Why We Move the Animals Every Day

Most mornings on this farm start the same way: move the broilers onto fresh grass before anything else gets done. In summer heat we start earlier, because hot weather changes the whole rhythm of the day — water hauling about doubles and the birds need to be settled on new ground before the sun gets serious.

Moving animals every day is more work than leaving them put. Here's why we do it anyway.

Fresh grass, every day. A chicken on new ground gets fresh forage on top of its corn-and-soy-free feed. Same for the pigs and sheep rotating through their paddocks. What they eat changes what you eat — that's the entire premise of this farm.

Clean ground breaks the parasite cycle. Animals that keep moving don't live on top of yesterday's manure. That means healthier animals without reaching for routine treatments, and it means the lambs — who stay with their mothers until weaning — grow up on clean pasture from the first week.

The land gets paid back. Each grazed strip gets fertilized by the animals themselves, then rested until it recovers. Overgraze a pasture and it thins out and erodes. Rotate it and it comes back thicker each season.

None of this is new. It's roughly how grazing worked before feedlots, and it's why we'd rather raise fewer animals well than more animals conveniently.

If you want to taste what daily moves and corn-and-soy-free feed do to a chicken, the store is stocked in waves from now through fall. The popular cuts never stay in stock long.

Brian, Sarah, and George