Our Story
We are a small family farm located in Newport, North Carolina. We specialize in clean and tasty pasture-raised, humanely-processed, non-GMO poultry and eggs. We offer a completely customized approach to acquiring farm fresh poultry for your organization, friends, and family.
Our Vision
Cultivate a stable, secure, sustainable local food economy by empowering our community and its families to grow their own food while respecting the land and honoring our amazing animals.
Mission
Provide an environmental, economic, and socially sustainable model for pasture-raised poultry that builds community, supports the local economy, and produces happy, healthy, clean, and tasty chicken.
Our Delicious Products
All of our products embody our philosophy that everything must be grown with respect and integrity. We strive to grow the healthiest, cleanest, best-tasting, and most humanely-treated birds possible. This philosophy limits our production capacity but also ensures that our birds are grown in a healthy, clean environment benefiting the birds, the land, and you!
We do not apply any pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, or any other chemical to our land. Everything begins and ends with the soil and having our animals forage is the foundation of our farm. We cannot put them out to pasture with a clear conscience if we apply harmful chemicals to the same grass that we want them to eat. It’s just not right.
We also believe that the food we give them should not be genetically modified in any way. This is why we choose to pay extra to have our non-GMO feeds (chick starter, broiler, and layer) shipped from Sunrise Farms in Virginia. It’s an additional expense, but we believe it’s worth it.
Another guiding principle is that animals should be treated with love, respect, and compassion. We do not mistreat or neglect our animals in any way. We spend time with them on a daily basis making sure that their needs are met and they are happy. Their purpose is to provide us with wholesome nutrition and they can’t achieve that goal if they’re constantly stressed out. We have engineered our farming system to produce high-quality products in very low volumes to allow us the time to focus on each and every animal. We do not administer antibiotics to our chickens nor do we provide any growth stimulants. Our chickens are happy, healthy, and all-natural.
What Makes Our Chickens Better than “Free-Range Organic” Chicken in the Grocery Store?
While our chickens are not “certified organic”, we believe they are a superior product to the “free-range organic” chickens sold in grocery stores for many reasons. The term “organic” in this context does not necessarily mean what most people believe organic should be. For meat and poultry products, it generally means that the animal was not given antibiotics and was fed a certified organic feed. While this is a step in the right direction, it does not truly reflect the living conditions of the animal. In most cases, “free-range” chickens are still housed by the thousands in large warehouses where they are de-beaked and subjected to over-crowded conditions. The “free-range” label is attributed to the door that the chickens can use to access the range area outside. The regulations do not state how long the doors should be open or how much time the birds should spend outside. The fact that the door exists and is opened at some point during the day is good enough to get the label regardless of whether or not any birds venture outside.
In addition, these animals are never processed on-site and are transported to a “not certified organic” slaughtering facility usually many, many miles away. Here the chickens are electrocuted with a stunning knife to make them easier to process as they travel through the assembly line. Due to the large production volume, the birds are given chlorine baths multiple times to remove any bacteria they may pick up along the way. It’s no wonder we’ve had so many issues with food-borne illnesses from chicken. Don’t take our word for it, download this article from Consumer Reports and read it for yourself.
Our operations are transparent. You can visit the farm at any time to see for yourself how we raise and process our birds. Please do, we’d love to meet you!
Pasture-Raised, All-Natural, Non-GMO Eggs
We have a beautiful flock of hens which live on lush green pasture in Spring, Summer, and Fall. In the Winter our birds live happily and freely in their winterized hoopies. Our birds enjoy all the freedoms a chicken should have. They live a stress-free life on their own terms where they can roam, forage, scratch, and bathe. They are provided an all natural, non-GMO grain ration from Sunrise Farms and, in return, they provide us (and you!!!) with wonderful, fresh, and tasty eggs. Eggs from our hens are super tasty with rich, golden yolks. You’ll never want to eat another supermarket egg again.
Their hoopies are moved weekly and have all the amenities that our broilers have with the addition of commercial quality nest boxes. The eggs are collected and cleaned every day. A carton of eggs contains a mixture of sizes and colors ranging from light brown to speckled brown to dark brown depending upon the breed. The eggs are beautiful inside and out and will be the best you’ve ever tasted.