Dharma Lea, LLC

About Dharma Lea, LLC

Phyllis & Paul Van Amburgh and their three children call this 150 acre farm home. They arrived in 2004, and with the help of other local natural foods farmers, springboarded into doing it themselves.

At the moment, they offer all-natural (hormone and antibiotic-free) chicken, heritage duck, heritage pork, beef and eggs. Their broiler chickens are available to purchase by the whole, either fresh or frozen. The chickens, including their Cornish cross meat chickens, are pasture-raised, and are supplemented with certified organic grain. Free-range eggs are also available. The Van Amburghs also raise Cayuga ducks, a heritage breed that breeders introduced to the Finger Lakes region of New York in 1840. Cayugas are a hearty breed - they can bear the cold for longer than chickens, though they are raised and sold just as the chickens are. They have a nice pond to swim in, too.

Dharma Lea is also home to 6 heritage breed pigs, Tamworths, who are pasture-raised in warm months (during cold ones, they stay inside on homegrown hay). Tamworths are an English hog breed, first brought to the U.S. in 1882; they are deep-sided, and their meat is muscular and soft. Dharma Lea pigs are grass fed, and supplemented with certified organic grain. They are available live, and the Amburghs will coordinate with a butcher for you. Also available are Tamworth seed stock.

Beef will be available next year (2006); the cows are 100% grass fed, and rotated accross 60 acres of pasture. Phyllis and Paul are in the process of breeding Devon cattle! A new addition is the availability of draft horses, which the family is very excited about. The horses are Clydesdale and Clydesdale-Gypsy cross. A website is also in the works.