Woods-Raised Eggs

One of our Happy Leghorns and her latest boyfriend

Two months ago, we put our chickens in the woods.  But that wasn't the plan at the beginning.  For several years, we had "pastured" our chickens in the yard and garden.  We even decorated one of the chicken tractors for Christmas one year, since we had it out front fertilizing our pecan trees.  A remodeling project last year took a good bit of yard out of production and forced us to make the move to real pasture.  We were going to use a spot of pasture behind the woods behind the house.  Our aim was to follow a mix of the advice we had read from Robert Plamondon, Joel Salatin of Polyface, and Tim and Liz Young of Nature's Harmony Farm.  While we were in our bit of pasture, running electric wire to protect our hens and their roosters from the coyotes and their friends, we decided to fence a bit of the woods to give them access to more shade.  They loved it!  The hens like the pasture.  They are out there early in the morning and late in the evening.  They catch some grasshoppers and nibble bits of clover and shoots of grass.  They are, however, crazy about the woods.  They like the cool, the leaf mould, and the grubs around the fallen logs and limbs.  That's why we say our eggs are woods-raised instead of pastured.  The hens spend more time in the woods than out in the pasture.  They are flourishing, and it shows in the way they act and in the way the eggs taste.  I wish we'd done it years ago.

They didn't cut the tree down, but they are glad the storm blew it over.