Chickens

Our hens lay many different colors, shades, and sizes of eggs, so most customers receive a random assortment of what was laid on the day of purchase. A typical egg carton will include a mix of medium to large brown, blue, green, and white eggs.

Our laying hens have unrestricted access to pasture from dawn to dusk, allowing their diet to reflect what nature intended. We supplement their free-range diet with Omega-3 enriched layer feed and oyster shell, to ensure that our girls stay healthy and produce high quality nutritious eggs. We never give our birds antibiotics, hormones, vaccines, or steroids, allowing them to produce both natural and nutritious eggs.

Unless customers request otherwise, we wash all eggs on the day of sale. Most of the eggs that we keep for ourselves remain unwashed until it's time to eat them. Unwashed eggs have a natural antibacterial coating called 'bloom', do not have to be refrigerated, and will stay fresh much longer than a washed egg. Washing an egg removes the bloom, shortens its shelf-life, and requires that the egg be refrigerated until eaten. Once we wash your eggs and hand them over to you, we recommend that you put them in the fridge within a few hours. If you would rather purchase unwashed eggs, let us know ahead of time.

We sell eggs that are intended for eating at $4 per dozen. 

We do sell chicks from 1 day to 4 weeks old, but chicks at this age require extra attention and constant access to a heat source. We understand that many people are unable to provide this for their chickens, and are happy to take a deposit on chicks that you would like to take home at a later age. 

Price per chick varies widely depending upon age and breed. Typically, chick prices increase with age and rarity of the particular breed.

Female chickens typically begin laying at around 6 months old, though some begin as soon as 4 months and others may wait until closer to 1 year.

Price per laying hen varies, depending on the breed and how long the hen has been laying. A hen that has just started laying will cost more than a hen who has been laying for 1 year or longer.

Though not yet offered to customers, we began raising broiler chickens this year with the goal of never having to buy chicken from the grocery store again. Despite the unpleasentries associated with harvesting a bird you've raised from hatchling, we consider it a small sacrifice to subject ourselves to one moment of unpleasantness in order to spare the bird a lifetime of crowded indoor plumping. While we know there are many responsible commercial poultry producers out there, we just feel better about eating chicken when we know it had a good life on sun-bathed pasture, with as little human interference on its daily routine as possible. Though they may not get as big as the behemoth chickens that come from commercial poultry operations, the taste of a bird raised naturally on green pasture will bow chicken-house birds out of the water any day of the week! Plus, we know exactly what is going into our birds before harvest and can ensure that each one has a good life, is harvested without pain, and is processed according to the highest standards of food-safety and sanitation. No matter what the label says, you just can't get that from a supermarket. 

We're still experimenting with which meat breed we want to stick with, but are currently raising heritage Delawares. They were the last true dual-purpose chicken raised for meat before the monstrous Cornish Cross took over the meat chicken industry. Delawares are working well for us since they are more active foragers than most other meat breeds and do well in a free-pasture settings. If you are interested in learning more about pastured poultry, raising and harvesting your own food, or are interested in reserving your own meat birds from us in the future, drop us a line and we would be more than happy to talk more!