Pastured Eggs

Chickens like grass. And even more, they like bugs! After starting their lives in a deep litter bedding system where they protected from the elements and predators, our chickens move out to pasture at five months of age, just before they start laying eggs. They live in mobile chicken coops and are surrounded by electric net fencing to keep out coyotes and other hoofed predators. This system provides them with fresh grasses and a slew of other plants to eat, along with plenty of bugs and worms.

Do not be fooled by “vegetarian-fed” labels on egg cartons — chickens are omnivores and need protein to produce rich, healthy eggs. In addition to all the delights of the pasture, our chickens’ eat a grain and mineral ration from a local mill to ensure they are meeting their nutritional needs.

Rotating chickens on pasture – in our case we typically give them quarter acre grids – allows them to truly behave like chickens, which includes dust bathing in the sun, running around and taking short flights and scratching and pecking to their hearts’ content. Our chickens generally follow our ruminants in a rotational pattern, so they even peck through the cow patties for fly larvae, sanitizing the pastures for the cattle and goats and keeping the pesky fly population down.

We collect eggs at least one, often twice a day, and bring them to Laughing Buddha several times a week. Even with a more than 1,000 birds, we can barely keep up with demand for eggs. That means that you are often getting eggs that were laid in the day or two prior to your purchase. It doesn’t get fresher than that!

After two years of laying eggs, we retire our hens. We sell them live to go on and continue laying in backyard flocks or for individuals to process themselves for meat consumption.