HOME OF HEALTHY WHOLESOME RANCH RAISED LAMB AND RABBIT.

Locally Grown Produce. Nationwide, today's consumers have a high preference for locally grown and produced farm products. Why? The reasons are many and varied. The number one reason is a growing concern for food safety with the alarming number of imported food recalls. It is also common knowledge that growth hormones and routine antibiotic administration to meat animals can be detrimental to human health. People like to be sure that livestock are raised using humane practices meeting both the physical and psychological needs of the animal. As people have moved from rural to urban areas, they no longer feel that they have control over these important concerns. There are growing movements throughout the country to shop at local farmer's markets and to "know your farmer". Chigger Ridge is dedicated to this type of relationship with our customers. We practice sustainable agriculture.

Luscious Lamb raised on the lush grasslands of middle Tennessee without hormones, antibiotics, herbicides, fungicides, or insecticides. Healthful grass finished lamb is now available by the cut or you can purchase a whole lamb cut to your order. The breeds of sheep we raise are naturally lower in fat and are consistently mild flavored. We carefully balance their nutrition and environment to create a gourmet quality product which is good for you too! Please click on the "Luscious Lamb" button below for more information.

Chigger Ridge Rabbit is our new enterprise launched in 2007. Domestic white rabbit meat is now being offered at the request of many of our lamb customers who had been told by their diabetes or heart doctors to eat "game meat". (Just where they are supposed to get such meat the doctors don't say!). Rabbit is lower in cholesterol, fat, and calories and higher in protein than any other commercially raised meat animal (including chicken)! Of course, like our lamb, we do not use any sort of hormones or antibiotics in our rabbits. Please click on the "Delicious Domestic Rabbit" button below for more information.

LOCATED IN MIDDLE TENNESSEE, CHIGGER RIDGE RABBITRY IS A CONVENIENT SOURCE FOR QUALITY NEW ZEALAND WHITE AND ALTEX MEAT RABBIT BREEDING STOCK.

Our rabbits are selected and bred for commercial meat production - not for shows. In our New Zealand White doe rabbits we look for maternal traits such as large litters, well developed nests, good milking ability and strong maternal instincts. We offer select NZW does and bucks for sale. We crossbreed for meat production to an Altex sire rabbit and are now able to offer Altex sires and does for sale to other rabbit producers. The Altex is the only breed of rabbit based on years of university research over 20 generations to be genetically selected for heavy 70 day market weights. Faster growth = less feed = profitable rabbit enterprise! For those farmers or producers now considering rabbits as an alternative agricultural enterprise, here are a couple of interesting facts: 1) A doe rabbit that weighs 10 pounds can produce as much as 300 pounds of meat in a year. 2) Rabbits produce 6 pounds of meat on the same feed it takes a cow to produce 1 pound of meat - and you don't have to worry about drought, tractor fuel increases, parasites, fertilizer, or the weather! Click on the "NZW and Altex Rabbits" button below for more information.

Chigger Ridge Ranch is dedicated to raising quality registered Katahdin Hair Sheep breeding stock FOR SALE.

Our goal is to preserve the unique traits of the Katahdin Hair Sheep breed which make it so promising for the American meat sheep producer. We have found the parasite resistance, high productivity, strong maternal instincts, multiple hardy lambs, great feed conversion, and extreme ease of care of these animals, hard to match. At Chigger Ridge only the "top of the flock" are bred each year as replacement animals for us and for sale to other producers as seed stock. Animals that do not meet our selection criteria for breed stock are bred to superb woolly sires for meat production only. We do not have "commercial" Katahdin breeding stock available. "Commercial" usually means a person is not bothering to register, keep records, and carefully select their breeding stock for productivity. Katahdins CAN make you money - but only if you buy superior stock or are prepared to do your own selection over 6-7 years. Please click on the "Katahdin Sheep" button below for more information on our sheep.

In 2007 Tennessee was declared the fastest growing sheep producing State in the country!

One does not think of Tennessee or the South as a region of the country conducive to sheep production. With the rise of the hair sheep however, this is changing fast. With no wool and able to shed their hair in the summer, this animal is able to do well in our heat and humidity. With the added advantages found in the Katahdin Hair Sheep breed of an unbeatable ability to convert grass to meat and a superb parasite resistance, they are outperforming goats by leaps and bounds!

Click on the button to the left for our location and how to contact us regarding rabbits for sale, rabbit meat, lambs for sale, or lamb meat. We are also happy to correspond by e-mail with those who are looking for a little advice about hair sheep or commercial rabbitries in general. We are not experts, but we constantly attend continuing education seminars and willingly share what we have learned.

Free roaming, grass fed lamb raised in Middle Tennessee. We use no hormones, antibiotics, insecticides, or herbicides. Katahdins have less external fat than wool sheep, adding to the health benefit of grass raised versus grain finished meat. Once you try our tender luscious gourmet quality lamb you will never go back to beef or pork. Click on button to left to find out where you can get Luscious Lamb. For great lamb recipes click here!

High protein - Low cholesterol rabbit meat is a heart healthy product and perfect source of very low fat protein. "The most nutritious meat available" - U.S. Department of Agriculture. We sell our rabbit meat direct to the public via Farmer's Markets. This year we plan to be at Clarksville Downtown Market and Dickson Farmer's Marke (in their new location) as well. Click on the button to the left for information on Chigger Ridge Rabbit meat and where you can obtain it.

Katahdin Hair Sheep shed out naturally in the summer and do not require shearing. The breed was developed not for wool but for their highly prized, tender, mild flavored meat. They are extremely hardy, parasite resistant animals which produce vigorous multiple lambs.
Click on button to left for general Katahdin information.
Click here for rams for sale.
Click here for ewes for sale.
Click here for how we raise our sheep and our breeding stock selection criteria.

We have commercially selected high quality New Zealand White rabbits for sale as a maternal meat breed. This rabbit breed is famed for its high productivity, nesting instincts, and milk production. We have also obtained the University developed ALTEX breed of rabbit. This breed was developed for a faster growing meatier animal. Also included in this part of the web site is some "how-to" information for new rabbit growers.

Fun photos from around the farm. How we got started in farming. What's new around the farm. Some of our farm helpers. Just a little bit about us - our background and experience.

Educational web page from Chigger Ridge Ranch on the Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) disease known as Scrapie. Information for shepherds on this disease; why it is important to eradicate it; and how to breed for resistance based on your sheep's genotype.

This Web Site updated 07/14/10