Liberty Pastures Chicken

The typical meat chicken raised in the U.S. grows to maturity (7-8 wks) so unnaturally fast that they can barely walk at their mature weight; they cannot mate on their own, and if not processed, would die at an early age due to organ and leg failure. In fact, these chickens do not act much like chickens at all: they do not dust bathe, scratch for insects, or actively roam around; for the most part they simply lay around and eat whatever is in their feeder.
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At Liberty Pastures, we have opted to avoid raising the typical modern hybrid chickens; instead we are raising two different types of chickens which look like, act like, breed like, and grow like normal chickens. The natural instincts and behaviors are preserved in our chickens, our birds love foraging in pastures, free ranging outside, always looking for natural sunlight and fresh air, as well as scratching and dust bathing - Just what you would expect from a chicken.

Heritage Chickens - What are now typically sold as laying chickens, but were the normal meat birds until the development of the hybrid breeds in the late 1950's. These include, Buff Orpingtons, Barred Rocks, Black Star, Speckled Sussex, White Giants, and Black Giants. These breeds grow at a slow rate (16-20 wks) and take considerably longer to reach a mature weight, but are natural in their genetic stock.

Freedom Rangers - This breed was derived from old American and European heritage breeds, in the early 1960’s, to meet the highest standards of the French Label Rouge Free Range program. The Freedom Ranger is used by most non-factory farm production models across Europe and by small pastured poultry producers in search of a traditionally raised farm chicken. While they grow faster (12-14 wks) than a true heritage breed, the Freedom Ranger Broilers still maintain their “chickenness” and are excellent free-rangers.
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The overwhelming majority of organic cage free chickens are not really raised on a farm like the cute little picture on the packaging. In fact, only a fraction of a percentage of them are raised in an environment you would consider a farm. The overwhelming majority of them are raised in a factory environment; a tiny cage or in a giant warehouse.

We decided to do something very different, we opted to raise chickens on a real farm, not in a factory. Our birds eat an all natural diet and spend the majority of their life outdoors, in our pastures. They live in a 6000sq foot paddock which is moved to fresh pasture every 3-4 days. Their diet consists mainly of grasses, legumes, seeds, insects, and even the occasional vole.

Not only do we have an "open door policy", but we encourage our customers to tour our farm and see for themselves how we are raising our animals.