The Tale of Two Chickens

The City Chicken

The first chicken, the city chicken, went to a factory. It’s not a literal factory, but it acts like one.  This is the kind of place where people push buttons and everything works and then they can just come back tomorrow.  This chicken will grow up with thousands and possibly thousands and thousands of its closest friends…and by closest that doesn’t mean that are friendly necessarily.  They may be “cage-free” or “free range” but this mainly means that they are raised in a factory environment.  Even organic simply mean they are fed organic feed and does not speak to the type of life they lead.  This chicken will grow up only knowing artificial light and the breeze of ventalition fans .  Maybe it’s lucky and is near the end of the barn that is open to the outside world.  It will eat exactly the same food everyday with no variation, meaning it will all taste exactly the same.  When this chicken reaches its full size, it will be loaded onto a truck and taken to a facility where an assembly line will process it.  It will be run through a gauntlet of hot water to scald it and then an aggressive plucker…and possibly a series of bleach baths to cleanse it.  It will be processed in working conditions that are so rigid that workers are known to wear diapers to work because they don’t always get breaks when needed.  It may be mechanically separated into the products available at grocery stores and restaurants.  After the chicken and its MANY friends are cleared out for processing the barn will need to be cleaned out. All the bedding containing all the waste will have to be removed and somehow disposed of.  Because of the high concentration of straight manure, it becomes a burden on waste treatment facilities to process it.  

                               The Country Chicken or Pasture Raised Chicken 

The second bird, the country chicken, will arrive with its fluffy friends at the post office down the hill.  When it arrives, the gentle hands of the farmers, including the young farmers, will take the chick and each of its friends and dip their beak in water to make sure they know to drink.  It will spend its first bit in a brooder with deep wood chip bedding, heat lamps in an Ohio hover, and a constant eye.  The hover acts as a mother hen would, chicks can snuggle up under it to get warm or wander out to explore and eat.  The chick will spend this time in its life with about about 300 other chickens and possibly some turkeys.  It’s a group size that would be found in nature with wild birds in undisturbed areas.  A flock that is sized to help keep each other warm at night, but not so large to cause social stress.  Once the chick gets all its feathers and has been slowly adjusted to having no heat it will move to a pasture pen.  Now the days will be filled with bright mountain sunshine, warm summer breezes, lush green grass under foot, rich soil for dust bathes and bugs & worms for snacks.  The chick will be protected from harsh weather and predators in the Pasture Pen with its friends.  It will be able to watch safely as foxes roam the fields, outside the electric fence, hunting for themselves.  Every day, it will be moved forward so that it never spends the same day in the same place.  New bugs, new grass, new ground, a new place to dust bath and hang out in the sun.  The mix of grasses and other nibbles the chicken picks up will add additional flavor to the meat.  It will also be fed organic and given the enrichment and movement any animal should have.  When the time comes this chicken will be gently gathered into a crate and will then have its only bad day…again in the gentle hands of those that raised it and carefully watched it grow.  The chicken will be processed carefully and packaged for sale; however, those that do so will honor the sacrifice of this chicken at heart and will pass it on to the customer and community.  After the chicken and its flock mates are processed, there is no clean up needed because all their waste was evenly distribtibed over the field where it feeds the grass and soil for next years chickens to travel.  

Which chicken would you rather put on the table for your family?  If you are with us and reading this, I’m sure you’re here because you are looking for the country chicken over the city chicken.  It is an honor for us to raise a premium food you can serve to your family knowing that it was well cared for in a way that restores the environment.  The pictures of the city chickens living and processing are stock photos I was able to find.  In most cases, visitors are not allowed in those facilities.  We have an open door policy.  If you ever want to see how your chicken is raised or processed, come on by!  Same goes for eggs, beef and pork.  We are by no means perfect.  We have lots still to learn and are always looking at ways to improve what we are doing, with the welfare or our animals and the health of the environment at the forefront of all of our decisions.  We believe that our chicken is absolutely some of the best you can find-juicy, tender and flavorful.