chicken on purpose

 why we do what we do

As a former vegetarian and vegan I have spent a lot of my life thinking about my relationship with food and its impact on the world and my health. My gradual education on the massive externalities of agriculture, both moral and environmental, motivated me to reconsider what I put in my mouth. 

After several years of eating no animal products and then returning to animal products and noticing how much easier it was for me to maintain weight, I knew I would need a new approach. I now eat a meat, egg and fruit heavy diet and find my energy levels to be very good and my ability to maintain weight much easier. 

This is my conundrum, the heart of a vegan, but the body of a carnivore. It is in this ethos that I hope to raise poultry that I am proud of, and poultry that I want to eat. 

Along this journey I have discovered the importance of animals on the landscape. We are often told that we should avoid meat because of the animal welfare concerns and carbon emissions. And while I agree that these are foundational concerns with the industrial poultry industry, these need not be for all us to enjoy the nutrition and flavor of poultry.

Animals are an essential part of the lifecycle of any ecosystem. Most livestock animals (especially ruminants like cows and sheep) serve a valuable purpose of digesting plants and converting that plant matter into a nutrient rich "waste", which is anything but. This black gold is filled with nitrogen, the most crucial element for green plant growth.  Without animals playing this vital ecological role, whether the landscape is wild or cultivated, the soil slowly dies. The digestive tract, and their accompanying flora and fauna, of large grazers and many other animals are an essential part of how most ecosystems regenerate. Without their presence on the landscape our only option will be to continue with synthetic methane-based fertilizers (ammonium nitrate etc.) which have disastrous effects on local ecology, soil microbiology and nutritional integrity of food grown in synthetically stimulated soil. 

While chickens are not ruminants and cannot live entirely off of grass (they are monogastrics just like you and me), the favorite part of every Red Stable Ranch bird's day is getting moved to fresh grass. They love the tender supple tops of fresh dark green grass. As soon as their mobile coops are moved the clucking stops and if you stop to listen you can hear the soft sound of beaks tenderly munching on fresh grass. Sounds like heaven. Chickens graze the grass, import fertility to my ranch, converting their feed grains (and wild fish meal) into nitrogen rich manure which feeds the soil (even more than a cow could), importing C02 from the atmosphere, feeding microbiology, making it more resilient to drought and preserving the productive use of the land for generations to come. 

So you see, even if you are a vegan, you need animals to help nourish the soil which gives life to your food. This is the foundation of the regenerative agriculture movement, the recognition that animal impact (manure, and physical disturbance) and minimal tillage are the only ways that we are going to preserve our soils so that our grandchildren will have enough soil fertility available to them that they may grow healthy, nutritious food.