Pastured Chicken

Soul Food Farm raises poultry on our 55 acres of certified organic pasture in Vacaville, CA. Our biggest challenges with our pastured system are protecting the birds from the intense Vacaville heat and from the numerous nighttime predators.

Unlike birds bred to survive the rigors of crowded industrial chicken operations, with abnormally large breasts and the ability to grow unnaturally fast on a carbohydrate-heavy diet, our Freedom Ranger birds are adapted to live outdoors on a foraged "salad bar" diet supplemented with high-quality grain. They are known for their superior taste and meat texture. During the peak grass season we also often incorporate Red Broilers as a second meat bird to offer our customers.

Each week we receive 600 day-old baby chicks from the hatchery. They are first raised indoors for 3 to 4 weeks in a special house we call the nursery (or predators would eat them all), where they get certified organic feed. At 4 weeks we move them into "chicken tractors" out in the field. This year we are using the chicken tractors just to transition the baby chicks from the nursery to the field. They are only in them for about 4 to 5 days, depending on the weather and how well they are adjusting. The next step is to build a large, fenced corral where they are let out and can forage and move freely for the next several weeks. We change the location of the corrals every three days so that they can have clean pasture and new, delicious things to eat.

At 9 weeks our birds are slaughtered and processed by hand at a small Sacramento-area facility. They average 3.5 to 4 pounds.