A New Batch of Chicks

Chicks in the brooder with natural pine straw bedding.

A new batch of 150 broiler chicks arrived on August 11 from McMurray Hatchery. For their first three weeks of life, they’ll be warm and protected in a brooder built by the book—Polyface Designs.

Purpose-built brooder (prior to doors being installed), built using plans from Joel Salatin’s Polyface Designs

Dad’s best helper oversees the chicks, just a few days before moving out to pasture in their hoop houses.

As Darby Simpson says, “Great pastured poultry starts in the brooder.” So we put extra time and attention into getting these chicks off to a good start, with high quality non-GMO feed and special vitamin supplements from the hatchery.

This breed of “meat bird” is optimized for living on pasture, raised for 12 weeks before processing (contrasted with 8 weeks for standard production breeds). This extra time, in conjunction with the benefits of the pasture itself, adds unbelievable richness of flavor. It’s almost impossible to imagine how much better these chickens taste than the grocery store varieties to which we’ve become accustomed.

It’s an honor to raise these chicks from hatch to harvest, providing our customers’ families with nutritious, delicious, local food.