Pastured Chicken
If your looking for locally grown pastured chicken in the Augusta, GA, Aiken, SC and North Augusta, SC area, you’ve come to the right place. Thank you for your interest. We look forward to growing you “food fit to eat.”
Pastured Chicken
Pasture raised chickens are available in area health food stores, right? Wrong! That organic “free-range” chicken you see in the health food store has probably never seen a blade of grass. The term “free-range” means that it has “access” to the out of doors. The typical health food store organic “free range” chickens are raised in concentration, dust and ammonia filled chicken houses just like any other grocery store chicken.
Taste
Our chickens are raised on grass pasture and have a much better taste than a conventional grocery store chicken. You might compare it to the difference between a garden fresh tomato and a hot house tomato or one trucked across the United States to your grocer. A new customer who ate one of our chickens said: “If this is chicken, what HAVE we been eating?” Pasture raised chicken has a slightly firmer meat texture (not tough) as opposed to mushy. Even the smell of the uncooked chicken is so different. In addition to pasture, the chickens are also fed an all natural feed grown by a local Mennonite farmer.
Humanely raised
The chicks spend the first three weeks in a sunny brooder where they are kept warm. Then they are moved to a large airy shelter in the pasture. Each morning the doors are opened on the shelter and the chickens go outside to enjoy the fresh green grass, insects, and sunshine. While in the pasture they are protected by an electric chicken net fence. During the middle of the day they usually go into the shade of the shelter to rest and eat a lunch of organic chicken feed. Towards evening as it gets cooler, they again range out in the pasture looking for a tasty “salad”. At dusk they again return to their shelter and the doors are closed to protect them from foxes, owls, and other night predators.
Health benefits of eating our pasture raised chickens
You receive the health benefits of a chicken that was nutritionally fed all naturally raised grains as opposed to grains raised by chemical stimulation in mineral depleted soils. In addition, the chickens’ feed includes an organic mineral supplement containing 60 trace minerals. From a visual perspective, the processed chickens have a more yellow fat from the grass that was consumed, similar to the darker yolk color of pasture raised eggs. The fat in cooked chicken broth is also noticeably more yellow. Research has shown substantial increases in nutritional value of pasture poultry, particularly in Omega-3 Fatty Acids and Vitamin A, E, Beta-carotene and a significant decrease in total fat.
What you don’t get: A chicken that was raised breathing fecal dust and ammonia in a conventional chicken house 24/7 its entire life. The chicken will not have received any antibiotics, vaccinations, growth stimulators, genetically modified grains, pesticide laden and chemically produced feed, synthetic vitamins or feed ingredients, or arsenic to be passed on to you. Because the chickens have not received any of these things, the chicken livers are not loaded with toxins and are good to eat. You will find that the chicken livers from our pasture raised chickens are tastier and not nearly as “dry” tasting as conventional chicken livers. You may find that they are the first chicken livers that you liked.