Full Time Farm Employees Wanted in Illinois

Live Springs Farm in Carrollton, Illinois is looking for full-time employees for 2015

Live Springs Farm is a diversified pasture-based farming operation with a strong emphasis on direct marketing all farm produced products.  The farm managers have been farming on the land for 7 years and direct marketing for 5.  The farm organization is a joint effort between the farm managers (Alex and Bobbi) who live and work on the farm and a third party, slow money investor who lives off the farm and owns the land.  Currently the farm raises approx. 4,000 broiler chickens per year all on pasture, runs a breeding herd of approx. 30 Southpoll cattle as well as supplementing beef supply with purchased steers, 20 head of Berkshire sows and their offspring from 2 farrowings per year, a flock of 700 laying hens, a flock of 20 head of breeding St. Croix sheep and small hobby herd of milking goats only for on farm dairy needs.  We are innovative, inspired farmers, dedicated to caring for the land and animals, and take very seriously our role as farmers in the community.  We use a variety of practices on our  farm including Holisitic, high stock density planned grazing methods, rotational grazing, and biodynamic preparations.  We are still in the very much in the process of taking a dilapidated farm and turning it into a highly productive, diversified operation.  We are detail oriented and observant.  We have been successful because we love what we do, we demand quality, and we have exceptional customer service.

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Carrollton, Illinois is a small farming community about 70 miles north of St. Louis, Missouri and 70 miles south of Springfield, Illinois.  Surrounding farms are largely large scale conventional row crop farms with small cattle herds.  We are about 7 miles from the Illinois River.  The surrounding terrain is mostly flat; however, our farm is very hilly with a mix of woods and open pasture, gullies, streams, natural springs, and relatively diverse.  The farm can be challenging in its diversity but is also beautiful and offers itself well to diversified livestock production.  The town of Carrollton is a conservative, small, Midwest community.  The town offers some independently owned and chain restaurants, several churches of different denominations, small groceries, fully operational post office, banks, dentist office, doctors and small emergency clinic, public and Catholic school, chiropractic offices, and is the county seat so the courthouse is located there.

We are looking for Full Time employees who are interested in making a career in pasture-based livestock production.  The position(s) will include the below but not limited to:

– Caring for the farm’s 4 batches of 1,000 broiler chickens from the brooder phase as chicks through their life on pasture to loading for butcher including feeding, watering, daily moving by hand hoop shelters,  and taking down and resetting electrified poultry netting

–  Operating a tractor for various operations including moving laying hen housing on wheels (eggmobiles) every other night and with a grinder/mixer to make on-farm feed rations

– Collecting and processing eggs for sale

– Feeding hay and spreading straw and wood chips during winter months

– Using portable electric fencing to move sheep, cattle and hogs to new pasture portions

– Operating chainsaws and other hand held equipment to do projects and clear wooded portions for livestock

– Work with farm managers and other employees as well as working independently

– There will be a significant amount of repetitive work

– Some involvement in marketing and sales including attending farmers’ markets and buying club deliveries which will involve becoming familiar with all the farms’ products and how best to use those while also learning customer service skills

– Those requiring on-farm housing will also be responsible for general upkeep of the housing and making their own firewood for winter

– Clearing brush and operating a wood chipper for livestock bedding

– Helping clear out old fence lines and building new fences including setting posts with a tractor and post hole auger, stringing high tensile electric fence, and making electrical connections

–      Various small scale farm building projects that will include hand tools and power equipment

We expect our employees to value the opportunity to work on a farm.  We expect you will take pride in the work that you do, be incredibly observant, work efficiently and carefully while maintaining a pace that helps the farm’s bottom line.   We expect you to show up on time, communicate well with managers and other farm employees, to be trustworthy and have integrity.  We expect you to be respectful to all parties involved with the farm including the managers, other employees, our landowner, and the community and customers we serve.  We expect you have a solid personal foundation, a good attitude, are serious about the work we do and the products we produce, are willing to learn from different people, and do not have a “know it all attitude”.  We expect you have enough experience to know you have a genuine interest in pasture-based agriculture.  We expect you to value rewarding hard work, be able to hold up to the physical rigors of full-time farming including working in extreme weather conditions for prolonged periods of time, lifting, squatting, bending down, pulling poultry shelters every day, and operating hand equipment for repetitive work.  We expect employees to also value a farm lifestyle which includes being part of evening and weekend duty chore routines.  The position is open to individuals and couples who are both interested in agriculture as a profession.

Please visit our website www.livespringsfarm.com to get an idea of who we are, what our farm is like, and what we produce.  Submit your resume, a list of 3 references with current contact information, and a brief statement about why you would like to work with us.  You can email these to customerservice@livespringsfarm.com or mail them to Live Springs Farm, RR 3 Box 167, Carrollton, IL 62016 .

We will contact potential applicants for the position via email or phone and set-up an on-farm interview.  You must be able to visit the farm before any offer of employment is made.

We hope to fill the position(s) by the beginning of March 2015.