Your Essential Guide to Understanding Pasture-Raised Chicken Benefits
Hey there and welcome to Your Faithful Farmer Blog!
If you are interested in finding healthier, more ethical and ennvironmentally friendly options to feed your family then you will want to keep reading this personal guide all about Pasture-Raised Chicken Benefits!
First let me briefly explain what Pasture-Raised means to us.
Pasture-Raised Chickens are just as the name implies, allowed to roam freely on pasture (grass) as opposed to being confined indoors in a chicken house (such as large commodity chicken operations). Even the operations that claim to be “Free Range” can miss the mark if they only offer pasture to the chickens as they can become quite lazy and choose to stay indoors! The ideal situation is to have a mobile shelter that can be moved daily to allow the chickens fresh pasture to forage on and maintain a cleaner environment (this is what we at Snyder Family Farm do- as seen in the blog post pic).
1. Nutrition- Since Pasture-Raised Chickens are able to forage for various insects and plant life in addition to their free choice feed, they contain much more nutrients than a confinement house bird. Pasture-Raised Chickens are higher in Vitamin E and Omega-3 fatty acids (the “good” fats). So, what does this mean for you? Well think of it this way: if the food YOU are eating had a nutritious and well-balanced diet then YOU will also being eating a healthier food. Make sense?
2. Animal Welfare and Ethics- This one to me is a no brainer to explain. Doesn’t being on fresh green grass, access to God given sunshine and enjoying a breeze sound nice? To me it SURE does! Does never seeing the sun, being in tight quarters where you cannot move but a few inches (if they’re lucky) to the left or right and walking around ankle deep in your and your neighbor’s excrement sound lovely? NO of course not! So that is another benefit of Pasture-Raised.
3. Environmental Stewardship- By moving the chickens daily to fresh pasture we are not only benefiting the birds (and subsequently the people who will consume them) but also it greatly benefits the soil! Just look at the pictures of our pastures below! Look at the first picture:
Draw your attention to the 3 distinct sections of grass color in the field.
You see to the left how luscious and deep green the grass is? That is where our chicken tractor has already been.
In the middle is where the chicken tractor has recently passed over.
To the right is our pasture before they have moved to it (future happy grass).
This difference in grass color (health) is due to the chicken manure adding back nitrogen and other nurtients to the soil that can be stripped by other ruminant grazing and cutting.
The second picture is one looking from the other angle, directly behind the chickn tractor. Can you spot the 3 distinct sections?
4. Taste and Quality- Many have claimed that you can taste the difference in a pastured chicken vs. one from a commodity chicken house. I would have to agree with this also! Our family actually feels mildly ill if we eat chicken now that is NOT Pasture-Raised. With Pasture-Raised chickens there is no need for antibiotics (remember a nice clean-living environment) and, at least for us, we can say we don’t give ANY steroids, hormones or vaccines. The chickens truly thrive when raised this way and do not need any “preventative maintenance”.
If you are interested in purchasing some Pasture-Raised Chicken, we can help there too! Snyder Family Farm offers Soy-Free, Non-GMO, Air Chilled Pasture Raised Chicken. Check out our chicken now by clicking HERE.
I hope this guide is helpful to you and you now have a better understanding of the benefits you can glean from Pasture-Raised Chicken!
Feel free to reach out to me if you want any more information or have any questions- I would love to chat!
Your Faithful Farmer,
Heidi