Pastured Poultry

An interview with Enos King, Amish regenerative farmer & owner of Spring Creek Meadows.

What do you like about raising pastured poultry in this way, moving them twice a day and feeding them the way you do?

A main reason for raising poultry in this regenerative way is that it is a fun process for me to be involved in and witness.

Secondly, I want to make sure this quality and type of food is available for people who are seeking it out.

How did you get into raising poultry and farming?

I always had an interest in poultry, from the time I was young.

I grew up with a small conventional chicken house (6,000 birds) hosted on my [Amish] family’s land. I liked the birds, but the way we raised those chickens was not appealing to me – if I were to venture into the chicken house, my eyes and lungs would burn, so foul was the smell. I never expected to be raising poultry when I grew up, mainly because of that.

As an adult, what really planted the idea of raising poultry was my reading of Joel Salatin’s books. In his books, I learned about regenerative farming, rotational grazing, pastured poultry. My wife and I thought it sounded like a great idea, and we thought we’d try it out.

We knew this was our dream even before we moved to Virginia, back when we had a one acre property in Pennsylvania.

I knew I wanted to have my work at home eventually, near my wife and children, and in the line of farming.

For some reason, poultry was on our mind.  It was the main thing we wanted to do. It just felt right. So we resolved that poultry was what we were going to start out with. It happened slowly, and now we're here.

Do you notice other differences between the conventional farming you grew up with and your own regenerative farming methods?

I remember helping Mom butcher a few of the chickens (the ones we did not sell), and their livers did not look at all healthy - not bright, like mine do now. Those conventional chickens had a pale or sometimes spotty liver.

When I started raising chickens I saw a big difference between the chickens we butcher now, and the chickens my mom used to butcher. The difference in my liver color versus the conventional chickens’ liver color is proof that my poultry is healthier. I also like the way my chickens smell, much better. I knew I didn’t want that model with the smell and the cramped chicken quarters.

Another big thing that I noticed is that Dad was required to open the chicken barn up at some point, because they wanted to put a label on the chickens (i.e. “free range”). What was interesting is that even though the chicken barn was open, those chickens barely went outside of the barn. They sat next to their feed bowls and stayed inside. So even if their label changed, their lifestyle didn’t change much.

With the model of farming I am employing now, the chickens are outside on grass, moving from one place to the next, eating fresh grass everyday. If they were just outside, and not being moved around everyday, they would trample the grass down until it was nearly gone, and they would sleep on their poop piles. So I find it important to move them everyday.

Tell me more about how you move your poultry around. How often do you move them, and why?

The chickens and turkeys are in mobile coops which are moved twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. They are (happily) forced to eat new grass, to poop on new areas (which, in turn, boosts fertility).

In the beginning I moved them once a day minimum, as I still had a full-time job. It was difficult to move chickens in the dark in the spring and in the fall, while working like that. I noticed that they were starting to get foot sores. That issue has improved a lot now that I move them twice a day.

So would the label “free range” apply to your poultry?

What I am doing with the poultry, which is a form of management-intensive rotational grazing, would best be labelled as “pasture-raised” or “foraged”. The main reason I use a movable coop rather than “free-ranging” my poultry is because of predators. “Free-range” birds have no physical barriers to predators. With 1,000 birds, and no guardian dog, my birds are very vulnerable to attacks from the ground, or from the sky. Such an attack (owl, coyote, etc) can quickly destroy a flock of chickens. So I opt to use spacious mobile coops and give them protection, while giving them as much fresh air, fresh grass, fresh bugs as they want.

Do you think your methods positively affect the nutrition levels in the meat?

I imagine the poultry are much more nutrient-dense due to the food they have been eating. From what other farmers are saying, the meat can be up to five times more nutrient-dense, and even more for some minerals, in these frequently-moved pastured chicken.

I feed them very well – they get a custom feed from River Nutrition in Pennsylvania. It is a non-GMO, soy-free, corn-free, chemical-free feed.

Joel Salatin says that poultry eat about 40% less feed when they being raised rotationally on grass, primarily since they eat so much of the grass, and so many bugs in the grass. So it would seem that my poultry get 40% of their diet from grass and bugs, and 60% of their diet from supplemental feed.

Another difference which I am sure affects the quality of the meat is the slaughtering and butchering process. I have wondered to myself, when looking at the supermarket shelves, about what those birds go through in the slaughtering process. A big difference in the taste is likely in the processing. They dip the poultry in a bleach bath, as they are required to sterilize the meat. Sterilization takes all the good stuff out of the meat.

So you don’t send your poultry off to the slaughter house?

No, I slaughter and butcher by hand here on the farm, which means I am there the day the poultry come onto my land as day-old chicks, and I am there the day they go out as meat to be eaten.

Since I am not required to sterilize my meat (I have an on-farm exemption within the state of Virginia), it retains its’ nutrient-rich, farm-fresh qualities.

Do you have any improvements in mind for your poultry raising system?

My poultry are drinking fresh well water, and I am planning add an in-line injector so I can easily add unpasteurized raw apple cider vinegar to my water system. That should improve their digestive abilities and improve their overall health even more.

You said earlier that you really enjoy raising the chickens and turkeys. Can you finish off by telling me a bit more about that?

It’s really fun in the late summer when there are a bunch of grasshoppers jumping around. The chickens are always running here and there to catch grasshoppers and bugs for themselves. They also love the clover which grows in the spring and summer. It’s a lot of fun when I move them to watch them find a new spot, and to watch them enjoy it.

I also love working with my children with the poultry at our farm surrounding to our home. For one of my little daughters, it is a highlight of her day when she gets to help me with moving the coops. It is a joy to be with them in this way.

I think it’s exciting to have the opportunity to provide this food to people, and when I think about the difference between the two systems (growing up with a poultry barn and now raising chicken in a rotational pastured regenerative manner), I feel happy that I get to farm like this.