Pasture Raised

There’s just something about watching chickens on pasture. They’re natural hunters and foragers, eating grass, snagging insects and scratching for earthworms. But there’s another reason we insist our chickens have complete access to pasture; they are our sanitation crew.

You see, chickens love to follow behind cows, just as wild birds followed the buffalo across the Great Plains. They have a symbiotic relationship, cleaning up behind the cows by scratching through cow dung.

What the chickens are doing is hunting for fly larvae, which gives them the protein they crave. Ignore those “vegetarian diet” claims you see on egg boxes, because chickens are not vegetarians, as every cricket and earthworm knows.

As they hunt for larvae they are also spreading the manure, incorporating it into the soil. This not only hastens the breakdown of the fertilizer, but also allows the cows to more fully graze the pasture when they return. You see, cows won’t graze near one of their own fertilizer spots (this is to avoid parasites). So the chickens fix it where it’s gone by the time they return and they’re free to graze the entire paddock!

Everyone wins! The soil is enriched, the cows are happy, the chickens live a great life outdoors and you get the most nutritious eggs and chicken imaginable!

Non-GMO, Soy-Free & No Corn!

Our animals don’t want genetically modified organisms in their feed, and we don’t want to eat GMO foods ourselves. Therefore, our chickens are never fed anything that contains GMO grains, and our layer hens and broilers are never fed soy products.

It makes no sense to use so much American farmland to grow corn and soy for livestock feed, when animals are perfectly capable (and thrilled) to harvest and hunt for their own food. If only they were allowed to do so.

On Rafter W Ranch, they are. So our sheep, cows, hens and broilers are never fed corn. Why is this important? Because 80-90% of corn is GMO and we don’t want to eat GMO’s if we can avoid it.