PASTURED CHICKEN VS. COMMERCIAL CHICKEN
Commercial chicken houses (top egg layers, bottom meat chickens) are pictured at left. This is where your grocery store chicken, fast food chicken, and likely your restaurant chicken comes from.
FACTS ABOUT COMMERCIAL CHICKEN & EGGS
1. CHICKENS ARE MEDICATED.
Close confinement results in disease. Most chickens are medicated even if they are not sick. Over administering animals antibiotics is causing bacteria to become resistant to the drugs and is leading to new strains of superbugs. New salmonella strains are originating from factory chicken farming. Read more about how factory farms are farming superbugs here.
2. RAISING CHICKENS IN BARNS IS INHUMANE.
Up to 1,000,000 egg laying hens are confined together in cages with 8 chickens per cage. Each chicken is afforded the space of a 8x11" standard sheet of paper. The cages are stacked on top of each other to maximize space. Normally, beaks are cut off at hatching to avoid chickens pecking one another to death. Dead birds, which are difficult to detect, often remain in the cage with the other hens. Meat chickens are also raised in barns where they breathe ammonia and fecal dust during their 6 week lifespan.
3. EGGS FROM BATTERY CHICKEN HOUSES ARE MISSING NUTRIENTS
Eggs from factory chicken farms are watering and pale. They are devoid of nutrients and have almost double the cholesterol of free range chicken eggs. Commercial products in your grocery store called "Free Range" mean that chickens are not confined to cages, not that they spend anytime outdoors.
4. CHICKEN BARNS ARE BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
Large concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) are terrible for the environment. The smell of these operations is your first clue. The concentrated ammonia waste generated in each chicken barn is hazardous.
THE FREE RANGE DIFFERENCE
FACTS ABOUT SORRELS BEEF COMPANY
FREE RANGE EGGS
1. CHICKENS ARE NOT MEDICATED AND NO HORMONES ARE ADDED.
Our animals develop a healthy immune system and do not require antibiotics.
2. FREE RANGE EGGS ARE BETTER FOR YOU
True free range eggs, where chickens are literally outside foraging for food, have amazing nutritional properties. Polyface Farms, a farm that offers eggs like ours, had their eggs analyzed and compared with grocery store eggs. The differences were REMARKABLE:
3. CHICKENS EAT WELL AND GET PLENTY OF EXERCISE
Chickens love insects, grass, clover, fruit, vegetables, grains, you name it! They enjoy travelling around the farm foraging on the pasture sampling different foods. They enjoy companionship with cows as they remove the flies from the cattle. Chicken feed is supplemented with grain from our neighbor farmers in the winter. Chickens sleep in their coop at night and are free to roam the property during the day. See the difference in color in photos at right between the dark yellow eggs and the pale grocery store eggs. This color is from different nutritional differences in the eggs.
4. FREE RANGE CHICKENS ARE BETTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
Chickens don't stink when allowed to free range. They are very clean animals. Their manure is evenly distributed on the property and mother nature does the sanitizing!
