How Taking Unwanted Roosters Fits with Our Organic Values?

We are strict about organic practices on our farm and in everything we sell. At the same time, the main source of chicken meat for our family has been unwanted backyard roosters from local families for the past few years.

Their previous feed is often not certified organic, and we do not pretend that it is. However, we still choose to take them because:

• Their past may not be “certified organic”, but these birds have had much better and longer lives than meat birds raised solely for meat on most commercial, even “organic”, farms. They live real lives outdoors, enjoying sun, fresh air, and space to move – not crowded in cages during their very short lives.

• We are not willing to support industrial meat bird factories, where lives are treated not as individual beings but mainly as a source of gain and margin. For the animals whose meat we eat, we want to put their lives first, so that they have the best possible life with only one short unpleasant moment at the end.

• We can give them a calm, respectful end, which for us is more ethical than insisting on purity at the cost of more animal suffering.

• We do eat chicken meat; however, we cannot afford to keep our own meat birds on the farm in the way we believe is respectful (free-ranging, corn- and soy-free diet, enjoying sun and movement) due to our small piece of land and very limited budget.

For us, this is a sustainable and ethical way of sourcing chicken meat. It is completely in line with our permaculture, closed-loop, no-waste, and respectful-to-animals philosophy. We choose to give unwanted roosters a respectful end-of-life — even if their past feed wasn’t organic — because we believe their quality of life with families was much better than on any industrial meat farm, even an “organic” one. We consider this approach beyond organic. We have also met so many wonderful people through this process.

We do not sell rooster meat, and we do not market it as organic. This is a private part of our farm life that we choose to show here openly, so you can clearly understand our values and make your own informed decisions.