Chewonki’s kitchen is not just in the business of feeding humans! Some of the farm animals, Traveling Natural History Program birds and other four-legged friends of the Chewonki community benefit from our food system.
During the summer months, our pigs receive pre-consumer food waste (food that has never been on somebody’s plate) from the kitchen to supplement their grain. Incidentally, almost 100% of our remaining food waste is composted at the farm and used to replenish the soil in out gardens.
The larger TNHP raptors get the bones and trimmings from our farm raised chickens and turkeys. Program director Keith Crowley uses them to help reinforce positive behavior and to add some variety to their diets. And the TNHP staff is often seen perusing our walk-in cooler and root cellar for salad fixings for the herbivorous reptiles.
Most recently, the Chewonki kitchen’s Lesley Woodroffe created dog biscuits for a Saturday dog walk at Eaton farm as part of the Great Maine Outdoor Weekend. These treats featured farm lamb liver, and local eggs and whole-wheat flour as well as sweet potato and nutritional yeast. I hear they were very popular!
The end result of this is that we are able to utilize very nearly all of the food that comes onto (or is produced on) Chewonki neck. It’s pretty satisfying.
