Come join Rural Vermont and Mary Lake on Sunday, November 1st at the Dodge Farm in Berlin for a merino lamb on-farm slaughter and processing workshop. In the first half of this 2-part workshop, participants will learn how to slaughter a lamb humanely; in the second half, how to butcher and process it efficiently.

The workshop will be held at Dodge Farm in Berlin. The Dodge Farm is home to Aurora Fiber Mill- a custom processing facility for local fiber farms. We raise merino sheep for our Aurora Made line of knitwear, which goes from sheep to sweater on site, and hope to sell breeding stock someday. We also source local wool from sheep and alpaca for our woolen products. The Dodge Farm currently has 27 sheep. 

Mary Lake will instruct this workshop. Mary Lake is a professional itinerant slaughterer, butcher, and sheep shearer who lives in Tunbridge. Mary learned the craft of slaughter through several years of full-time work with the Royal Butcher in Randolph, which is a USDA-inspected slaughter facility. Her expertise and testimony were essential to improvements to the On-Farm Slaughter law.

At the slaughter workshop, Rural Vermont will present updates to federal and state on-farm slaughter regulations, particularly the proposed clarifying language Rural Vermont and its national partners are advocating. There will be plenty of room for questions and discussion throughout the event.

Registration: $80/participant
***Your registration fee qualifies you for a complimentary annual Rural Vermont membership! You can choose this during checkout.

Special Notes: Please bring a water bottle & snacks (if needed). Please wear rugged footwear and weather-appropriate clothing. Please leave your dogs at home.

A Note About Workshop Pricing & Registration:
Rural Vermont works alongside farm hosts, instructors, and other non-profits to bring a variety of workshops and peer-to-peer learning opportunities to our members and communities throughout Vermont.  Our ticket prices are built on the needs of the community, the farm hosts and instructors, and the workshop's structure. We work hard to provide accessible, high-quality programming, pay fair compensation to our farm hosts and instructors, and cover the cost of managing and producing our workshops. As such, our ticket prices vary by workshop, and we strive to keep them within a fair range. Thank you for participating and learning alongside us!

Thank you to our Sponsors!
Guy’s Farm & Yard, Hunger Mountain Co-op, Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op, Northfield Savings Bank, and Southern VT Dairy Goat Association