496169 Wed Mar 05 17:47:21 -0800 2008 13 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 3464217 This term crops up repeatedly on the Ontario Board (including toronto) and I've never encountered it before. "Pastured eggs" - I have this vision of a rooster with a nose ring, staked out in a grassland vista for the safety of passing hikers LOL. I'm curious about the term: is it in use elsewhere? None of our local producers use it that I know of. Can anyone, particularly a small, farm-gate producer of any type of flock, explain how it differs from free-range? Is "pastured" an accepted designation in other jurisdictions? Here is a typical thread: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/483980 No sarcasm here, only enlightenment is intended. Wed Mar 05 17:47:21 -0800 2008 55318 DockPotato 1 3464299 From my reading your link I would hazard a guess that it means free range - as in "put out to pasture". pasteurised eggs, is something else entirely of course Wed Mar 05 18:16:00 -0800 2008 3464217 104230 kmh 1 3464315 Pastured eggs come from hens which are allowed to roam in the field and eat grass and worms rather rhan be fed organic feed. They are reported to have less fat, less cholesterol, and more vitamins and more omega-3 fatty acids than eggs produced by farmed hens. Studies have been ongoing since the early 70's but it seems that hens that have been allowed to roam free produce the very best eggs we can eat. Frankly I love the notion that the chickens are outside and not cooped up in strict environments. It reminds me of the chickens a neighbor had when I was growing up and the wonderful fresh eggs mother bought from Mr. Elissio. Wed Mar 05 18:21:28 -0800 2008 3464217 75332 Gio 1 3464500 At least in the United States free range is almost meaningless--the chickens have some at least hypothetical degree of access to the outdoors. All you can be sure of is that the hens are not in little cages. You could probably have a 2000 square foot hen house with a 100 square foot fenced run outside a little hatch and still get away with calling the chickens free range. Pastured implies that the chickens are raised on pasture, whether grass, clover, alfalfa or some mixture. Movable pens complete with nest boxes for layers are frequently used to control disease and protect from predators. The birds are fed grain in addition to the greens and whatever bugs, slugs, etc. they can catch. I doubt that anybody is pasturing hens in Ontario or northern Illinois (my home) in winter. In any case this production method is labor intensive even when the nests and roosts are mounted on wagon frames. One big advantage is that antibiotics are not needed to control coccidiosis, which was a big problem with chickens before sulfa drugs and then antibiotics were routinely used in chicken feed. I can't see letting hens run free around the farmstead as commercially viable for egg production, particularly if there are any foxes, coyotes or loose dogs around. The hens really need to be protected at night. Feeding greens such as kale or Swiss chard will produce deep color in the egg yolks as will feeding good quality alfalfa or clover hay. Wed Mar 05 19:28:55 -0800 2008 3464217 11364 Eldon Kreider 2 3465498 Because chickens are creatures of habit, they actually will go - of their own free will - into a building at night where they can be secure from predators. You give them a home, equip it with roosting perches, feed trays and nesting boxes and most will happily return home promptly at dusk, no matter what. You then have to remember to shut the door to keep critters out. So yes, you can quite easily pasture large numbers of chickens if you want. I suspect the reason most people don't do this commercially is because these freewheeling chickens wander around during the day, scratch up your flowerbeds, sun themselves on your lawn furniture, help themselves to your ripe tomatoes. The odd renegade chicken will choose to nest somewhere secret and then, if there is a rooster in the flock, show up 3 weeks later with a brood of chicks. But most of them do lay their eggs in the nest boxes and tolerate having their eggs collected daily. I speak, of course, from experience. Sadly, the night before last, my husband failed to securely latch the coop door and a ravenous raccoon broke in, causing havoc and killing seven chickens including my beloved Countess Dracula. I am bereft. But at least Fanny the Idiot survived the attack. Pastured eggs are seriously the best. In the winter less so than in the summer, of course. Their summer diet consists of everything from caterpillars to begonias; their winter diet is mostly commercial grain with kitchen scraps and lettuce trimmings I pick up from the supermarket. But even on the coldest days, some of them still go wandering around the yard and like to hang out under the bird feeder in case a chickadee drops something. Thu Mar 06 08:08:23 -0800 2008 3464500 12383 Nyleve 3 3466788 I'm so sorry about your chickens! That must be heartbreaking. Thu Mar 06 12:48:25 -0800 2008 3465498 138816 jlafler 4 3467236 Extremely sad. But, as one of our serious-farmer neighbours once said to me when I was mourning the death of some critter or other: Ya got livestock; ya got deadstock. But the Countess! Why why why??? Thu Mar 06 14:29:11 -0800 2008 3466788 12383 Nyleve 1 3465472 if you google "eggmobile," a term coined by the influential farmer-iconoclast joel salatin, you will see many movable coops or pens designed for pastured chickens. they are generally home-built by farmers and relatively low-tech. the method is important to farmers who raise other pastured livestock-- typically, they will rotate the larger herbivores through a series of pastures, with the chickens following to "sanitize" and help restore the pasture. examples: http://www.ecofriendly.com/index.cfm?section=2&page=41 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUqgf4llvos original concept and explanation of method & farm economics: http://www.awionline.org/farm/salatin.html m. pollan also references salatin's method at length in "the omnivore's dilemma. Thu Mar 06 08:01:25 -0800 2008 3464217 46030 soupkitten 2 3465642 Rick Stein, the British chef, did a segment on this very technique in his Food Heros series. Fascinating! This link explains the why and wherefore of various coops...... http://www.plamondon.com/chicken-coops.html Thu Mar 06 08:41:40 -0800 2008 3465472 75332 Gio 1 3465997 I'm pretty convinced that the quality of the eggs depends more on the way the chickens are raised than it does on freshness. One of my husband's coworkers keeps chickens in his back yard, and a few weeks ago he gave us some eggs. We ate some of them right away, and they were fantastic -- big, firm orange yolks, the whole deal. Then everyone in our household caught colds, and just when I was starting to improve I developed an ear infection, which made me pretty miserable for over a week. Anyway, I didn't do much cooking for a couple of weeks, and I forgot about the eggs. When I remembered them I was worried that they would have gone bad; but they were fine -- still far better than any supermarket eggs that I've ever had. The longer you keep eggs, the more the membrane that separates the yolk from the white deteriorates, but these still had their integrity -- there were five, and not one yolk broke as I was cracking them into the bowl. Supermarket eggs are probably quite fresh, since there's a lot of turnover, but that doesn't compensate for the miserable conditions under which the chickens are raised. Thu Mar 06 09:56:35 -0800 2008 3464217 138816 jlafler 2 3466192 Absolutely agree. I date my egg cartons as we collect the eggs and I would rather eat a homegrown egg that's a month old than a supermarket egg that was laid that morning. It has everything to do with chicken, er, lifestyle and diet - much less to do with freshness. Thu Mar 06 10:43:31 -0800 2008 3465997 12383 Nyleve 1 3466305 I have been buying eggs produced by pastured chickens at the greenmarket, and I hope I never have to go back to buying eggs in a supermarket! I often eat one egg over medium for breakfast, and the difference in taste and texture is absolutely astounding. The white is thick, fluffy, and doesn't spread very far in the pan, and the yolk is viscous, bright orange, and intensely flavorful. So good! Thu Mar 06 11:11:16 -0800 2008 3464217 159929 lmoy 1 3466380 I do agree with the posters who said that the feed is very important. I've had the most freakin' satisfying delicious eggs in Thailand with deep-orange yolks that was worlds better than the freshest eggs I've gotten at the farmers markets in NY and San Francisco. I'm sure the eggs I've gotten at the farmers markets were very fresh and they were indeed delicious. But I think it was the feed in these Thai eggs that made it soooo good! Unless the eggs come from a different breed of chicken that we can't get in the States. Thu Mar 06 11:24:33 -0800 2008 3464217 10763 Miss Needle 2 3467941 We have a friend in Tennessee who for a while had a truck farm, where he also raised Aracaunas, those South American chickens that lay blue and green eggs. He'd bring us a dozen every so often, and they were truly marvelous, which we attributed to the breed of chicken. And then we went out to spend a weekend at his farm, and saw that his chicken run was the size of a small tennis court, with big patches of lush grass (growing from dirt that was like black silk!) and the birds happily running around, eating and squabbling and having a good old time. It wasn't really pasture, but it was more than enough to make the difference. Thu Mar 06 17:57:08 -0800 2008 3466380 11478 Will Owen