It’s chicken season! Cattle and pigs we have year-round, but meat chickens are seasonal, and the season started last week with the arrival of 400 chicks. The chicks will spend a few weeks inside, in a warm, controlled climate, before they go out on pasture, moved to new pasture daily. There they eat grass (in addition to organic grain) and peck for bugs and whatever else they find on the pasture.
This is our second year raising chickens. Last year they became a customer favorite. The meat from these pastured chickens is unlike conventional chicken. It’s full of flavor and is so juicy. It also makes terrific, flavorful broth for soups.
We’re raising a flock of soy-free chickens, along with our standard whole-roasted soy-fed chickens. Soy-free chickens don’t grow as fast as the ones fed soy feed (You can read more about it here), so you’ll notice a price difference. The soy-free chickens are going to be ready June 19th, and we’re not planning on another 2018 soy-free flock, so you need to order your soy-free chicken asap.
We have eggs! We got a flock of layer hens this year. They are free-range, spending their time on pasture (natural pest control!) and fed organic grain. We’re offering an egg CSA starting in June. This is a weekly share of 1 doz brown eggs every week starting in early June and ends Mid-November. The egg CSA is only available at Homefields in Millersville (check out their weekly vegetable CSA). We also planning on having our eggs available in June at a retail location in Marietta.