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Organic Poultry We raise organic broilers and heritage turkeys on pasture to produce poultry for eating. Raised this way, on grass with sunshine and fresh air, these birds make a truly gourmet product. How is Blue Oak Ranch Pastured Poultry Different? Our birds are truly free range birds. We use range rearing for our chickens and turkeys, the old-fashioned way of producing meat birds. We use mobile "mini barns" and electric fencing to rotate our birds' grazing grounds. They have grass and green feed at all times, and are free to come and go as they please, once they are let out in the morning. Commercial production involves huge barns holding several thousand chickens on a bedded floor. Commercial "free range" is not much better - the only difference is the barn doors are open at one end to a small yard. (By the way, hormones have been banned from use in poultry since 1947. Anybody advertising "hormone free" poultry is selling you hot air. Same thing with "cage free" meat birds - they're never raised in cages, just large warehouse style barns.) Our birds are made ready for your kitchen right here on the farm. We hand-process each broiler - and this process is much cleaner and fresher than the most heavily inspected commercial facility. The truth is, chickens processed in a slaughterhouse are contaminated with fecal matter in evisceration and chilling. By hand processing, the intestines are not torn open and fecal matter never gets near the chill tank - and therefore no contamination. Commercial slaughterhouses soak poultry in as many as twenty chlorine baths to kill bacteria before packaging, a process we do not need to perform. After producing our own poultry, I find it hard to eat storebought chicken. It is bland and tasteless with a slightly fishy, chemical odor. Our birds are fresh and wholesome, and are antibiotic and chemical free. If you would like to view detailed photos of the processing of two turkeys, click here. Be warned, though, that the photos very graphically depict processing from coop to ice water. If you are squeamish or have ethical issues with meat eating, do not visit the processing page.
Katherine building the processing deck, Summer 2004 Waste is produced from any operation. Our poultry processing waste (feathers, feet, heads, manure, blood) are all composted. Now, you've been told all your life that meat scraps cannot be composted - not true. Size, scale, and ingredient composition are key to composting meat wastes. Our compost piles are built of leafy tree mulch, poultry bedding and manure, weeds, and the poultry processing waste. There is no smell associated with the compost. It gets to 170 degrees F, which kills pathogens and weed seeds. The compost is then put back onto the land to improve the soil. Ordering Fresh Poultry As of yet, the ranch is only producing a few chickens for sale, and heritage turkeys for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday market. Our turkeys sell out every time, so please order early! We are looking into producing kosher and halal chickens and turkeys for the table. Please contact us if you are interested. We are working on a regular schedule for customers to pick up their fresh birds at the farm on processing day. So far, it seems that we'll probably work on a quarterly schedule and hopefully work up to once a month processing days. If you are interested in being on our mailing list for grassfed, pastured poultry, drop us a line.
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