Chickens are an integral part of our farm system.  Without them, there would be no harmony.  You see, besides being great entertainment with their funny antics and the ambience they add to a farm with their musical clucking, chickens serve a real purpose.  Yes, they provide good nutritious food, but they are also hard workers.  Chickens serve two major functions on our farm.  First, they scratch through manure patties and dirt looking for larvae to eat, which significantly cuts down the parasites and flies that can irritate other livestock.  Second, they deposit rich fertilizer everywhere they go.  
 
We have decided to use Joel Salatin’s concept of the Egg Mobile for our layers.  We have converted an old cotton trailer to be a mobile chicken house complete with milk crate nesting boxes!  We will lock the door on the Egg Mobile each night when the chickens return to roost.  This will keep them safe from predators.  In the morning, we will open the door and let the laying hens free-range around the pasture. Here they will hunt for bugs and eat green grass.  We will also provide them with a feed supplement of cracked corn and other needed things like grit to help their gizzards.  Hens will typically range about 150 feet from their house so we will strategically place their house near a paddock that the cows have previously used.  This way they are assured of spreading out those cow patties and distributing the fertilizer evenly among the pasture.  
 
While they are busy completing these very important jobs, they are also helping us to provide quality products for our customers.  The hens will use the nests inside the house to lay their eggs.  We will collect these eggs every day and our customers will be rewarded with eggs like you will never find in any grocery store.  Eggs from pastured hens have much higher concentrations of beta-carotene, are higher in Omega-3 Fatty Acids, have more vitamin A and E, and have less cholesterol and saturated fat!  The yolks are orange and the whites stand up firm, not to mention that these eggs taste more egg-like and are full of flavor.
 
We will use Rhode Island Red and Black Austrolorp hens for our laying breed.  They are a considered a dual-purpose bird which means they lay plenty of eggs, but also provide good meat when their laying days are over.  Another reason why we selected
Black Australorpthese breeds is because they are very hearty and live outside in a free-range atmosphere without having problems.  They range well, scratch a lot, and hunt for food.  They typically begin laying eggs around 6 months and can lay consistently for 2-3 years.  At this point, when their egg production diminishes, we will process them for stew birds.  
 
One of the main challenges we have had regarding laying hens is the right to sell the eggs.  In Georgia there is an exemption where you can sell eggs off of your farm without inspection or licensing if you sell less than the maximum number allowed.  We, however, wanted to make sure we had the ability to sell eggs other places too, like at a farmer’s market, so we researched how to candle eggs and the requirements for selling eggs to the public.  You can read more about that in an older post: Egg Candling.  
 
For our broiler chickens, the meat birds, we have decided to raise a breed called Golden Rangers.  We had originally planned on using the Cornish Cross and raising them in portable chicken tractors like Joel Salatin, but then we began to research Label Rouge.  This is a movement in France where strict regulations are placed on raising animals in order to ensure a humane
Golden Rangerenvironment as well as outstanding food quality.  The more we thought about it, the more we wanted to move towards this way of farming. The Cornish Cross birds have been selectively bred for many years in order to produce a chicken that gains weight very rapidly.  So quickly in fact that it reaches market weight in 8 weeks.  Of course, the side effect of this is that they do not range, but rather sit in front of the feed tray.  They also suffer from broken legs and heart attacks due to the abnormal weight gain.  
 
We will raise pastured broilers using a similar type of housing to Salatin’s chicken tractors, however we will open the door and let the chickens free-range during the day.  We will surround them with electrified poultry netting to keep out predators and will include a large canopy in the area so they can graze in the shade and have protection from overhead predation.  The Golden Rangers are a much more active breed.  They will forage for part of their food, but must also have a supplement similar to the layers.  The nutrients they receive from the grass and insects results in health benefits in their meat similar to the pastured eggs.  Also, the meat is firmer and more flavorful due to the exercise they get while ranging.  These birds will reach market weight in about 12 weeks and are a much healthier and heartier breed for our environment.  
 
The major problem we have had with the pastured poultry is the processing.  It seems that the only processing plants left any more are the big industrial factories that cater to large confinement operations.  There just aren’t any small processors in our area willing to process a few hundred chickens at a time.  It isn’t profitable for them.  This leaves us with the only option of processing the birds ourselves on our farm.  The Federal exemtion  allows farmers to process up to 20,000 chickens per year on their farm without licensing or inspection.  The exact reading is:

Up to 20,000 birds of your own raising in a licensed, exempt plant that you own and that’s all you can do and no birds can be slaughtered for any other individuals.  All birds must be labeled as “Exempt Poultry” P.L. 90-492.

The state of Georgia, however, has a law saying that all poultry processing must be inspected and all plants must meet the state requirements.  We would gladly set up our processing area to meet reasonable requirements for our size operation and would welcome inspectors; however there is no staff to do this in our state.  This is what is known as a loop hole!  We have spoken to many officials to figure out the lawful route to take and in the end have decided that all of our poultry will be processed on our farm in an environment that we feel is exemplary and our customers will be the inspectors.  They are welcome any time and our farm, as well as our processing, is completely transparent.            
 

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