Here are some of our Most Asked Questions:
1. Are your eggs washed? Yes, our eggs are washed. It is required of us (by the USDA) to wash our eggs in order to sell them. Eggs have a natural coating that keeps them fresh, and once that has been washed off- you'll need to keep them refrigerated to make them last longer. If an fresh egg hasn't been refrigerated yet- it's alright to keep it out of the fridge for about a week (the USDA won't tell you that, Grandma will). Once it's cold- gotta keep it cold.
2. Do you Reuse egg cartons? YES! We can reuse our egg cartons, or any carton that is blank. Make sure it is CLEAN. Any broken shells or cigarette ash isn't good. (No really, once we got a stack of cartons back that had been ashed in!)If it has some other farm name printed on it, we can't use it. We LOVE using our cartons over and over!
3. Are you Organic? Pasture Raised Poultry eggs and Certified Organic eggs are not entirely the same thing . We strongly believe in ecologically sustainable farming, but we are not Certified Organic. In order to be Certified, we would have to use Certified Organic grains- which unfortunately, are grown in far away countries-mostly India and China. We prefer to use grains grown in the United States, using less fossil fuels (7,000 miles across the ocean ain't no little diesel use+ the unethical regulations, or lack their of for shipping) We do not use any sprays or synthetic fertilizers on our pastures. The only medicine we use on our birds is Willow Bark (a pain reliever) for the birds that really need it .Those would be the ones that survive hawk and eagle attacks, or show signs of distress. Usually we give TLC to the 'special needs' by bringing them in to the house and yard and treating them with really good food and electrolytes . Chickens have an amazing healing capability, which means we aren't medicating them unnecessarily.
4. How much space do the chickens have? We have about 350 acres, where we keep our chicken trailers on 'the bottom half', which is about 120 acres. There are no fences around the trailers, so if a chicken wanted to- she could walk for days in any direction. (but they like their houses, so they don't do that...)
5. What do you do about predators? Red Tail Hawks (big fans of chicken) and the Golden Eagles (bigger fans of chickens) are our biggest predators. Raccoons and skunks are problems if a chicken doesn't go in her house at night. We had to livestock protection dogs, which helped keep the predators at bay, but since have retired them. So right now we admire the hawks and politely ask them to not eat chicken. Our wild birds are awesome to watch, and we love seeing Eagles after decades of extermination, but we also love our chickens very much.
6. Do you do let people come visit the farm? We are a very small operation, and generally are so busy doing chores that we don't have the ability to have tours. Feel free to come hang out with us at one of the two farmers markets we're doing!
2. Do you Reuse egg cartons? YES! We can reuse our egg cartons, or any carton that is blank. Make sure it is CLEAN. Any broken shells or cigarette ash isn't good. (No really, once we got a stack of cartons back that had been ashed in!)If it has some other farm name printed on it, we can't use it. We LOVE using our cartons over and over!
3. Are you Organic? Pasture Raised Poultry eggs and Certified Organic eggs are not entirely the same thing . We strongly believe in ecologically sustainable farming, but we are not Certified Organic. In order to be Certified, we would have to use Certified Organic grains- which unfortunately, are grown in far away countries-mostly India and China. We prefer to use grains grown in the United States, using less fossil fuels (7,000 miles across the ocean ain't no little diesel use+ the unethical regulations, or lack their of for shipping) We do not use any sprays or synthetic fertilizers on our pastures. The only medicine we use on our birds is Willow Bark (a pain reliever) for the birds that really need it .Those would be the ones that survive hawk and eagle attacks, or show signs of distress. Usually we give TLC to the 'special needs' by bringing them in to the house and yard and treating them with really good food and electrolytes . Chickens have an amazing healing capability, which means we aren't medicating them unnecessarily.
4. How much space do the chickens have? We have about 350 acres, where we keep our chicken trailers on 'the bottom half', which is about 120 acres. There are no fences around the trailers, so if a chicken wanted to- she could walk for days in any direction. (but they like their houses, so they don't do that...)
5. What do you do about predators? Red Tail Hawks (big fans of chicken) and the Golden Eagles (bigger fans of chickens) are our biggest predators. Raccoons and skunks are problems if a chicken doesn't go in her house at night. We had to livestock protection dogs, which helped keep the predators at bay, but since have retired them. So right now we admire the hawks and politely ask them to not eat chicken. Our wild birds are awesome to watch, and we love seeing Eagles after decades of extermination, but we also love our chickens very much.
6. Do you do let people come visit the farm? We are a very small operation, and generally are so busy doing chores that we don't have the ability to have tours. Feel free to come hang out with us at one of the two farmers markets we're doing!
