Time to Think About Meat Chicks
I know that for most of us our chickens are pets and we don’t eat them. Yet we do like to eat chicken. And we don’t want to participate in the horrific living circumstances of industrial chickens. Our solution? Hatch and raise Freedom Rangers. Though they come to butchering weight slower than the monstrous Cornish Cross, they are good foragers and can enjoy their days toodling about in the pasture.
And let me tell you, once you eat your own home-raised chicken you will never go back to grocery store chicken again. The meat is yummier, the texture is better, and the bones are not a strange pink color from all the hormones and antibiotics. Plus, your dinner bird had a good quality of life on your farm.
We had one of ours for dinner tonight prepared with Jamie Oliver’s amazing Chicken in Milk recipe. I add an extra cinnamon stick, a glug of lemon juice, and I switch out the milk for equal parts Heavy Whipping Cream and Chicken Broth. The sauce is cinnamon lemon garlic velvet.
Here’s the thing though, the hatching eggs sell out really early. I like to order the hatching eggs from Freedom Ranger hatchery — a family of connected family-owned poultry farms. They only have 19 ship dates left between now and the end of August 2023. And you know I won’t participate in the shipping of chicks, so I have to grab the hatching eggs while I can.
So, I just ordered 60 hatching eggs to arrive in late December and to hatch in January. I expect about 40 to hatch, and of those we will retain 26 — so about 14 will be available to others at $7.50 a chick.
Now if a whole bunch of you want a whole bunch of chicks, I can contact the hatchery and see about getting the bulk discount — 360 eggs. But I would need to hear from you soon, and collect 50% non-refundable up front. The hatching eggs would be about $2.50 each and the hatched chicks would be about $3.50 each.
If you are interested in hatching eggs or chicks, let me know as soon as possible.
