New for 2011, Co-Op Pricing on Wrangler Cowboy Cut Jeans just $18.99!

2011 promises many exciting changes at Mendocino County Farm Supply.


Right out of the gates;our time-tested selection of western wear is getting a few new updates this year, and to kick it all off, we're bringing back our co-op pricing on the standard of hard-working performance pants, the timeless Wrangler Cowboy Cut Jeans.


Still made from the same durable denim as decades past, Wrangler Cowboy cut jeans are the gold-standard of working pants; rugged, strong, comfortable and darn good-lookin' too.

At just $18.99 we can all afford to look like a million bucks!

Visit our website and follow us on facebook to keep up on changes ion our western wear selection!

Introducing Precise Holistic Complete dog and cat food!

Stop by the Farm Supply on any given day, and you are likely to find as many dogs as people here. We love our animals, and are happy to work in a place where we can bring our best friends to work every day. On our staff, we've got employees who have trained police dogs and herding dogs, guys who run hunting dogs, and one jerk who has one of the largest livestock protection dogs around working as a baby guardian and lap warmer. (I'll raise my hand to that one and swear he had a job when we got him!)

It is needless to say we are passionate about dog food. Most of us can flip over a sack of new dog food and identify the top ten best and worst ingredients and gauge how well a certain food will work for a certain age and breed size in a matter of a few seconds. We have declined to carry and even stopped carrying a number of dog and cat foods that we felt were of poor quality. We carry our discount feeds, but we pride ourselves in our good ones. And when a new food lands on our table, we're happy to share it.

The Precise Holistic Complete line is one of those "micro-brewery" dog foods. Produced by the family-owned Texas Farm Products Company they have been producing dog food for 563 dog years, right here in the USA. In that time, not only have they never had a single recall or scare, their testing protocols are being adopted by the USDA! They own and operate their own production facility here in the US, and test every ingredient before it is allowed into the premises.

 

Their line of dog foods include the Precise Holistic Wild at Heart Flight Line and River Line produced with duck and Turkey and Salmon, respectively. With 24% crude protein and 15% crude fat and featuring human certified sources of fiber (no disgusting byproducts) they are complete all-life-stages dog foods with top quality ingredients and absolutely no nasty fillers like corn and wheat.

Important to a Great Dane / Mastiff mix owner like myself, their large and giant breed puppy and adult foods are endorsed by the Linda Arndt, "The Great Dane Lady" canine nutritionist. Their giant breed foods are formulated with just the right amount of protein and fat for the growth and maintenance stages of a large dog and with additional DHAs and Omega 3s to assure continued joint health.

They also just started offering their flight and river lines in a canned dog food! Now even those fussy dogs who turn their noses up at kibble can enjoy the prime nutrition of a quality dog food! And the ingredients are truly remarkable, with no meat meals and featuring pure salmon turkey, trout  duck and other whole foods.

Have a cat? Precise Holistic Complete also makes River and Flight lines for cats with salmon and chicken along with fruits, vegetables and probiotics to assure a long and healthy life for your feline companions.

We've got quite a few sample bags available right now, so next time you drop in to pick up some food, take a few with you to see if your dog or cat might like the make the switch. And talk to any of our knowledgeable staff to discover some great tricks for making an informed food change with none of the stress!  (You'd be surprised how easy it can really be!) 

For more information, visit their great website at precisepet.com!

15% Off! Hot Apple Cider Day: December 11th!

Fight off that winter cold with a nice hot cup of our famous apple cider and enjoy 15% off everything in the store! Bring the kids for lots of fun activities including cookie decorating and making hand made bird feeders! The livestock swap will be going on as well, so there should be lots of cute animals to fawn over or even take home! See you there!

Allium cepa, Allium sativum

The time is now to get your sets in! If you've never planted garlic or onions, you have to give it a try! They are one of the easiest things to grow over winter here, and even if you mess up, you'll have some good results!

For best results, garlic and onions should be grown in loose, well drained soil. While many garden books say to plant in spring, DON'T! Out growing season is too short, and by getting them in a few weeks before first frost, you'll allow them to grow just enough to survive their winter dormancy.

Our recent haphazard springs over the last two years have played havoc on onions, since the back and forth between heat and cold often forces them to seed. Onions that have seeded cannot be stored, as they have a hollow core, which invites rot. However, the seed heads and stalks are easily sautéed, and leaving flowering onions in the ground until the minute you want to use them brings amazing flavor to your table!

Garlic can flower, seed, and get trampled to almost no ill result. My first year planting garlic, it contended with bear, deer and great dane puppies tramping through the patch, and we had an excellent harvest.

To plant garlic, break the bulb apart and place the cloves in rows, one foot part and six inches apart It is best to plant them right side up, with the pointed tip facing upwards, though they'll figure out a way to right themselves if you don't. Onions use the same spacing, but after planting, you want to pack them down a bit, otherwise they tend to push their crowns out of the ground.

As they grow, you may occasionally have to re-mound soil around the tops of the bulbs to keep them from getting sun scarred. Make sure to keep the moisture level steady, never water logging or allowing the soil to completely dry out.

Onions and garlic are ready to harvest when the tops of the plants brown and wilt, usually in mid to late summer. I like to bunch my garlic together with just twine and hang them by their stalks to dry. Onions are easiest to harvest when their stalks fall down. Take a firm rake and rake gently along the top of the rows to break off the tops, and let the onions sit in the ground. A day or two later, pull the onions up out of the ground and leave them sitting for a day or two to further cure. You can use them  right out of the ground, but this curing makes them store better through winter. You should let them dry single stacked in a cool, dry, place protected from excess light if possible, then stack them in milk crates, mesh bags or similar containers once the weather starts to cool. Keeping them in a dark place helps prevent sprouting.

Cleaning the internet. . .

Taking advantage of a new office, and resulting hermitage, I set out this month to take advantage of the lessened distractions to really clean things up for ALL of the Farm Supply internet hangouts. You'll notice, of course, the new look at our blog (mendocinocountyfarmsupply.blogspot.com, for those of you reading this through syndication or Facebook). But I've also cleaned up our website at www.farm-supply.com to make it easier to use. It's got better, cleaner navigation, and some changed features. We removed the unused classifieds sections (go craigslist!) and added all of our old newsletters (a surprisingly long process to get them formatted right). I'll slowly be adding old features back, such as our facebook widget, etc, but I am now doing some serious backend work to make sure it all fits together right, instead of looking perpetually kludged.

Our paper newsletter, the growing gazette, is growing. Tired of being limited to such a small space, I'm trying out a paper version of the "read more" link. Now our newsletters will feature the beginnings of articles that will be kept in there entirety on the web. Those of you who saved my three part series on planting onions and garlic last year, will be glad to know this month's newsletter features a consolidated revision and the originals are now on the website. if you'd like to subscribe to our e-mail newsletters, you can sign up by registering at www.farm-supply.com! Newsletter articles will be featured in the articles section of the website, as well as here on our blog.

So, check it out, and if you love it or hate it, let me know! I'll just be sitting here in my hermitage. . .

Hay Days 15% OFF EVERYTHING!- Saturday October 16th

We do two big sales each year, and when we say big, we mean big. To begin with, everything is 15% off, except Nutro products which are $10 off ALL OF THEM! (Big thanks to Nutro) Additionally, we try to make these big sales more of an event. For our autumn Hay Day, we've got quite a bit going on.


The Livestock Swap
We've moved our usual second Saturday livestock swap to the third Saturday this month, to mesh with Hay Day, which means a lot more people to see your animals. If you haven't made it out to a swap yet, this will be the day to check it out. We've have just about any animal you can imagine here, from Guinea Pigs to Horses. It is proving to be a fun place for families to bring their kids after the Farmer's Market, as it does have a sort of petting zoo feel to it.


Well Mannered Mutts
Sallie Palmer, one of our favorite dog trainers will be on hand offering spot training, tips and advice to dog owners. Sally's business, well mannered mutts spent quite a bit of time holding classes in our warehouse and she is one of the best trainers we've ever seen. If you've ever been impressed by the behavior of one of the Farm Supply dogs, thank Sally. (No, the rowdy bunch of mini-aussies out front have not met her yet)


Ukiah Natural Foods
October is national co-op month, and we've joined forces with Ukiah Natural Foods to increase awareness of the importance of the Co-Op structure to local economies. It seems very few people remember that the Farm Supply has been a co-op for 61 years, and it's time for that to change. Did you know that with you farm Bureau membership you become eligible for a patronage dividend that has been as high as 16% in the past? We're also proud to offer 5% off every day to all Ukiah Natural Food Co-Op owner/members. Just come in and show your card or key fob, and we'll set you up!


PGG Seed / Agricom Seed
The endlessly entertaining expert, John Snyder will be here discussing best practices for cover cropping, erosion control and building soil and pasture health. Even if you just have a bare patch in your lawn, John is worth talking to you, he'll set you in the right direction, and leave you laughing for the rest of the day. We're still trying to get him to do a stand up routine mid-day.


Roni McFadden Book Signing
Farm Supply has long been a primary underwriter of many programs at Ridgewood Ranch, this historic home of Seabiscuit. When we were approached to sponsor the publication of "Josephine, a Tale of Hope and Happy Endings." the support the T.R.A.I.L program at Ridgewood, we jumped on it! Month later, the book is a huge success, and we are happy to invite Roni McFadden here to talk about her book and sign copies!


The Raffles!
Alright, if you've ever been to one of our big sales, you've probably won a raffle prize. This time, Darcie went all out and bent every arm in the industry! We've got giveaways from EQ Solutions, Lextron Animal Health, Farmer's Feed, John F. Mahaney Hardware, Ware, Greenies, Science Diet, Farnam, Natures Miracle, Fresh Cab, Petmate, Veterinary Supply Incorporated, Precision Pet products, Wrangler, and more. We're sorting things out now to try and make sure everybody wins something, as we've got about three pallets worth of stuff hidden away!

Mendocino County Horse and Equestrian Supply!

I've never had the land, time or money to own a horse, though I love their immense grace and power. As such, I haven't written much about Mendocino County Farm Supply's equestrian offerings on here for fear of being readily identified as a greenhorn. As the years go by, however, I have grown to become much more familiar with our horse feed and tack options thanks to the help of people like Denise, Sam and Darcie, our resident horse experts.

Horse Feed & Supplements


We carry the largest selection of feed in our county, with offerings from LMF, TDI, Nutrena, ASI and more. We also carry everything you need to create a fully balanced custom feeding routine for your horse, be it a retired mare, or a champion barrel racer. Our bi-annual events (Customer Appreciation Day, and Hay Day) often feature equestrian nutrition experts who can not only evaluate your horses health and body scoring, but can also advise you on maximizing your feed's results.

Need supplements? We've got em, and we know that everyone has very specific tastes. We carry every major brand of equine supplements, so you can get exactly what you want from the brands you trust. Fat supplements, glucosamine, micro-minerals, electrolytes and even colostrum from a number of respected brands.

Horse Shoes and Farrier Supplies

We carry every type of horse shoe you could want, from St. Croix and Delta, in every size possible. We also feature a remarkable selection of farrier and black smithing supplies including anvils from 75 to 150 lbs, tongs, rasps, nails and yes, even we even sell the least expensive propane in town! Do you prefer your horse barefoot? We've got Cavallo and Delta boots in every size.

Tack and Saddlery

From saddle blankets and harnesses to lunge whips and cribbing collars, we've got every horse supply you need. if you've been to any of our local rodeos, trail rides or shows, you've seen much of our selection hard at work; cactus and fastback ropes, breakaways and a full selection of custom roping supplies. Of course, we've also got riding helmets, spurs and all the standard fare.

For optimum training and practice with your performance or rodeo horse, we've got roping dummies, including calf and steer heads, heels and steer stands. No matter if you are packing out, gathering cattle, hunting or just enjoying our immense number of regional trails in the company of your equestrian companion, we've got what you need. Make your own, or just need to make a repair, we've got a good selection of buckles and snaps from the ornamental to the rugged and utilitarian.

Medicine

A house call from a horse veterinarian can be incredibly expensive, and preventive medicine is imperative! We carry a wide selection of ivermectrins, pyrantels, and psylliums from the most reputable brands in America. Our veterinary supply section is immense, with DMSO, MSM, gall salves, anti-thrush gels and ointments, wound dressings, powders salves and bandages, antibiotics, including the increasingly popular Vetericyn, a number of pain managers and, surgical supplies abscess and vet kits. We proudly feature products from the most trusted names in the industry, including W.F. Young, Farnam, Ideal, Pfizer Animal Health, Aspen, Manna Pro, Priority Care, Vermont's Original, Kaeco, EquiAid, Merial, Bimeda, Cooper's Best, Absorbine, Dr, Naylor's, Equilite, Fort Dodge, Microcyn, Bio-Nutrition, Oralx, Kentucky Performance, AHCP, Bickmore, Select, AniMed and Forco. We keep a wide variety of breeding and foaling supplies on hand at all times, and we pride ourselves in our ability to special order even the most obscure products.

Grooming
So much more than Mane and Tail! No matter if you merely want to keep the flies away, knock off the sweat at the end of a long ride, or prepare for lead in one of Mendocino County's many parades and shows, we've got what you need. Heck, if you wanted to start a horse spa, we'd be able to take care of you. With full lines of shampoos, conditioners, shines, polishes, fly sprays and tools from Eqyss, Farnam, Absorbine, Prolap, Cowboy Magic, Tuttle's EQ Solutions, Procter & Gamble, Manna Pro, QuicSilver, CoCo's Equicare, Sullivan's, Silver Lining and, of course, the ubiquitous Mane 'n Tail, we've got you clean and clear!