinator

Stonewood Farm

Paul and Frances Stone founded Stonewood Farm in 1976 as a 600-acre dairy operation in Orwell, Vermont. In 1989 they decided to address the issue of a perceived lack of quality poultry in Vermont by building a large, state of the art, automated slaughterhouse making a  switch from being dairy farmers to being turkey farmers. 

Stonewood Farm offers naturally grown turkeys that are not organic, but are hormone and antibiotic free.  Today, Stonewood Farm has become the largest turkey producer in the state of Vermont, raising around 25,000 turkeys every season.

The turkeys live in five open-air barns. While the farm raised some pastured poultry in past years, after the avian flu scare a few years ago, Peter and Siegrid decided to move all the birds inside where they are isolated from wild birds that can spread diseases, including avian flu to domesticated poultry.

The operation consists of raising the turkeys from hatchlings through the spring and summer until they reach maturity around the beginning of October. In mid-October, all of the birds are slaughtered over a six week period until about mid-December.  This provides consumers in Vermont, New England, New York state and parts of New Jersey with fresh, naturally grown, juicy turkeys – just in time for the holidays!  

Stonewood turkeys

The Co-op has offered Stonewood Farms turkeys for pre -orders at Thanksgiving for several years.  Last year alone the Co-op ordered over 650 turkeys from Stonewood.  The Co-op deli uses Stonewood turkey for many of the turkey wraps made daily at the Celery Stick Cafe.  Also, there is an option to buy sliced Stonewood farm turkey from the deli.  As with our Boyden Farm roast beef, the Stonewood turkey is slow cooked using the sous-vide method.  See last Farm 2 Fork blog post a description of sous-vide cooking.

Stonewood employs over 25 seasonal hands