Leyden Glen Farm started with a match made at Oregon State University. Mark Duprey was an animal science major at the University of Massachusetts, while Kristin Nicholas studied wool and textiles at the University of Delaware. The two were on exchange programs in Oregon when they crossed paths.
Duprey is a fourth-generation farmer who grew up on a dairy farm in Bernardston. He says, “I grew up in a farm family and wanted to keep doing it. In Oregon, the best class I ever took was with a guest professor from New Zealand. I found I enjoyed sheep, and if I didn’t have to milk cows twice a day, I could have an off-farm job.”
Meanwhile, Nicholas brought copious artistic gifts, marketing savvy and a passion for textiles to their partnership. She educates the public at farmers markets, on their farm website with recipes for lamb and offers tastings during the high season at the Amherst Farmers’ Market.
The couple began raising sheep in 1979 as a way to combine Duprey’s interest in farming with Nicholas’ interest in wool fiber, yarn and knitting. In 1999, they moved to their current farm just north of the Leyden Glen. Their flock grew from four Romney sheep to the current flock of over 135 Dorset cross-bred ewes that graze neighboring hillside pastures in Leyden, Greenfield and Bernardston.
Over the years, they tried many varieties of sheep.
“Different breeds have different heights, different carcass quality, different shapes,” Nicholas said. “Different sheep will do better because of the weather and the terrain. It’s all science.” For early New England settlers, sheep were crucial to survival. Nicholas says, “sheep feed and clothe us — that’s the basics.”
The pair raise animals for meat and wool. They raise males (rams) for meat and keep females (ewes) for breeding stock. Occasionally, the farm supplies lambs to other farmers.
Those basics are still the primary products of the farm. Everything comes down to animal health, “You have to keep an animal in good health to have good meat,” adds Nicholas. For processing meat, Leyden Glen typically slaughters their lambs from six to eight months old. Duprey explains, “When you buy lamb in a grocery store, you’re not buying a tiny, little animal. They are 100-pound animals.”
Breed, location, and scope of farm determine the meat available for sale. Duprey shares that animals raised on large, western farms can weigh 200 pounds and are finished at feed lots. Leyden Glen Farm is a small, family farm. “We rely heavily on grass — we don’t raise our animals in that way,” says Duprey.
The farm does not carry organic certification, “We aren’t organic because God knows our strength isn’t paperwork,” quips Nicholas. Although they are not certified Kosher or Halal, their customers come from different cultures who want lamb as part of their food culture and food heritage. She notes, “Sheep are the number two animal protein consumed in the world behind goat. It’s really only in the United States that lamb is not popular. It’s a forgotten protein.”
The animals have free, happy lives on the farm, eating grass and hay grown on right there. The farm recently received a Massachusetts Department of Agriculture Farm Viability Grant to build a new greenhouse barn to shelter the animals.
Duprey explains, “It’s an improvement of animal comfort and an improvement for the farmers. It’s safer and just a joy to work in. The animal comfort means they’re going to be healthier animals. You’re going to have fewer problems because anytime you’re introducing any kind of stress, whether it be with humans or sheep, that can lead to problems. So this barn is just a real game changer.”
Whether for meat or wool, lambs are valuable from birth. Nicholas explains, “When the babies are born, they have wool on them. The wool grows in utero. Depending on the breed, it will be different lengths, different micron counts and different weights of the fleece.”
She continues, “In the beginning, I did the hand spinning thing. Then we had our wool spun into yarn. It costs a huge amount of money to process wool in the states because the textile industry has eroded like crazy. There are very few places left of a once-big industry. The spinners that do this now are super small; they’re like one-man bands, processing wool into yarn.”
Nicholas no longer spins yarn for sale. Instead, the farm supplies a couple of places with wool: Bloom Woolen Yarns in Shelburne and Western Mass Fibershed for their pellet program, which makes soil amendments out of wool for gardeners.
Just as yarn is knitted into cozy blankets, stories are the stitches that connect Leyden Glen Farm to their customers. Duprey notes, “I love my sheep. People are supportive. They want to know where their food comes from. They love seeing open fields and they want to meet the farmers and know how this animal was raised. The story end is very important to people.”
Nicholas concurs, “Even in the winter when we don’t attend farmers’ markets, I think about our customers. I don’t see them and I think about different people. I wonder how they’re doing.”
To learn more about Leyden Glen Farm, see their website at leydenglenlamb.com & socials. Follow “Kristin Nicholas’ Colorful Newsletter from the Farm” or the “Leyden Glen Farm Lamb News” on Substack. Meat is available for sale through their farm stand, the Amherst Farmers’ Market, Franklin Community Co-op in Greenfield and on the menu of Hope & Olive Restaurant.
Lisa Goodrich is a communications coordinator for Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA). To find local lamb and wool near you, check CISA’s online guide at buylocalfood.org.
