Cayuta Sun’s chicken harvest is full of big, tender birds. If you are seeking locally-grown, pastured poultry, now is the time to make your order. There are several ways to easily purchase your birds. Come winter, we are no longer harvesting and eventually our 2014 crop will be gone.

Cayuta Sun is offering several ways to buy and pick up your birds:

Delivery

October through December we offer free delivery to customers in Ithaca, Enfield, Hector, and Catharine on Thursdays nights. Delivery is also free for orders above $50. We will schedule a drop off to your door between 6 and 9 p.m. Use our online order form and we’ll write back to confirm and plan delivery.

Pick-up

Thursday evenings from 5 to 8 p.m. on October 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 and November 6th we will join our neighbors Plowbreak Farm at the Westy, a lovely beer garden located on Ithaca’s West End at 516 W. State Street. You can order in advance and come pick-up. Or… Stop by and see what we have with us for sale!

In November, you can pick up your order downtown from 3 to 6 p.m. We’ll be at the Meat Locker or some other nearby location.

Meat Locker

We can deliver to your meat locker in Ithaca, N.Y. at 118 West Green St. in Press Bay Alley. Our local cooperative extension has set up The Finger Lakes Meat Project to benefit both regional livestock farmers and consumers.

Meat Lockers were once common in cities throughout the country, until the small, home-sized freezers and large industrial scale meat processing and distribution made them (almost) obsolete in the 1950s. These home-sized freezers are convenient for storing the food that typically is available in our industrial-scaled food system, but for small, local growers it also meant the decline of bulk meat purchases as customers would rely on the convenience of the supermarket offerings regardless of season.

Cayuta Sun Farm has heard from many customer’s who do not have the freezer space to buy enough chickens to meet their needs. Many do not have the space or funds for an extra freezer.

This is why we heartily support The Finger Lakes Meat Project. The steps are relatively simple:

1. You sign up for a bin. If you are not buying enough meat to justify a rental, send us an email at <cayutasunfarm@gmail.com> and we may have some space in one of our bins we could temporarily share.
2. You order meat from us. We’ll send you an online bill for payment.
3. We deliver to your bin at the Meat Locker. We usually make our delivery to the locker on Thursday afternoons. It is located at 118 West Green St. in Press Bay Alley, near the Tompkins County Library.
4. You visit the Meat Locker during open hours to pick up your meat. It is currently open Thursday from 3 to 6p.m. More open hours will be announced this winter.
5. Enjoy weeks or months of pastured meat purchased in the autumn while supplies dwindle and prices rise through the winter! Know that your purchase and meat locker are part of a growing movement for local, healthy food.

Now is the time to fill your freezer for your supply of chicken.