The principal difference of regenerative farm eggs to free range, other than our extremely low relative stocking densities, is that we move our sheds weekly to fresh pastures. This creates an abundance of the hens natural diet of worms, insects and grains. It also rests the land allowing it to recuperate and ensures the soil is gradually regenerated as it would be in the wild. At Honest Eggs Co. not only are our hens always on the move so are our sheds!
As we move our sheds across our farms the chicken manure fertilises our land naturally and helps regenerate the soil.
Chicken manure improves the microbiome of the soil, where trillions of good bacteria live in a symbiotic relationship with our pastures. This ensures and abundance of millions of healthy invertebrates (like worms) that burrow through our soils increasing water holding capacity and stopping nutrient run off (whilst also providing a lovely meal for our hungry hens). This in turn ensures thicker, more nutrient dense pastures for other animals on our farm as can be seen by the ‘hen path’ in this photo (the hen path is the dark green pasture you can see towards the middle of this photo).
Chicken manure is rich in NPK (Nitrogen, Potassium and Phosphorus). But instead of piling it all on the land a couple of times a year as fertiliser (like in intensive farming) and stressing the soil and the billions of microorganisms in it, we spread it evenly throughout the year as nature intended.
Chicken manure is also high in zinc, copper, manganese, calcium, boron and iron. It can help loosen compact clay soils and ensure more aeration and water holding capacity.
Since beginning regenerative farming one of our biggest challenges is ensuring the pastures don’t grow too much! What a problem to have.
Regenerative farming began well before us. There is so much to learn, but a few useful places to start are with Joel Salatin, and Richard Perkins. For family movie night we highly recommend Polyfaces as well as the Netflix Film Kiss the Ground.
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