This week, in addition to lots more vegetables being transplanted from the greenhouse into the fields, our first batch of 100 broiler chickens will also leave the cozy but cramped comfort of the chicken coop and move out to pasture. Once there, we will move their portable roofs and electric fencing every day for the next month as they fatten up on grass, bugs, and non-medicated grain. We’ve found that the best “medicine” for our animals is fresh air and plenty of space to move around. The added work of pushing their roofs onto a fresh patch of grass, setting up a new perimeter of fencing, shoeing the flock in the correct direction of travel, and hauling food and water to the pasture certainly increases our daily chore routine. But the conventionally efficient alternative of close quarters and birds that never see the sunshine is a non-starter for us. Animals are “designed” to live outside. Period.
It doesn’t hurt that the pastured farm animals give back to the land, too. All that grain that we haul out to the field is turned into manure that the animals are more than happy to spread on our hayfields for us! Looking down on the field right now from the upper farm road, it is easy to see where the chickens were last season by the dark green stripe of lush grass that grew up in their wake. This is especially important in the field that we have been pasturing our animals in for the last few years, as it is an area that was once a gravel pit and has a very thin layer of top soil. The animals are helping us build that soil back to a healthy ecosystem.
If you’d like to visit the chickens and the pigs next week once they are settled in to their new quarters, you can cross the street from the CSA barn and turn right to follow the dirt farm road. We will mow and flag a path through the field. It’s a bit of a walk, but a great way to see more of the farm and appreciate the importance of animals in a diversified farming system. And don’t forget to place an order for chicken and pork on our website. Our first batch of fresh birds will be ready in July!
But now, on to the veggie harvest!
Cheers
Norah and the Sweetland Crew