Two weeks ago, we welcomed 1,200 2-day-old baby “Isa Brown” chicks to the farm. This group of chicks will grow to be our replacement egg-laying flock. We arrived at the Crestwood post office at dawn to pick them up from their two-day travel from a hatchery in Michigan. The chicks are packed up and shipped the day they hatch. They emerge covered with their yok, which is a complete hydration and nutrition source for their first 48 hours of life. Before we bring the chicks here on the farm, we prepare by keeping their feed and fresh water ready for their first feeding. A warm and dry brooder awaits, where they will grow for 4 weeks in a protected environment while they get strong and big enough to move out onto fresh pasture.
Hens usually start laying eggs at about five months of age, so this group will begin laying in mid-April. Our older flock that is currently producing eggs will be looking for retirement homes by May 2025, so stay tuned for our announcements in May if you’re looking for a few trusty and sophisticated hens for your backyard flock.
There are several reasons why we love raising poultry on the farm. The eggs add value to our CSA program, and the chickens also provide a critical ecological function for the health of the soil and the land.
Industrial Operations vs. Rootbound
Industrial chicken operations may raise the animals in cages, with their beaks trimmed off, and they are often overcrowded and unhealthy. Historically, antibiotics stimulated an increase in appetite and compensated for these unnatural conditions which led to many diseases. The extreme concentration of animals – in barns that house as many as 40,000 birds – creates a toxic environment for the workers and for the surrounding landscape. And not least of all, this extreme type of factory farming deprives both the farmers and the consumers of our ultimate goal of embedding empathy in our agricultural practices.
Rootbound laying hens live their lives outdoors in our mobile chicken coops, where they graze (yes, chickens eat grass and weeds!) and hunt for grubs, worms, beetles, and bugs. They roost, run, fly, cover themselves in dirt (the chicken version of bathtime), and dig big holes in the ground. We move their mobile coop and electrically fenced yard three times per week. Moving their grazing area provides them with constant access to fresh foraging. In turn, this process allows us to evenly distribute their manure around the farm to build more soil fertility. Those bright yellow yolks are a result of their diverse diet full of nutrients and minerals.
Choosy Farmers Choose Organic
While chickens do supplement their diet with foraging, all chickens also need grains and supplemental feed in their diet. We feed our chickens exclusively certified organic feed. Organic always means non-GMO, but organic goes further to ensure a clean feed that is free of chemical pesticides and herbicides. “Non-GMO” refers to the type of seed, not the production system, so grains simply labeled “Non-GMO” are typically still produced using synthetic fertilizers, chemical herbicides, and pesticides. Committing to organic means no synthetic chemicals or fertilizers in the feed that the chickens enjoy–just healthy natural grains.
As our older flock is aging, we had to limit our availability to Egg Share members only for most of this fall and winter. By April 2025, it will be raining eggs again! We look forward to seeing this new flock grow into the next generation of happy hens raised at Rootbound Farm.
Support Feed Louisville’s No Waste No Hunger Campaign
Feed Louisville is a powerhouse organization, leveraging food donations from across the state to care for and feed our most marginalized and vulnerable neighbors. Feed Louisville is one of Rootbound’s primary food justice partners, and this week, we are joining them for the “No Waste. No Hunger.” campaign.
Every week, we bring our excess veggie bounty and CSA member donations to Feed Louisville’s kitchen, where their staff and volunteers transform the produce into hundreds of prepared hot and hearty meals. Last year’s donations totaled more than 2,000 lbs. of fresh organic produce from our farm. The meals prepared by Feed Louisville are then delivered directly to community partners and tent encampments across the city, reaching people in need of care and providing them with a warm, nutritious meal. For many, it may be the only meal they eat that day.
Here is a packaged meal created by Feed Louisville’s culinary team and ready to be distributed to people in need.
As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, I’m reflecting on gratitude in my own life, and there are so many things to be grateful for: health and family, comfort and safety, and plentiful access to nutritious and healthy food.
It is also my core belief that we are all interconnected in the human family, and I know that far too many people face steep barriers in accessing the healthy food we can produce on a small farm like ours. As we build a thriving family farming business focused on ecological and human health, our interconnectedness means that we must always strive to increase access to fresh, healthy food for all members of our community.
At Rootbound Farm, we believe that the pleasures of good food are pleasures that we all share. Whether it’s biting into a juicy watermelon in the hot Kentucky summer or smelling the tomato sauce simmer on the stove, healthy food makes us feel alive and is also vital to our health. Partners like Feed Louisville help us live into our core beliefs that food is a basic human need; therefore, food is a basic human right.
We invite you to join us this week by making a monetary donation to Feed Louisville’s campaign. Your donation helps to provide culinary equipment, wages for community chefs, delivery expenses, food packaging, and so much more. Feed Louisville will be busy this holiday season, keeping people fed, especially through the winter months. They need our help! Thank you for being a part of CSA, where belonging to – and being accountable to – Community is foundational to building a food and farming system that works for all.
Sincerely,
Bree Pearsall
Recipes
Haurkei Turnips
Butternut Squash
Buttermilk Braised Lamb Shanks
