BENJAMIN — No longer the mainstay of yesteryear, part-time farmers own portions of what use to be large farms, then work together in a co-op to sell what they raise.

Sales are often to each other or by referral, said Tom Buckley, who belongs to a south Utah County group.

Many of these 5-acre farmers' customers come from a growing desire among consumers for organically grown meat products, said Julie Clifford of the Utah State University Agricultural Extension office in Provo. These consumers don't want the hormones and antibiotics that are in many commercially raised meat products.

"I work a regular job so I can farm," Buckley said.

A software engineer at Novell in Provo, Buckley three years ago built a single-level home on 5 1/4 acres he calls Bullhead Ranch near the end of a lane and brought in bees, sheep, goats, chickens and cows. He had been farming in Pleasant Grove for five years before he and his family made the move.

The cows lasted only a year — (just until one of them bumped into his wife and sent her sprawling) — so Buckley works just with smaller animals now.

"I can tackle them and put them down," he said.

He also raises meat chickens, but this year he dispensed with goats and chickens and just raised a small number of Navajo Churro sheep and laying chickens.

"They are very easy to raise because they are so dumb," he said of the sheep.

Churros are smaller than the usually larger white or black-faced meat sheep and easier to handle, he said. They yield about 50-60 pounds of meat.

"You can put (the packaged meat) in the top part of your freezer and have room for a jug of ice cream," he said.

Consumers have to get on a list by mid-September. Slaughtering and packaging takes place in October at a local slaughterhouse. When he raises chickens, customers need to get on the list by March. He prefers that organic meat lovers contact him by e-mail at: sales@bullheadranch.com.

Although he skipped raising meat goats and frying chickens this year, he plans to have them back next season. Because of U. S. Department of Agriculture regulations he can't sell butchered chickens. He can sell live chickens, and once they change hands, then he or the new owner can butcher them, he said.

"Nothing tastes like meat raised on a farm. (Chicken meat) is more dense than store-bought chicken, possibly because it isn't puffed up with water," he said.

The yolks of the laying chickens "are a gorgeous orange color," he said. "They are meaty eggs. "

Buckley allows his chickens to roam the pasture, even scratching for bugs in his garden after harvest. His animals are moved around in four sections of his pasture as part of their organic feeding.

"People enjoy knowing what goes into the critters and that's what send them to me," he said.

Clifford, who just started raising organic meat chickens to go along with her egg business, says store-bought versions, usually shipped in from out of state, are expensive, which leads to people looking for locally grown products.

Additionally, Buckley rotates his animals and chickens, keeping the laying hens three years.

"They're stew meat after that," he said.

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E-mail: rodger@desnews.com