About Us

Our beef and lamb are grass-fed and finished, raised primarily on pasture at our farm in Darlington, Pennsylvania. We rotationally graze our sheep and cattle during the growing season and feed them hay grown and harvested by our family through the winter months. 

START TO FINISH

All of our meat animals are born and raised on our land. Our momma sheep and cows live at our farm year-round, having lambs and calves in the winter and spring, which we then raise on forages from our farm to become meat animals. Animals stay with their mothers until they are weaned, at which point they are grouped together by age.

We raise primarily Hereford cattle and Katahdin hair sheep, which we breed specifically to be easy keepers that can grow well on grass and pasture. We maintain a mostly closed herd, meaning we don't buy in animals (except herd sires every few years to get new genetics).

Having this level of oversight over the life cycle of the animals, the plants and the land is important to us, as we like to see the entire process through from start to finish. Part of it is out of a desire for control, but it's also about transparency and honesty. We like knowing everything that's happened to our animals since we are eating them, too.

NO BS

Our farm is not certified by any third-party groups. We are not organic. We do not use added growth hormones in our animals. We judiciously use vaccines and antibiotics as needed to maintain the health of the herd/flock and individual animals. We occasionally use herbicides to control weeds growing on our fencelines.

If you have a question about how we do things and why, don't be afraid to ask! We take an open-minded, all-of-the-above approach to farming, and we are honest to a fault. The way we did things in the past or even how we do it now may not be how we do things in the future.

LOCAL FIRST

We supplement our breeding stock with grain as necessary during late gestation and early lactation to maintain their health and wellness (because growing and feeding babies is hard work!) We source any outside inputs as locally as we possibly can. We buy whole oats and corn from the local feed store that takes in grain from local farmers at harvest time. We buy straw for bedding from neighboring farms. We believe firmly that our own strength and resilience come from the strength and resilience of our community (and vice versa).

TL;DR

We want to raise animals for meat and manage the land in a way that pays the bills and also lets us sleep easy at night.

HOW WE GOT HERE

W. Earl and Ada Wagoner bought the farm in Darlington, Pennsylvania, in 1949. They owned a farm in Chippewa Township, near West Mayfield, but needed room to grow.

Before that, Tall Pines Farms was owned for more than 100 years by the Kane family, who at one point were said to have raised one thousand head of sheep on the land. Before that, it was owned by the White family. 

The farm in Darlington was eventually taken over by one of Earl and Ada's sons, Glenn E. Wagoner. During this time, the farm was more of a hobby as he also ran an oil company and Wagoner Home & Garden. But Glenn E. oversaw the farm's land base growth and made sure it was there to pass on to the family members running it today. The farm has seen generations of Wagoners grow up in the woods and fields surrounding the barn. Glenn E. passed away in January 2021 at age 89. He was still helping out with farm work and bossing everyone around until the very end.

Management of the farm was taken over in 2020 by the third and fourth generations of Wagoners, Glenn L., and his son, Chris, and their wives, Janice and Rachel. Other family members still help out as needed.

The goal now is to maintain the farm’s history and family legacy while also ushering the operation into the future, so that it will still be here and viable for years to come.