fresh, in about 10 weeks

Industry standards for growing chickens is now less than 80 days.

While it is not growth hormones that make this happen, even in organic birds there is a compound that is like arsenic. In conventional birds there is arsenic and there are antibiotics, each of which is known to cause the birds to eat a little more each day, which results in slightly greater growth every day. Compounded this means the bird is to size quicker.

We only grow chicken for meat in the warmer months. The first flock arrived earlier this week. Our feed comes from a local company, known for offering organic and GMO free feed. They make a custom blend for us that does include some trace minerals, but no arsenic or antibiotics!

The financials work out better for a farm growing birds faster. We don't do this. Our birds grow slower and spend most of their day browsing, grazing, scratching and hanging out. Folks who get our chickens tell us they taste clean. The birds cook up clean.

Cheap food. Not cheap, really. We used to know, as food growers and buyers, to look at the eyes and the organs of the animals we eat. To look for clear eyes and organs that looked healthy, blood that looked clean.

We are told and we know ourselves that the livers from our chickens cook up beautifully. The livers look like dark chocolate, plump and a lovely dark color.

As a society we have been taught to consider these indicators of health to be disgusting. We have been taught to not eat them, let alone know what to look for as indicators of health.

Makes a Farmer's wife say hmm...