Sweet Grown Alabama Blogs

When dreaming up our farm, we knew that we wanted to have cows in the pasture and a few chickens in the yard, but God turned that vision into a much different reality. What began seven years ago as a desire to clean up our own diets has turned into the ability to provide quality meats and eggs to other families in our community.

We are not your typical farm in size, breeds or practices. We are a small operation working the same land that our great grandparents farmed 100 years ago. Our driveway follows roadbeds that have been here for over a century, and our pastures were once home to acres of corn, sugar cane and hay. When you walk outside, you can feel the presence of those gone before you, bringing you closer to the land and our family legacy.

Our first big livestock investment was the purchase of Oberhasli dairy goats in 2015 and then Tamworth hogs the next year. Many of our customers have never heard of these breeds and rightfully so. All the livestock we raise are heritage breeds, hence our name Alleluia Acres Heritage Farm. These breeds were raised by our farming forefathers before commercial farming became the norm. Many heritage breeds are unheard of due to their decreased popularity in commercialized farming, which has consequently made their existence threatened. It is our job to educate others on the breeds and their history, while also helping preserve those bloodlines for generations to come. 

As one of the only breeders of Tamworths in the state, we have sold hogs to farms all over the Southeast including, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida. We are also the only breeder of Galloway cattle in the state and one of only a handful in the South. Each of the breeds we raise was carefully chosen based on availability, rarity and product quality. 

We went from wanting a pasture full of commercial black cows several years ago to having diverse pastures full of rare dairy goats, hogs, cows, chickens, ducks and turkeys. These animals help us produce pasture raised pork and chicken, a variety of eggs and goat milk soap with plans to have beef in the future. 

All our animals are pasture raised and supplemented with a Non-GMO corn and soy free feed. It is important to us that we raise our animals as clean as possible, meaning we never feed them anything we wouldn’t eat ourselves (and we’re pretty picky!). We don’t believe in using chemicals on our pastures, antibiotics or hormones in our herds or nitrates and MSG in our meat. The quality of our animals' life is just as important to us as the bloodlines we raise. While we’re not certified organic, we operate as organically as possible to produce a high-quality product. 

We never had plans to own all these animals, but God knew. He could see what we couldn’t all those years ago. He saw the needs of our community and our ability to fill them and the need of more farms to preserve these animals. Being a heritage farm means raising heritage breeds, but it is more than just the animals we raise. It encompasses the history of the land we farm. Heritage for us is much more than a name or animal, it’s the legacy we leave for our children.