Cajun Vineyards

01/19/2025

The 3rd generation of workers are in full swing. We will attempt to break ground again this spring on the new location in Arnaudville LA. Biodynamic and regenerative farming is at the core of our growing culture. We do will never use chemicals, opting instead for sheep, chickens, and pigs, which we have worked to develop custom breeds specific to the jobs they will be doing.

The ideal sheep is Corsican, Snow Urial, and Katahdin composit, which is to say a wildly dynamic hair sheep that looks like a beignet with horns. They are mid sized, low maintenance, and excellent temperaments.

We still have the grandparent and parent stock, though we hope to reduce the number of Katahdin ewes this year. We shall see how it goes!

12/02/2024

We will be consolidating the Farm page into this page and deactivating Chateau de Belle Rose Farmstead. Hopefully it is not so confusing, but the vineyard is gearing up to finally begin the larger land build and the last 2 years spent developing the sheep and chickens have been well spent. Regenerative and biodynamic farming ftw!

11/04/2024

I am going to do a chicken rant again. The chicken industry has been fibbing to the public for decades. I spent a little while on some chicken groups today and it was full of bad information repeated over and over, like always. It is exhausting trying to go against propaganda machines that have been pushing their messages for longer than I have been alive.

On my academic journey to improve my flock I have made many discoveries that are very contrary to the rules of "meat birds". I have met some people along the way who have figured out the same thing, usually by accident, proving it is not just a one off or my delusions.

I have my own strain of "meat birds", Cajun CornishX, Bayou Broilers, or Legendary ORCs as I have named them. They are customized NOT for industry/commercial use, but families, farms, and homesteads. Ways my chickens are better:

-They get just as big as CornishX (ross308 and cobb500)
-They forage instinctively and do not want to sit in front of feed tray 24/7, perfect for raising in a yard/pasture.
-They are healthy/hardy. This is likely due to how they are raised, but they have better instincts.
-They lay large eggs more often. CornishX lay XL eggs every 3rd day on average, for the first year and then slow down even more.
-They breed MOSTLY true. I am still working on this part. With 1 roo and 2 hens you can create a perpetual meat machine hatching generations of your own. This is not profitable for me, but unlike Tyson and corporations, I am not in this for money.

What I did:
Created my own CornishX using Dark Cornish Roo and White Plymouth Rock Hens.
Took the best of those hens and mated them with a Majestic Lavender Orpington Rooster.
Took those and raised them, selecting the best roosters and backcrossing them to my CornishX hens, then doing that again.

That started 3 years ago. I am starting the whole process over again as the first go round was a lot of theoretical guesswork, and this time I am going to replicate the results to prove my theory in adding Orpington (a heritage breed) to help stabilize the hybrid.

Pictured is a 1 yr old ORC (Orpington, Rock, Cornish) and he is a a heavy bodied warrior. Though he is very heavy, he is still very agile compared to a Ross308 strain which has a slightly wider body. I will weigh him once I catch him again.

10/09/2024

While we technically broke ground on the new vineyard last year, we were stopped cold by a late frost. This year we will we try to work with locals to have everything operational this winter for Late March/early April planting.

Currently installing 2nd and 3rd variety of blueberry, mayhaws and will continue to add fruit to areas around the area outside of the vineyard.

We hope to relocate what is left of Vicious Vineyards inventory to the new vineyard as well, though we will wait until winter for everything to go dormant.

10/08/2024

Getting the chicken yards back together for the next phase of the project is going well and first phase of new project is starting. I should be done by the weekend and will separate according to the project outlines for the Grandparent stock of 4 groups then by December the first hybrids groups will be hatching into 2 distinct projects. This is just the start, 2-3 more years to go! This poultry science stuff is fun but sometimes I want to take the easy road and just throw a catchy name out there for sale like all everyone seems to be doing now.

Those Indio Gigantes I think may be my new favorite breed. Looking forward to showcasing next year's lineup as we

09/28/2024

For the last 2+ years I have been working on a new breed of chicken based off of a theory I had. I applied scientific method, raised, crossed, and hatched almost 500 chickens, producing some great results. I focused on a better chicken for small farms. I have been calling them ORCs, (Orpington/Rock/Cornish).
I essentially improved the CornishX for small farms/families/homesteads by stabilizing it with Lavender Orpington and back crossing to CornishX. It is a very long process.

-breed true (mostly true)
-grow a bit slower - longer life span
-forage skills - free range - low maintenance
-slightly less food aggressive
-improved constitution (healthier)
-large white eggs every other day (smaller than CornishX, but more frequent)

Sort of a similar project to the "freedom ranger" but you can have a flock of 1 roo and 4 hens and once they start laying you can hatch and start raising your own meat birds for processing or grow flock to become your own supplier.

I am starting the official process to replicate it and begin the data collection phase. This will take 2 to 5 years. I will also need 5 people to raise them once the first new batch is ready in the spring and be available to give review/report so I can register it as a breed in a few years.

I am also working on a Giant ORC, which incorporates IndioGigante and Jersey Giants!!

I am currently waiting to hear from Tyson, Aviagen, Cobb for official permissions, but will continue the project even if it doesn't go anywhere beyond my own farm. I am using both Ross308 and Cobb500 strains in tandem in case one says no.

Cajunvineyards.com/chickens

05/14/2024

In need of a decent handyman (or woman or teen). We have a lot of small projects around the farm that need to be done. Nothing difficult, but time consuming and I dont have the time. I will even consider high-school teens. I have made this offer before, but Noone seems to want money?
This is not a full time job, but pay per project.
You must also sign a liability waiver so you can't sue me if you hurt yourself.

I am happy to teach skills in plumbing, Carpentry and more, I just don't have the time to do the projects myself.

Located between Carencro and Arnaudville, about 5 miles from Walmart.

03/31/2024

Happy Easter!

03/23/2024

#19 and 20
I was not expecting lambs this morning!!

02/18/2024

I am looking to rehome a few sheep. I also have a high quality, Katahdin Ram that needs a new flock. He will eat out of your hand, but does not like to be near. He is pretty chill to humans, but has killed other rams when the the ewes get too close (separate pastures) Never mind, I rather keep him and get rid of the other rams. Either way, we have near 50 sheep and need to be closer to 25. We raise Big Horn Corsican, and Katahdins. Most are pure to either side of the bloodlines, but the composite ones are the money. Oh yeah, we are located near the intersection of I49 and I10, close to Carencro Louisiana.

10/03/2023

Need to reduce our flock asap. New lambs coming and we never got around to dealing with last season's lambs. Great prices, high quality genetics, very healthy.

10/03/2023

Soft estate sale. We have too much clutter and need to liquidate duplicate items and things we have either never used, or do not use anymore.
By appointment only.

08/07/2023

I have been and will be out of commission for the next 2 days. 1st I got sick. Boring. 2nd, I got injured, less boring. When heading to the barn I noticed the gate was pushed inward or left open amd I got concerned. However, a full count, with happy and healthy sheep made me more confused as everything seemed in order. As I started walking back to the house when I noticed a lamb hanging out in the shadows. It wasn't one of ours that I knew about. I went to get Ash for confirmation and then proceeded to capture said lamb to prevent it from contaminating our flock. Zelda decided she wanted the lasso because she was good at it, so I gave it to her and tried to capture by hand. Well that ended with me busting up my right side leg and arm, and a rib on my left side. Now I can't walk or breath very well.

(Paul Harvey voice) And now...the rest of the story...I managed to capture and separate the lamb and it is in quarantine. Noone has come looking for it, or posted about it, so I assume they gave it up for dead. What I believe happened is that it escaped, ran all over hell, heard my sheep, pushed the gate open and decided to stay.

Kilee and I recently had this experience with an escaped lamb and chased it until well after sundown so I know how far this lil thing could have gone. I feel bad that someone lost a lamb, but we will take great care of it. If anyone does come looking and can describe it, we are not going to keep it from you. However, I can't help you load it for the next day or so.

Also, sorry if you don't know who Paul Harvey is, it just means you were not born in a good generation. He was awesome.

08/01/2023

This is not new. Studies have been going on for years. Grapes are not made equal and the waste from the Muscadine is the most potent of them all. Mightymuscadine.com is a great place to research and buy powdered seed and skins, which have immense health benefits.
I did not get into winemakers for the wine, the wine is actually "waste" to me. The skins and seeds are next to magical.


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-07-31/new-health-benefits-from-winemaking-waste-prognosis?srnd=prognosis

Hey, it’s Keira in Sydney. Recently, I came across some Australian research into what can be done with leftover compounds from grapes after they’ve been made into wine. More on that soon, but first...

07/26/2023

Ahead of the curve yet again!

Despite hurricanes Zeta and Ida setting us back 4 years, we continue to push forward with Cajun Vineyards as a biodynamic and regenerative vineyard. No chemicals, and using chickens and sheep that I have spent the last 1.5 years genetically designing for our purposes here. We still have 2 more lambing cycles before our ideal composition sheep is ready, but our chicken breed is well under way.

Since this year (2023) kicked us off with financial setbacks and a late freeze, we decided to take the year and build a grow house to clone vines which will significantly reduce propagation costs. We have also focused on our sheep and chicken production and even gave Kunekune pigs a trial run. They may be ideal if we design a way to keep them from rooting the muscadines. Hmmm.

Anyways, I love it when one of my projects gets validation. I usually think I am crazy because if Noone else is doing it, it must be a dumb idea, yet time and time again...I am just ahead of the curve.

For several years, a herd of 20 goats have helped lower the carbon footprint of Baldacci Family Vineyard, but this year, they were helped by a herd of 2,000 sheep, too.

02/18/2023

01/07/2023

If anyone would like to come visit today, please do. It is a beautiful day and we have several interesting things going on. Children welcome.
Very soon we will be working with the 30 sheep, then working with the 4 pups, and finally working with the chickens.

We will also be transferring pepper sprouts and doing landscaping tasks. If you want some Sago palms, milkweed, azaleas or want to start clippings from our many rose bushes, today is the day!