Not all eggs are what they’re cracked up to be. Large production facilities often use terms like “free range” or “cage free”, on cartons, but the life of the chicken may not reflect what you’d expect from those words. Many “free range” and “cage free” chickens are rarely seeing daylight and fresh air each day. When looking for eggs from chickens that are raised naturally, your best bet is to seek out pasture raised chickens from local farms. Be sure to talk to your farmer about their farm practices and philosophy for raising their birds. Most will be very egg-cited to chat with you!

Our chickens do a lot for our farm. By moving them around the property in a mobil coop, we offer them fresh grass and bugs each day. We protect them from the many foxes around our property using an electric netting. In turn they help control grub and tick populations. They snack on various worms collected from our garden crops and scraps as we turn over the garden beds. They help scratch the soil, spread mulch. Best of all they poop! Their manure is spread over our property as they are rotated. The manure is used to feed the organisims replenish nutriends in the soil.

A Penn State study in 2010 showed that compared to commercially raised hens, pasture raised hens had twice as much vitamin E and long-chain Omega 3 fats and less than half the ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 fatty acids. We also supplement their natural forage with a non-gmo, soy free grain to maintain optimum production levels.