When you visit the farm, you’ll see chickens roaming around in their pasture, scratching in the grass working to turn up bugs and seeds and digging holes in the soft dirt to make a place for a luxurious dust bath. Chickens allowed to live in a pasture have a healthy life and produce the most nutritious eggs based on studies and reported in the Mother Earth News:
“Meet Real Free-Range Eggs” at www.motherearthnews.com
The color of an egg is determined by the breed of the hen. Aracaunas lay green or blue tinted eggs, a Silver Spangled Hamburg lays a white egg, and several breeds including the Buff Orpington, Buckeye, Speckled Sussex, Welsummer, and Cuckoo Maran, all lay brown eggs. We like to have a variety of egg colors in our box of a dozen eggs, just because they’re so beautiful.
In the spring, summer and fall, our hens live out in the pasture in mobile coops. Every day the coops are moved a few feet to distribute the droppings from the hens which fall through the mesh floor and fertilize the pasture.
When winter arrives, the hens move back into their barn where the water is heated to keep it from freezing and there are heat lamps for their comfort in the coldest weather. They don’t like to go out in deep snow so we dig paths for them to keep them from feeling so “cooped up” all winter.
