Farm Visit: Part 1

On Saturday, I got the chance to visit Full of Life Farm, one of the farms where I like to buy meat. They had an open Farm Day – complete with tour, cattle dog presentation, and picnic (plus some meat-buying). Mostly, I went for the tour, because, though I have read a lot about pasture-based farming, I have never actually seen it in real life.

This post will just be about the chickens, and, boy, were there a lot of chickens.

On a farm that raises animals on pastures, these chickens play a vital role.  They have the important job of “cleaning” up the fields after the cows have moved.  The chickens eat larva planted in cow pies (gross) and fertilize the grass with their nitrogen-rich droppings (no one said farming was all pretty).

This is the Egg-Mobile, where the laying hens hang.

The Egg-Mobile, where the hens lay their eggs and the roosters crow, is conveniently set a few feet off the ground so that the manure drops through and no one has to clean it. Plus, it is easy to get at the eggs and put them in those convenient egg cartons I take home weekly.

The chickens, not surprisingly, were less than thrilled about having hordes of people staring in their house. In fact, some of them escaped out the back…

“Escaped” may be the wrong word, since the chickens can choose to go wherever they want. Instinctively, they come back in the evenings to roost.

Next, we moved on to where the “other” chickens live, you know, the ones that end up in my belly.  There are multiple chicken houses for birds in different stages of their lives.

Personally, I like the ones with the littlest chickens best.

They live in these little huts which keep them safe from owls and other predators, but allow them to get the most from the grass and outdoors. Every day, the huts are dragged a few dozen feet to a new part of the pasture. Where the eating gross maggots and fertilizing the field starts all over.

These chickens are a little older, but will be full grown in a few months and will be slaughtered immediately. They eat a non-organic feed, just a soy/corn/grain based nibble, because going organic would make the cost per animal too high.  They already cost $11 in feed per chicken life and that doesn’t count the cost of the four hours of man labor it takes to care for the chickens per day.  I would prefer organic, but once he had his chickens and organic chickens from Whole Foods and Fred Meyer tested in a food lab – his chickens were four times higher in Omega-3s.  The outdoor life suits them.

And I accept the compromise – happy chickens at a higher price, but not astronomical.

Interested in Full of Life Farm products?  They have an online store and regularly attend a bunch of farmers’ markets.