We began our flock in 2022, with just 10 chickens. Our flock now has about 35 chickens, and we’ll expand it a bit more in the coming years. The eggs we sell are of the highest quality: the hens freely forage over an often unlimited area of space, their organic grain feed is carefully fermented daily, and they receive a diverse supply of kitchen scraps and crop leftovers.

The chickens play several important roles on the farm. Their waste is essential to our soil fertility, they do a great job foraging ticks and other insects, and they are helping us to manage the invasive plants within designated areas of our forest. In the areas where we’ve sequestered them on occasion, we’ve seen a dramatic reduction in multiflora rose, pachysandra, barberry and Japanese honeysuckle.

We are lucky if we break even selling the eggs, the chickens are a lot closer to pets than livestock here. But even if they don’t make us rich, we feel that they are intrinsic to our farm’s ecology. Besides, they’re cute!

Pickle and Kimchi guard them during the day, and Pickle herds them back to the coop at dusk.