Healthy chickens are omnivores. They eat a lot of bugs and grubs and nibble at pasture plants. “Vegetarian fed” chickens which aren’t able to forage on their own are unnatural and unhealthy. Our chickens are not vegetarians.

All of our meat chickens range freely on the pasture all day after they are old enough to spend the night outdoors. They have safe, secure mobile coops to sleep in at night to protect them from predators. If you want the coop plans, send a few bucks to this guy. For predator protection in our area we substitute 1/2 inch hardware cloth for all of the chicken wire, plus some added reinforcement.

In the morning we open the coops and feed the chickens outside so that they all go out of the coops. They have access to the coops for safety but they almost always choose to stay out and forage much of the day except to get out of the rain or into the shade. Some corporate chicken farms advertise “free range” chickens that really just have limited “access” to a tiny strip of dirt. We move our mobile coops regularly so the chickens always have new forage.

After a while the green grass growing in the wake of the chickens each year is so lush and dense, it’s amazing. In addition to pasture forage, we provide the chickens a locally-made, non-GMO chicken feed.

California Chicks for 2025

Sadly, our local hatchery owned and operated by the Jenks family is no longer hatching meat chickens after many, many, many years of being an excellent meat chicken hatchery. We would love to buy locally even at a higher price, but we have been forced to go elsewhere to order chicks. Because our post office is particularly rural, we can’t order chicks from anywhere East: there is too much risk of shipping delays and any delay means the chicks arrive in poor condition or deceased. For 2025 we will be sourcing chicks from family-owned Metzer Farms in Gonzalez, California — the same farm from which we get ducklings. Metzer do vaccinate their chicks against Marek’s and coccidiosis. We wish they didn’t, but due to the result of decades of poor flock management (because of the USDA and Big Ag, not these family farmers), like most hatcheries they feel they have to vaccinate to remain in business.

Click to find out how to pre-order our meat chickens at a discount.

Monthly meat CSA subscribers receive free range, pasture-raised chickens in their shares during the summer and fall. Click here to find out about our CSA.

We also raise Pekin meat ducks, the same way we raise our chickens.

To order duck, click here.

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