What comes first, the chicken or the egg??

written by

Jared Frye

posted on

February 23, 2022

To continue our miniseries on chickens, we thought this week we would go back to the beginning and talk about the process of getting baby chicks and how we keep them until they integrate with the rest of our flock.

First I should start by saying, we don’t have a rooster. So our chickens don’t lay fertilized eggs, meaning we have to have an outside source if we want to grow the flock.

There are several ways of getting started in raising chickens, you can:

Purchase fertilized eggs and hatch them in an incubator
Buy day old chicks and raise them in a brooder
Purchase pullets (aka teenager chicken) which are fully feathered and ready to go outside

We choose to start with day old chicks. We do this for two main reasons.

We get to manage them from the start, and make sure they’re fed and treated the right way
They’re stinking adorable

So where do baby chicks come from?

Once again, there are multiple options here. If you’ve stopped by Tractor Supply in the spring, you’ve heard those baby chicks chirping in the store. Then there are local farms and larger hatcheries that will ship day old chicks around the county. We prefer to get our locally, but use hatcheries when our local farmers don’t have availability. We prefer these hatcheries to Tractor Supply because we like to work directly with the farm that hatches the egg. We have a relationship with them, and we know and trust their processes. Shipping chicks through the mail is something that sounds crazy, but is safe because of the biology of a baby chick.

Newly hatched chicks are able to go 72 hours without food or water. In nature, not all chicks hatch at the same time. The mother hen will sit until all her babies are hatched, before going to get them food/water. So these babies take a big gulp of albumin right as they are hatching from the egg to sustain them until momma can feed them. Hatcheries use this to their advantage. They only ship chicks on their hatch day. They have a very close relationship with USPS, and ship in special containers. USPS agrees to get those sweet babies where they’re going in 3 days or less. For us, we almost always receive them less than 24 hours after the hatchery drops them at the post office. So they’re home and setup in our warm brooder with food and water well before the 72 hour mark.

So what’s a brooder? The biggest objective with young chicks is keeping them warm. During their first week of life they need an environment that stays somewhere around 95 degrees Fahrenheit. The easiest way to do this is by creating a contained environment where you can control the temperature, which is commonly referred to as a brooder. They’ll stay here until they are fully feathered and can regulate their body temp enough to handle the outdoors. This amount of time will vary depending on the time of year and the weather pattern. We always err on the side of caution and keep the girls inside a little extra time.

Once they’re ready to go outside, they move to the “grow out pen.” They get their own coop and fenced area, so they can start to learn to forage, and have plenty of space to stretch their teenage legs. We set it this up right next to our adult flock. That way they can see each other but can’t directly interact. Chickens have a very distinct pecking order, and they can be pretty intense when newcomers arrive. So, we give them a couple weeks to get used to seeing each other in the yard.

Once we’re comfortable that they’re acclimated, it’s time to join forces. One funny thing about chickens is they have a very serious instinct to sleep after dusk. They go in their coop (or wherever they deem fit to sleep) at dusk, and they go into a light comatose state. We use this to our advantage, and always combine flocks at night. Because of this instinct, they will all just go to sleep in the “adult” coop. If all goes well, when they wake up, they act like the new chickens have been there all along!

Next week we’ll talk more about our adult chickens, where they live, what they eat, and what they do all day!

Why is Our Meat Frozen?

One thing that I’ve heard from folks at the various venues before and was mentioned a couple of times in the survey was our meat being frozen instead of thawed. So, let’s dig into that a little more this week and explain some of the logistics of our operation and compare that to the meat you could (because you don’t right?!) buy ‘thawed’ at the grocery store. We’ve talked previously about food labeling laws and the loopholes that exist to allow imported meat to be labeled as “Product of the USA” – and if you missed those emails, I made them into blog posts so you can find them here. But the key to that is that a lot of meat is being imported into the US. According to a report done by Reuters in early November the US is on track to import a record 3.7 billion pounds of beef by the end of 2023….and if trends continue that will reach 4.2 billion pounds in 2024! And that’s just the beef! Now, is that meat in the grocery store really fresh? Australia is one of the largest suppliers of beef to the United States, a journey that takes anywhere from 4-6 weeks depending on the port of entry to the US. I did some digging online and depending on which import company you look at some claim to be ‘wet aging’ the beef in large containers kept extremely cold during the journey and others will freeze the large primal cuts of meat and pack them tightly into those containers and let the crammed in meat help to keep it all frozen until arrival. Once in the states whether frozen or not, that meat is taken out and then processed down into the final cuts of steaks, roasts, and ground that you would get at the grocery store. Then is has to been shipped to a distribution center that then ships it out to grocery stores across the country. I mean if you like well travel meat, there ya go! That ground beef has seen some things! And all of those steps are done without freezing the meat? I don’t think so! That’s anywhere from 8-10 weeks from slaughter to showing up in the meat case at the grocery store. And you have no idea where it came from? Our process is a little shorter…just a little! For instance, as this message hits your inbox we’re on our way to the processor to drop off another load of cows. That same day those animals will be cut into large primal sections and then hung in a cooler for 14 days to dry age. And if you’re curious about dry aging, check out this link (Dry Aged Beef: What Is It and How Does It Work? – Robb Report) it’s one of the best explanations I’ve read about the process. On the 14th day those primal cuts are taken out, all the ‘aged’ meat on the outside is trimmed off and the large cuts are then cut down into individual steaks, roasts, etc. Once everything is cut, it is packaged, loaded into boxes and placed into one of their large walk-in freezers. We receive a call that day or the next that it’s ready to pickup – we’ll drive down and get the product and bring it back to the farm ready to sell to all of you! So, when you’re buying from us or another similar local farm you are truly getting some of the freshest meat possible! If we were to keep all the meat unfrozen we would need to get it sold extremely quickly…1 cow will typically produce over 400 pounds of fresh meat. Let’s just say on average a pound of beef is good for 3 days when kept in the typical fridge, we would need to get rid of all 400 plus pounds in less than a week! And as much as I wish we were selling 300-400 pounds every 3 or 4 days….well we’re not there quite yet! We really are trying our best to get all of you the freshest, highest quality meats we possibly can. And while several of you commented in the survey that while you wish you could get thawed out meat, you also said, it’s more important that you know where it came from and how it was raised. Hopefully that helps you some with knowing why our meats are available how they are, and while that may not be exactly what you had in mind it’s one of the freshest options available when buying individual cuts! As always thank you for reading and continuing on this journey with us! Jared