photo credit: Tom Remp
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Fools Farm was founded in 2022 in Tunbridge, Vermont. We breed dual-purpose sheep for wool/ meat & breed dual-purpose chickens. In 2026, we're starting to sell eggs and to operate a micro chicken- hatchery so that we anticipate selling sexed day-old chicks of Bielefelder Chickens between May and August. Use our inquiry form to pre-order now.
Our logo includes "the fool" as you know it from the classic Rider Waite tarot deck, as well as a portrait of Burdock, our lead sheep! The Fool in The Tarot represents new beginnings, having faith in the future, being inexperienced, not knowing what to expect, beginner's luck, improvisation and believing in the universe – attributes we welcome while farming during a mass extinction event. During the grazing season, our flock of 20 Romney/ Romeldale CMV ewes and their lambs rotationally graze 21.5 acres of clover-rich pasture. We move the sheep to fresh grass once or twice daily. Our twin breeding rams, Carl and Günther, are Romneys. They graze the farmhouse lawn. |
We are planning to keep cross breeding Romney and Romeldale CMV sheep. The Romney are very wet climate resilient and are a fantastic high quality in flavor lamb meat breed. They remind us a lot of Ewoks and we love them. Their wool quality remains high even during years with stressful downpours. The Romeldale CMV brings many variations and high quality of soft wool with open face, open leg features. They are also a dual purpose breed that's well adapted to many climates. Both breeds are an easy lambing large sheep breed.
We started raising and breeding a flock of dual-purpose Bielefelder Chickens in 2025. Bielefelders are a very docile, large breed of chicken that is laying 230-280 large brown eggs per hen per year. They are winter hardy and great foragers. Most excitingly, they are "autosexing," which means that male and female day old chicks can be distinguished easily by the colors of their feathers. A great small farm and homesteader chicken! We are raising them for eggs, chicks, meat birds as well as to helping us to fertilize the pastures and to produce high quality composts. They eat snails in moist pastures and provide shade and water collection systems with their coop for the sheep.
The sheep and poultry are protected by our livestock guardian dogs Guiseppe Seppeloneous The Great (AKA Seppe) and Mr. Rocky-James, two Maremma Sheepdogs, who are half brothers that live on pasture and around the barn by watching out and singing their songs through barks. Lola Beans, a woking dog Border Collie, joined the family in winter 2024. We are thankful to have expert help in handling and moving the sheep, weather that's from field to field or to the barn during the extreme weather events that we anticipate increasing in frequency in coming years.
The soggy 2023 grazing season inspired in us a deep appreciation for the rugged nature of the Romney breed. Romneys originated in the British marshlands and are well-adapted to damp conditions. We also observed the significance of rotational grazing for soil erosion. The pastures slowed down the water so that it didn't drain into the road. Every day we celebrate working in conjunction with the elements and the biodiversity that we're part of through our management, breeding, harvesting and processing practices.
In 2026, we are diversifying into breeding Bielefelder Chickens and are launching a micro chicken-hatchery. We will also plant a small orchard. We are currently in a business launch period. The income we will make from our lamb and fiber sales will not be sufficient to cover our overhead costs of caring for the animals year round. Through breeding poultry, we will be able to sell eggs, sexed day-old chicks and meat birds. Still to date, our prices are unable to reflect our cost of production due to the high costs of investing into starting a farming business. We do not make a profit. Therefore our prices more so reflect what we feel we can ask the local costumers to pay while remaining within the regional price scales in the market.
A few meaningful partnerships have blossomed out of the early years of Fools Farm. Burlington-based sweater company Muriel's of Vermont sources wool from us to craft gorgeous sweaters. We are proud to be apart of this effort to re-enliven the local fiber shed! Through collaboration and friendship with Mary Lake of Can Do Shearing, we host Vermont's only blade shearing school annually in February. In 2024 & 2025, blade shearing legend Kevin Ford gave a whole day workshop on prepping the blades in our basement. We shepherds and professional shearers learn so much from him and the other instructors! We host a seasonal Fiber Art Club at our home. Community members get together to drink tea and share skills in wool craft -- spinning, knitting, crocheting, felting, and more. Let us know if you would like to join us when we start meeting up again next fall. All experience levels are welcome!
We started raising and breeding a flock of dual-purpose Bielefelder Chickens in 2025. Bielefelders are a very docile, large breed of chicken that is laying 230-280 large brown eggs per hen per year. They are winter hardy and great foragers. Most excitingly, they are "autosexing," which means that male and female day old chicks can be distinguished easily by the colors of their feathers. A great small farm and homesteader chicken! We are raising them for eggs, chicks, meat birds as well as to helping us to fertilize the pastures and to produce high quality composts. They eat snails in moist pastures and provide shade and water collection systems with their coop for the sheep.
The sheep and poultry are protected by our livestock guardian dogs Guiseppe Seppeloneous The Great (AKA Seppe) and Mr. Rocky-James, two Maremma Sheepdogs, who are half brothers that live on pasture and around the barn by watching out and singing their songs through barks. Lola Beans, a woking dog Border Collie, joined the family in winter 2024. We are thankful to have expert help in handling and moving the sheep, weather that's from field to field or to the barn during the extreme weather events that we anticipate increasing in frequency in coming years.
The soggy 2023 grazing season inspired in us a deep appreciation for the rugged nature of the Romney breed. Romneys originated in the British marshlands and are well-adapted to damp conditions. We also observed the significance of rotational grazing for soil erosion. The pastures slowed down the water so that it didn't drain into the road. Every day we celebrate working in conjunction with the elements and the biodiversity that we're part of through our management, breeding, harvesting and processing practices.
In 2026, we are diversifying into breeding Bielefelder Chickens and are launching a micro chicken-hatchery. We will also plant a small orchard. We are currently in a business launch period. The income we will make from our lamb and fiber sales will not be sufficient to cover our overhead costs of caring for the animals year round. Through breeding poultry, we will be able to sell eggs, sexed day-old chicks and meat birds. Still to date, our prices are unable to reflect our cost of production due to the high costs of investing into starting a farming business. We do not make a profit. Therefore our prices more so reflect what we feel we can ask the local costumers to pay while remaining within the regional price scales in the market.
A few meaningful partnerships have blossomed out of the early years of Fools Farm. Burlington-based sweater company Muriel's of Vermont sources wool from us to craft gorgeous sweaters. We are proud to be apart of this effort to re-enliven the local fiber shed! Through collaboration and friendship with Mary Lake of Can Do Shearing, we host Vermont's only blade shearing school annually in February. In 2024 & 2025, blade shearing legend Kevin Ford gave a whole day workshop on prepping the blades in our basement. We shepherds and professional shearers learn so much from him and the other instructors! We host a seasonal Fiber Art Club at our home. Community members get together to drink tea and share skills in wool craft -- spinning, knitting, crocheting, felting, and more. Let us know if you would like to join us when we start meeting up again next fall. All experience levels are welcome!
