Poultry
This isn’t your father’s chicken…
It’s your grandfather’s.
Red Tail Farm chickens are raised from day old chicks bought from a hatchery in Bancroft, Iowa. We brood them in batches of about 300 in a hoop structure that has generous amounts of rain-free shelter along with sunlight and fresh air flow. Two weeks later, its out to the field to feast on grass, clover, alfalfa, crickets, worms, etc. Of course they get plenty of corn and soy based certified organic feed too. Each ‘field pen’ holds 50 chickens and has ample room for growing birds to run and scratch for bugs. A portion of the pen is covered with a tarp to shelter them from the wind and rain and provides them a place to get out of the direct sun when they want to cool off. Each of these pens is moved at least once per day to provide the growing birds with fresh pasture from which to forage. All the pens are surrounded by temporary electric poultry netting that does a perfect job of keeping the local coyotes from getting fat.
At seven to eight weeks, in the cool of the early evening, all the birds are carefully loaded into transport coops for a drive to Arthur, Illinois where they are processed in an impeccably clean, family-run, USDA inspected and certified organic poultry processing facility. They are then vacuum packed, quick frozen and loaded into coolers for the drive back to our farm.
Our chickens are lean and rich with flavor. We think this has to do with the relatively high percentage of ‘greens’ they eat, the organic grain and the fresh air and sunshine. All these things come together to grow a very low stress and healthy chicken. We have no desire to raise animals any other way. All of our grandfathers (and grandmothers) had no choice but to eat chickens like these and considered them a delicacy. Boy, were they lucky!
“I want to thank you for your wonderful chickens that my family and I have enjoyed!
I am amazed at how little fat is on these chickens and what fabulous flavor. I made chicken stock and had virtually no fat!”
Karin Thoele, Clarendon Hills, Illinois
Chick Pix
