What is Pastured Chicken?

Pastured chicken is the ultimate animal husbandry management system that takes the pasture to the birds. Unlike free range poultry, which can have access to outdoor areas, pastured chickens are moved onto fresh pasture daily. This is achieved by growing the birds, after brooding, in small lots of under 100 inside portable free air pens that are totally open to the pasture below. Cornish cross meat type chickens, which are the world standard in meat birds, are bred for rapid growth, and do not have the natural desires to roam and free range large areas. In the free range model, land nearest the birds housing is overused, and in most management practices a great majority of their housing is basically indoors. Land under pastured chickens is only used for one day of range, then does not see chicken again for over a year. The chickens stay clean, and always have access to fresh air and sunshine.

What do they eat?

Sweet Meadow Farm pastured chicken are getting about 10 to 20 percent of their diet from grazing the pasture they are over and the rest is all natural feed. The grain they are fed contains:

• NO ANTIBIOTICS
• NO GROWTH HORMONES
• NO ANIMAL FATS OR BY-PRODUCTS

Like all grazing animals, having green chlorophyll from plants in their diet does wonders for the animal's health and the meat that it produces on it's body.

Although chickens are not true grazers, they naturally love constant outdoor access to feed on grass and other plants, as well as the ability to scratch around on the ground looking for seeds, grit and other tidbits as Mother Nature intended birds to do.

Sweet Meadow Farm pastured chicken is given this opportunity to live and grow in a non-stressful and healthy environment.

Where do they come from?

Our birds arrive to us weekly from a family operated hatchery on the east coast of the U.S. We recieve them as day old chicks, hatched from breeding stock that is always being selected for growth and breed improvement.

We brood the chicks during their tender first days in light, airy, warm brooder houses on deep natural bedding of pine shavings from a local planer mill.

Even as baby chicks, they have plenty of room to romp and roam and enjoy stretching out to sleep in their deep beds. As they grow, they are slowly hardened off to natural outdoor temperatures and environment.

The chicks never receive any medication and are fed the same natural feed they have during their growing period outdoors. After two or three weeks, the chicks are moved outdoors to their pasture pens.

We currently raise only 300 chickens per week so the pastured management system can be maintained.