Our Story
Community-Focused Farm
What began as an idea to provide our family with quality, pasture-raised poultry quickly snowballed into a passion. Through our enjoyment of animal husbandry and the use of regenerative agricultural practices, we are now driven to provide our surrounding communities with the high-quality, pasture-raised poultry that we ourselves enjoy.
What's In a Name?
Till Hill Farm, what's that about?
The quality of an agricultural product is generally dependent on their genotype and phenotype. While we carefully select the breeds of poultry we raise to control their genotype, the environment of our farm (particularly the climate, forage available, and the soil that hosts the vegetation) is somewhat variable and yields a truly unique phenotype. At our farm's location, our temperate climate and lush vegetation are ideal for raising pastured poultry. But it is the soil medium that these native grasses grow from that are equally intriguing and influential.
Approximately 25,000 years ago, our region of New York was covered by the Laurentide Ice Sheet during the last glacial maximum. Following its retreat from the region, this once thick, continental glacier left behind a blanket of sediment, termed "till." A mixture of sediment grain sizes (clay, silt, sand, gravel, cobbles, and boulders), this till forms the basis of our farm's soil. The high clay content, while poorly draining and muddy in the spring, helps retain moisture throughout the summer growing season and limits the impact from drought conditions. Rich in key nutrients, our soils help sustain fresh growth of the native grasses throughout the growing season and provide forage for our poultry.
In wine making, the environmental influence on wine quality is termed "terroir." No two wines produced are the same, as the terroir of each vineyard is unique. Our soil, and the till that it is derived from, influence the terroir of our poultry, making us uniquely Till Hill Farm.
