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The easiest way to

Find a Local Pastured Chicken Farm

Find the Very Best Chicken

There's a world of difference between the high quality, pasture raised chicken from a small farm and the factory produced stuff that comes from a supermarket. But finding a local source can be hard. Where do you look? What do you ask when you do find a farm to make sure it's the real deal? This directory makes it easy. Look around on the map and click on a pin to get contact info and a link to each farm's website. But also scroll down for some tips on how to tell you've found a solid farm to work with.

Unfortunately, the term"pastured" isn't regulated, so it can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Pretty labels with pictures of green fields on them aren't worth the paper they're printed on. A much better approach is to find a farmer who's open about exactly what pastured means.

What is Pastured Chicken?

Questions to ask a farmer

  • How often do you move your chickens? This is the most important and obvious question. Ideally, chickens should move every day or two. It might be a bit longer if a farmer is using portable electric fencing to make more room for each chicken, but it shouldn't be weeks.
  • Can I visit? Even if you don't have plans to make a trip, any farmer should be more than happy to have you stop by. If you do go to a farm, look to see if they are on fresh grass.
  • What else do you feed your chickens? Unlike beef, there is no such thing as grass fed chicken. Chickens raised for meat must have a concentrated feed source, which usually means grain. Be skeptical of any farmer who tries to hide this fact. Chickens eat grain, and that's okay!

The Grass Makes the Difference

Even though chickens cannot survive on grass alone, grass is still critical to producing the very best chicken. Chicken should be raised outside, pecking and scratching, not in huge factory farms.

Chickens should raised on growing pasture, moved daily.

Truly Pastured Chicken

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Know Your Farmer

If you really want to be confident that you're getting truly local food raised with the very best practices, there is no substitute for knowing your farmer. If you poke around this website you'll see that like many other farmers I put lots of time into explaining what I do and why I do it. Farmers who have less of an online presence will still be happy to explain the way they farm and to show you around if you schedule a farm visit.

News from the Farm

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