What is Pastured Poultry?
Health Benefits
The most obvious health benefit is that you aren’t eating chicken hormones or antibiotics when you eat our pastured poultry products.
The other major health advantage to pastured poultry is that over a third of their diet is made up of grasses and bugs that they eat on pasture. This makes egg yolks extremely bright (indicating a lot of vitamin content) and changes the composition of the meat as well (primarily in the health profile of the fat). There is a direct correlation between animal diet and the health of that animal for you.
Breed Selection
The odds are fairly decent that you have only ever eaten one breed of chicken in your entire life – the Cornish Cross. This bird was designed to quickly grow the plump chicken breasts to which we have grown so accustomed. However, these birds are something of a strange beast – they aren’t like other chickens. For one thing, they are lethargic compared to other chickens – they are simply too heavy to run around foraging on grass, and their legs aren’t really strong enough to support their heavy weight. Their internal organs can’t even keep up with their growth rate, so their hearts give out more easily and their digestive systems can’t process all of their feed. So perhaps they are efficient from an economic point-of-view, but are hardly “natural”.
We have chosen to raise older, heritage breeds of chicken that grow at a more sane speed, believing that this enhances both the flavor and quality of the meat. It also aligns well with our goal of working with nature as God so thoughtfully designed it.
The Cornish Cross – What is Wrong with this Picture?
Quality / Taste
You just have to try these for yourself… when compared to supermarket birds, the comparison in color and consistency is remarkable. And the taste is amazing.
Environment / Sustainability
By putting these chickens on pasture, we do two primary things for the environment:
1) We reduce the amount of row crops that have to be grown, fertilized, harvested, transported, and processed into chicken feed.
2) We turn manure from an environmental negative into a great positive by spreading manure on our pasture as we move the chickens across it rather than centralizing it all in a chicken house where it creates an environmental hazard.
How can I order?
Please see our pricing and availability page.
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