Polyface Pastured Poultry: Laying Hens

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April 8, 2024

All Polyface chicks begin their idyllic life on Polyface at about 1-2 days old. Our laying hens are custom-hatched from a breed we've developed over the last decade. They contain bloodlines from Rhode Island Reds, Buff Orpingtons, Barred Rocks, and Black Australorops.

After incubation and hatching, the chicks go directly into our "brooder". This brooder houses the chicks and provides a warm, safe, comfortable haven for them until they are big enough to live outside.

After the brooder, they go directly to a grass shelter where they continue growing and are moved every 1-3 days to completely new fresh pasture.

Chickens begin laying at about 5 months of age. At that time, we give them access to cozy nest boxes with plenty of hay and allow them to make their own nests. We do not use industry-standard roll-away nesting boxes. We want to foster the instinct of the hens to lay, protect, and warm their eggs. After all, that's what makes them unique - it's their glory - their chickenness.

We have two types of shelters for these pastured hens. One we call an "egg-mobile". This is a mobile shelter built on house trailer axles and able to move anywhere we choose to put them. This is a land-extensive model. The hens are 100% free-range. Once a day, they get a little...urge...(that mother-hen instinct) that tells them to go back to their nest to lay their egg. They return to the shelter, lay, eat a bite, and they're back off to graze, scratch, run, and bathe. These chickens follow our cows and also act as our pasture sanitation and fly control.

Our other model we call a "Millenium Feathernet". This is a land-intensive model for pastured poultry. These birds are protected and guided by an electric net fence. This fence and the structure are moved several times a week. This model keeps the chickens flocked closer together so that they really focus on ground disturbance. (Remember, things need disturbance to grow.) These hens also act as pasture fertilization.

We still collect all of our eggs by hand every single day. We don't 'grade' our eggs, but we do separate them by size - small (peewee), medium, and large. Because we allow our hens to make their own nests, our eggs are rarely dirty and seldom require real washing. Here you can see one of our team members weighing an egg - she has a carton for medium eggs to her left and a carton for large eggs to her right.

All laying hens' egg production drops off substantially after about two years. Once a laying hen quits laying enough eggs to pay for her food and upkeep, she goes in the stewpot.

"Stewing hens" are our egg-laying hens who have passed their laying days. Because they are too tough to fry or broil, historically they went into stews to be cooked long and slow (hence the name). Crock pots and instant pots today work extremely well. Their attraction is the rich taste and exceptional broth.

Amino acids are complex and take time to develop fully. The reason stewing hens have such a rich taste is through their long life their amino acid chains finish developing and your taste buds understand that full complexity.

Among our team, you'll find several favorite cooking methods for these amazing birds. Joel and his wife Teresa put several at a time in a large roaster pan at about 350 degrees for 4 hours, then pick the meat off. Some of us use crock pots: put the bird into your favorite crockpot, cover it with water, add seasonings, and cook on low for 6-8 hours. For instant pot lovers, we prep the bird in the same way, but cook it on high pressure for about 2 hours, then allow a slow natural pressure release.We then chop the meat into chunks and freeze it in quart containers as precooked chicken, a true convenience food when you need meat salad or casserole quickly on a busy day. We freeze the broth and it is golden rich; truly exceptional. (Learn more in Susan's blog post "More than sustenance".)

Here's a kitchen hack: Keep a bag in your freezer with trimmings from all your veggies! When the bag is full, it's time to make broth. The nutrients in the peels, skins, tops, and odd pieces will power your chicken stock to the next level.

All Related

Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year--that's a lot of stuff going on kind of lumped together. Which brings me to my thought this month: it's all related. Perhaps the signature difference between Polyface and current mainline food thinking is integration versus segregation. I could use numerous words to describe this basic concept, like parts versus wholes, but I think these two are as good as any. Conventional industrial food systems break things apart. We see it on farms that grow only one or two things, without regard for the greater inter-relatedness of ecology, all the way up to packaged and processed food. Modern processed foods don't use whole ingredients; they use pieces of things. They strip out the germ of the wheat, for example. They refine things to the point that the food bears no resemblance to its natural state. Then they put all these pieces together and call it food. But these pieces came from widely divergent places, and the beautiful unprocessed original no longer exists. When Dad and I were brainstorming what to call this farm venture that would eventually become Polyface, Dad's assumption was that we'd call it Salatin Inc.--you know, like Ford Motor Company or Chrysler (named for Walter P. Chrysler, the founder). I was adamant that it NOT be our family name for two reasons. First, I suggested there may be a day when a Salatin isn't at the helm. Secondly, I wanted the name to recognize integrated thinking. I came up with the name "Interface Inc." to recognize the three great environments: water, land, and forest. For 20 years, during what I call our experimental homesteading days, we'd been planting trees, fencing out riparian zones, fencing out the forest to protect it from cows, and developing a landscape plan with these various zones in mind. The State Corporation Commission rejected the name because, unbeknownst to us, Virginia already had an "Interface Inc." It was a labor arbitration company to work out disagreements between labor and management. I was milking the cow when Dad told me the bad news, and I spontaneously blurted: "If we can't be Interface, let's be Polyface--the farm of many faces." Dad laughed, but we both liked the idea, and it stuck and was approved. The point here is that from the outset, all our thinking was about how to leverage the various assets of the diversified ecosystem and then harness the distinctives of the various animals. As a result, we looked at symbiotic natural patterns and have done our best to duplicate them. The Eggmobile follows the cows so the chickens can scratch through cow pies. We use pigs to aerate compost. Our small flock of sheep is like a glorified weed eater, cleaning up fence lines and around farm buildings to reduce mowing. The animals move through the pastures, paddock to paddock; they don't stay in the same place. Illustrative of "conventional-think", Virginia Tech veterinary professors who judged my son Daniel's 4-H talk titled "Symbiosis and Synergy in the Racken (Rabbit-Chicken) House" at the state contest nearly 30 years ago couldn't restrain their skepticism. "Aren't you concerned about diseases with two species that close to each other?" I was never so proud. He was about 15 and, without batting an eye, looked those professors in the eye and replied: "We've learned that most pathogens don't cross-speciate." Folks, I had not prepped him for that question. When he responded like that, those three professors slapped their legs and laughed at the audacious notion. They had no further comments and immediately tried to recruit him to enroll at Virginia Tech and major in Veterinary Science. Instead, he stayed with me on the farm and scaled up these simple integrated relationships to the thousands of animals we have now--with virtually no vet bills. Meanwhile, conventional experts wring their hands over bird flu, screw worm, African swine fever, blackleg, and a host of maladies that attack places where an integrated approach toward biology is severely lacking. Pediatrician Dr. Sharon Goldfield, director of population health for the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, wrote a fascinating op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last week titled "Baby Food and Youth Obesity." She slammed "packaged baby and toddler foods" because they fail even rudimentary nutrition standards. Their surveys indicated that "80 percent of children are eating packaged toddler foods, many of which are ultra-processed, from an early age, with 43 percent of them eating these foods at least five days a week." Kids are eating out of boxes and slurping from concoctions created by a segregated mentality from field to stomach. This segregated thinking even permeates parental decision making, divorcing overall health from food and assuming whatever happens, pharmaceuticals can fix it. At Polyface, everything we do assumes that everything we do affects something else we do. It's that simple. Both land health and people health occur when we realize everything relates to everything. You can't just eat well and not exercise. You can't dismiss the value of sunlight on your skin; especially early morning sunlight. Hydration. Sleep. Stress. Forgiveness. Gratitude. It's all part of us. As we celebrate all these holiday times and imagine the relatedness of Thanksgiving with the Christmas story with the eagerness of a new year, imagine all the things going on in your life and how they work together. Or how if you pull them apart, things fray. Be assured that here at Polyface we're trying to integrate ecology, people, and economy in an overall symbiotic whole to deliver you the best food at a reasonable price. And we thank you for helping us build an integrated whole that respects earthworms all the way to our dinner plate and microbiome. We're not feeding you earthworms, but be assured they play an ongoing role in every bite you enjoy from Polyface. Thank you. Joel