Local farmers careful in choosing livestock processor
A gravel driveway and a parallel tree line box out a rectangular pasture filled with heirloom breed cattle and chickens at Blackbriar Farms in Oglethorpe County. In an adjacent field, Katahdin sheep graze under a wide tree canopy, lambs ducking under their mother’s belly as humans tromp rudely through their grassy living room.
Eventually, Leslie and John Lawson, operators of Blackbriar Farms, will truck their livestock to a processor outside of Augusta — an hour and a half journey — to the facility that will turn the animals into cross-cut shanks, briskets and numerous other cuts for farmers market shoppers and fine dining restaurants.
