Oberon Farm
CT Wagyu’s primary home is Oberon Farm in Preston, CT. Preston is a relatively quiet small town neighbor to Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods, two of the largest casinos in the world. Oberon Farm was created when Tim’s mother Karen and sister Erin purchased adjoining parcels of land in the center of Preston to keep their horses at home. In addition to CT Wagyu’s herd Oberon Farm is presently home to Karen’s Palomino Quarter horse Sara and Erin’s off track Thoroughbred Redford. Tim also keeps a flock of layer hens and typically raises a few groups of Cornish cross broilers each summer. The farm is also home to perhaps it's three most handsome inhabitants,
Karen's Landseer Newfoundland, Breaker
Erin's Bernese Mtn Dog, Bunsen
Tim's Newfoundland, Beck
And now Erin's little princess Lyric a second Berner to balance things out.
Horses
Sara and Redford share Oberon Farm with our Wagyu. They typically participate in lower level dressage, jumping and cross country competitions with Erin
Wagyu
As of October 2022 our Wagyu herd consists of eight Fullblood 100% Wagyu and six percentage Wagyu. Three of the percentage wagyu are being used as embryo recipients to help grow the size of our Fullblood Wagyu herd.
Chickens
We have a flock of layers including a few of our original layers who at 8 years old, are now very much enjoying their promised a retirement. Typically we raise a few groups of broiler meat birds each summer, beginning in 2023 we will be growing the size of our pasture raised broiler operation on new to us pastures alongside our Wagyu seedstock.
The dogs!
Having always had dogs as pets, now is no different. We currently count one Landseer Newfoundland, Breaker; a Bernese Mtn Dog, Bunsen; and an all black Newfoundland, Beck as members of our family.
Local NonGMO feed
Something we are quite proud of is our support of other local farms. From our first layers we’ve focused on feeding quality feeds. When we started the Wagyu herd it was important that we continue with that. We were very fortunate to connect with a local grain farm who also mills and sells both standard and custom feed rations. We purchase their NonGMO chicken feeds and also utilize the same corn and soy for portions of our custom Wagyu rations. When you factor in the local sources of our hay, 98% of our feed is grown within 30 miles of the farm!
A new venture for 2022
We’ve decided to add to the offerings from the farm. Starting summer 2022 we will have a wide selection of culinary herbs available fresh, dried and hopefully even freeze dried! Our goal is to practice “natural” growing methods, basically mirroring organic practices but with no desire for certification at this time.
Chicken & Eggs
Entering 2023 we have committed to increasing the size of our layer flock. This will allow us to have our fresh natural Easter eggs available in store at both Fleming's Feed locations beginning May '23. We expect to have chicken available 4th of July possibly a little earlier.
How we grade our beef
The Carcass Camera
We knew early on that we wanted to focus on meat production with our Wagyu. Our goal stated simply is to produce the highest grades of Wagyu, consistently. To document that journey, we made the investment early on in a cellphone based carcass camera system. Thanks to the advances in cell phone cameras, their onboard processing power and the ability to harness cloud based computing we are able to image and receive complete assessment reports in moments. When we quote a carcass as being a certain BMS score it is based on this technology and audited by our family with old fashioned flash cards.
Quality control
We also perform audits of the camera through the use of modern old fashioned flashcards depicting the different BMS scores.
