People are often surprised by how much better our eggs taste compared to any other eggs they've ever tasted. Why is that? One, happy hens lay better eggs; two, our hens are on pasture; and three, we feed them better.
1. Happy Hens Lay Better Eggs
Raising our animals in a humane, sustainable manner is extremely important to us. Unlike commercially-raised laying hens, our hens are given lots of room to roam - year round. (If you want to see how commercial laying hens are raised, you can do a web search which will provide you with all the disgusting details. It's truly horrific and saddening.)
When the temperatures are warm enough, we use a mobile chicken coop, which we move around our pasture. The floor of this coop is open to the fresh green grass, and the door is usually open during the day so that our hens can roam acres and acres of beautiful pasture. Our coop provides shade, cozy nest boxes for laying, protection from predators, and a place to roost at night. Our hens always have access to soy-free organic grain (see number 3 for more details on that) and clean water. When the temperatures drop, we move our hens into our barn where they have plenty of space inside, heat when it gets too cold, as well as access to the outside. As long as there is no snow on the ground, our hens choose to spend their days outside.
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| Happy hens outside - in the winter! |
Why do we go through all this trouble? Because chickens are meant to be outside, eating grasses and plants, and scratching in the dirt for worms and bugs. Chickens are happiest when they're allowed to do this, and happy hens lay better eggs.
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| Our hens foraging with our grass-fed Angus. |
2. Our Hens Are on Pasture
A lot of egg companies are claiming their eggs are "free-range" today, but what does that mean? For a large commercial egg producer, that means that a huge laying house, which may hold as many as 150,000 hens (yes, that's one hundred fifty thousand!), may have a tiny door that allows the birds access to the outside, which is usually a concrete patio. If any of those 150,000 birds happens to find that little door, she could potentially go outside.
As I described above, we keep our laying hens on fresh green pastures with lots of room to explore and scratch. Even in the winter, you'll find our hens outside during the day. The fresh air, sunshine, clean grasses, and nutrients from insects make a healthier hen, which in turn makes a healthier egg.
Notice how orange the yolk is in the picture below. That's a result of the hens eating grass, which is high in beta-carotene.
3. We Feed Them Better
In addition to the plants, worms, and bugs our chickens forage for, we feed our hens a certified organic soy-free grain which we buy from a farmer we know and trust. He grows most of the ingredients himself, procures some from sources he trusts, and makes the chicken feed right there on his farm. Yes, it's more expensive, and yes, we could get feed from a feed mill just ten minutes away, but we drive about forty-five minutes each way and pay more for our hen's feed because we believe in providing the best for our hens. We believe in supporting local farmers who feel the same as we do about sustainable farming. In addition, many of our customers prefer to avoid soy in their diets. Better feed results in better tasting eggs.
Try them for yourself!
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