Raising Organic Chickens

Many people begin raising organic chickens to help them achieve a simpler, healthier life for their families. They want fresh eggs and chicken meat without the added antibiotics, steroids, and other additives that often accompany the store bought meat and eggs that you find in the market today.

If this sounds like you, then you can go as deep into raising organic chickens as you want. By simply raising your own birds in your backyard, letting them free range , eat on your grass, and then supplementing that with off the shelf chicken feed from your local feed store, you can achieve a much healthier and happier bird.

Although this may not be truly organic. In a lot of ways it is up to you to determine what constitutes raising organic chickens.

According to a study conducted by the USDA in 2006, "Conventional broiler and egg systems mostly use confined, high-density, mechanized housing.

Most broilers are raised on litter in houses of 20,000 and more, while most layers are caged in houses of 40,000-100,000 birds.

Unlike organic poultry, conventional poultry do not have access to outdoors or natural light" (2006,Oberholtzher, Greene, and Lopez). What this means is that we are eating meat and eggs from birds that are raised in an overcrowded environment and that don't even see the light of day.

How healthy would we be if we were caged in a confined space from birth and never allowed outside. When you compound the situation by giving drugs to prevent chicken diseases, due to their stressful environment, you are creating a recipe for unhealthy chickens.

You now understand why even partly going the organic route is healthier for the birds and in turn healthier for us, the consumer of meat and eggs, but if you want to go a step further and sell organic chicken products you will get into amore gray area, because there is not a universal standard for raising organic chickens.

A great help when it comes to free-ranging your birds and keeping them safe could be a chicken tractor.

If you have a small flock, it could be a very good solution for you. You can move these coops around every day and give your birds new grass to scratch, new bugs to feed on, and different nutrients, while also keeping the piece of mind that your flock will remain safe from dogs, foxes, coyotes, and many other predators that may be trying to have chicken for dinner.

What is true "organic" when it comes to chickens?

There are several factors that may play into what organic standards that you have to follow when raising organic chickens to sell for meat or egg production.

If you are selling less than 5000 dollars worth of product each year you can basically follow the simple organic solutions and be honest.

When you are selling more than that per year you must be certified bystate or private organizations under the uniform standards that were set up by the USDA. These standards in action have a tendency to vary slightly from organization to organization and from state to state.

One of the best guides to follow is a book by Gail Damerow in "Storey's Guide to Raising Chicken's." The following is a shortened version of Gail's guide to raising organic chickens:

Personally, I'm more of the belief that I'm doing all that I can do to provide good egg-laying birds having my chickens free range and supplementing that with regular chicken feed. In the future though, I do think that I want to move more toward organic. Considering that I currently try to take care of my birds through preventative management, as is suggested, and stay away from drugs (so far, you never know what one could catch), the only major thing left is what my chickens eat.

In the coming months I'm going to check out many different organic feeds and then report on how they went over with the flock as well as take into account availability and price.

I'll give you guys a full report on my findings. Please check back often for updates, as I begin my journey in raising organic chickens.

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