Koneta Farms

Jeff and Megan Brown met while working on a dairy farm together. Jeff, who grew up in the dairy industry, and Megan, who grew up with about every other animal other than cows, quickly fell in love. They made it official in 2011 and started planning their lives together. They knew they wanted to own their own farm one day and raise their babies around animals like they were raised. They learned quickly that God’s plan is always bigger than their own. After struggling with unexplained infertility for several years, the focus turned from having kids to getting healthy. The word ‘healthy’ meaning cleaning up everything toxic in their lives – from cleaning and household products to food and everything in between. Over several more years, they learned and incorporated these natural and non-toxic living habits and slowly changed their lives. While all this was happening, they were also staying active in the world of animals. Jeff maintained a nice herd of dairy heifers that he housed on the home farm while the cows were housed at friends’ houses. He focused on genetics and the world of showing, competing at State and International shows. While Megan enjoyed this aspect of the dairy industry, she also enjoyed showing dogs. From a young age, she showed in 4-H before becoming a 4-H advisor and then jumped into the world of competing in different states with her own dogs. For several years, she trained, competed, and bred Australian Shepherds. In February 2020, they moved into the new home they built on the home farm where Jeff grew up. This enabled them to live on the same property as all their livestock. Knowing the benefits of raw milk, they were very excited to start milking their own cow and had big dreams of bringing all their cows home one day to have their whole herd in one area. This is when life really started to move fast. As they calved in one of their heifers to provide raw milk for themselves and some family, they learned more and more about raw milk and the A2 casein. They started testing all the animals for the A2 or A1 protein and watched in amazement as the A2 milk was easily digested by both Megan and their nephew, as they both had issues with pasteurized milk. Raw milk is such an amazing superfood, and the A2 is like the icing on the cake. Slowly, they started modifying the barns and planning to bring everyone home. Before they knew it, they were milking several cows and wanted to be able to share the raw milk with more than just family. Megan started researching ways to do this in Ohio and found herdshares as an option. They became members of FTCLDF and had a contract written up specific to their farm. In October 2020, they were ready to accept members and signed several people up before the end of the year. As the herdshare grew, so did Megan’s desire to raise more food for the community. She researched and read several books and fell in love with the idea of farm fresh eggs and pastured poultry. In the Spring of 2021, the coop construction began, and by summer, eggs were starting to appear from the new laying flock. Once that project was complete and up and running, she went back to researching pastured poultry. She came across Joel Salatin and got hooked on his books about farming. Along came the idea of the next project! 2022 rolled around and the chicken tractor was already being sketched out. Then something amazing happened and put everything on hold… Megan found out she was pregnant! After almost 11 years of unexplained infertility, God healed her body, and she was able to conceive. The first trimester was pretty bumpy, so she had lots of time to continue reading and researching. Once she started feeling better, she started the construction of the chicken tractor and was ready for her first year of pastured poultry. It was an exciting year of learning all the things about pastured poultry while also navigating pregnancy and soon parenthood. They raised 3 batches of broilers out on pasture and learned