4 Star Farm

4 Star Farm is a family owned and operated farm. We are the Starlings and there are 4 of us hence the name.  We have been involved in agriculture and farming for many years as Cliff is a 4th generation farmer.  We decided to produce farm raised meats in 2015 when we were able to move back home to Live Oak Florida and start our own family farm.  We take great pride in our animals and the products that we produce.   

Soil Health:

The best way to enhance soil health is to mimic nature.  Nature is made up of multispecies of plants and animals.  You will never find a monoculture in nature. Every plant and animal supports it's own microbiology within the soil and plants and the more types that are present the more diverse the ecosystem will be.  Beyond running multiple species of ruminant animals we also plant multiple species of legumes, grasses, and brassicas.  In summer we plant peas, aeschynomene, sun hemp, sunflower, and millet. In winter we plant multiple types of clover, winter peas, lupin, hairy vetch, rye, oats, rye grass, rape, kale, and diakon raddish.  All of these items are grazed before they reach maturity and seed out. We are also sprigging perrenial peanut into our established Bahiagrass fields in order to establish a perennial legume with a perennial grass to reduce our dependence on outside plant nutrient resources.   This is a new technique that is currently being researched and developed with University of Florida.  We currently use broiler litter from antibiotic free poultry houses for fertilizer on our forages.  This does two things, it brings nutrients for plant growth and helps to increase soil biology by excluding salts that chemical fertilizers have.