Why We Raise Chicken This Way
Caring for the soil, caring for the animal, and nourishing the families God has given us to serve.
At Avodah Family Farm, we believe the way food is raised matters.
Not because we need another impressive label to put on a package. It matters because this land belongs to God, the animals placed in our care belong to Him, and the families we feed are our neighbors.
Jesus taught us to love our neighbors, and for our family, farming has become one very practical way to do that.
The word Avodah carries the ideas of work, worship, and service. We want those three things to remain together here.
So when we talk about healthy soil, living pasture, carefully raised chickens, and nourishing food, we're not simply describing a production method. We're describing our attempt to faithfully steward what God has entrusted to us.
Pasture should be part of the chicken's life
When most of us picture a pasture-raised chicken, we picture a bird outside on grass.
We think that should actually be true.
At Avodah, our chickens live directly on growing pasture. They walk through it, rest on it, scratch through it, hunt insects in it, and eat its living plants.
We regularly move our chickens forward onto fresh ground. This gives them new forage to explore while allowing the ground behind them to rest and recover. It also means they aren't spending their entire lives eating, sleeping, and walking over manure accumulating beneath the flock.
It takes more work this way.
We believe they are worth the work.
We want you to know what our chickens eat
Chickens are omnivores. Given the opportunity, they eat grass, clover, seeds, tender plants, insects, and other living things they discover while scratching and foraging.
Along with what they gather from pasture, we feed five primary whole-food ingredients whose names you know and can pronounce:
Understanding GMO and non-GMO feed
Our corn and roasted soybeans are conventionally grown. We do not purchase verified non-GMO feed, and we do not want to leave families with the impression that we do.
But before deciding whether that should be concerning, it helps to understand what the words GMO and non-GMO actually mean.
Every corn plant is corn. Every soybean plant is a soybean. Farmers and plant breeders have been changing crops for thousands of years by selecting plants with useful characteristics and breeding them together.
The difference with a genetically engineered—or GMO—crop is the method used to introduce a specific characteristic. Instead of relying only on crossing plants and selecting among thousands of resulting genetic changes, genetic engineering allows scientists to introduce or alter particular genetic instructions to produce a desired trait.
Common genetically engineered corn and soybean varieties were developed with traits such as resistance to certain insects or the ability to tolerate particular weed-control products.
A non-GMO crop can still be grown in a large monoculture, treated with pesticides, heavily tilled, or raised in ways that damage soil. A GMO crop can also be grown under better or worse management.
The seed technology and the farming system are related questions, but they are not the same question.
Does GMO feed genetically modify the chicken?
No.
A chicken does not become genetically modified because it ate corn or soybeans produced from genetically engineered seed—just as it does not acquire the genes of grass, oats, insects, or fish because it ate them.
DNA and protein are normal parts of almost everything a chicken eats. During digestion, they are broken down into smaller components such as amino acids, sugars, fatty acids, and nucleotides. The chicken then uses those basic materials to maintain and build its own body.
Reviews of animal-feeding research have not found the engineered DNA or proteins from approved GMO feed transferring into meat or eggs. Studies comparing approved GMO poultry feed with its conventional counterpart have also found comparable animal health, growth, meat composition, and food safety.
This means the chicken itself is not a GMO, and eating that chicken does not expose your family to a genetically modified chicken.
We understand that families may have broader concerns about herbicide use, resistant weeds, seed ownership, soil health, and the growing control of agriculture by a small number of companies. Those are worthwhile conversations.
But they are different from the claim that feeding an approved GMO crop to a chicken changes the chicken's genes or makes its meat unsafe. The scientific evidence does not support that fear.
Why we feed roasted soybeans
Soy may be one of the most misunderstood foods in modern agriculture.
People often hear that soy contains “estrogen” and conclude that feeding soybeans to a chicken will fill its meat with estrogen, disrupt a child's hormones, or feminize men.
That is not what the evidence shows.
Soybeans do not contain human estrogen. They contain naturally occurring plant compounds called isoflavones, often described as phytoestrogens.
Although isoflavones can interact weakly and selectively with certain estrogen receptors, they are chemically and biologically different from the estrogen produced by the human body. Calling them phytoestrogens does not mean that they act exactly like human estrogen.
Small amounts of soy-derived isoflavones can enter poultry tissues and eggs. We want to be honest about that. But those compounds do not turn into human estrogen inside the chicken, and chicken raised on soy does not become “estrogen-filled meat.”
More importantly, clinical studies have examined people consuming soy and isoflavones directly—at exposures far greater than someone would receive by eating chicken raised on soy. An updated analysis of those studies found no significant effect on men's testosterone or estrogen levels.
Soy is a valuable source of nourishment for the chicken
Chickens need more than calories. They need adequate protein and the correct balance of amino acids to build muscles, organs, skin, feathers, enzymes, and immune-system components.
Roasted soybeans provide concentrated, highly useful protein and are especially valuable as a source of lysine—an essential amino acid the chicken cannot manufacture for itself.
The soybean also supplies energy and beneficial fats. Combined with corn, oats, alfalfa, fish meal, pasture, and appropriate mineral support, it helps us provide a complete diet rather than merely filling the bird with inexpensive calories.
The word roasted matters.
Raw soybeans contain natural compounds, including trypsin inhibitors, that can interfere with protein digestion. Proper heating greatly reduces those compounds and makes the soybean's protein more digestible and useful to the chicken.
Soy isn't the only possible poultry protein, but it is a highly effective and nutritionally valuable part of our particular feed formula. Removing it simply to satisfy a marketing trend would require replacing its protein and amino acids with something else. “Soy-free” does not automatically mean the replacement would be healthier, more natural, more local, or better for the bird.
The whole diet matters
We would contradict the rest of this page if we claimed grass affects the meat but corn and soy do not. Everything the chicken eats contributes something.
Corn supplies digestible energy. Roasted soybeans provide protein, lysine, energy, and fats. Oats provide carbohydrates and fiber. Alfalfa contributes protein, pigments, vitamins, and plant compounds. Fish meal supplies highly digestible protein, complementary amino acids, minerals, and long-chain omega-3 fatty acids. Living pasture contributes forage, insects, carotenoids, natural vitamin E compounds, and omega-3 precursor fatty acids.
We also add calcium and Fertrell Poultry Nutri-Balancer in small, measured amounts. These supply calcium, phosphorus, vitamins, minerals, salt, amino acids, kelp, beneficial microorganisms, and other micronutrients that grass and our five primary foods may not consistently provide in the amounts a rapidly growing chicken requires.
We include those nutrients because our goal is not merely to create the shortest or most fashionable ingredient list.
Our goal is to raise a genuinely healthy, properly nourished chicken.
From the soil, to the grass, to the chicken, to us
This may be our favorite part of the whole system.
Healthy soil isn't lifeless dirt. It contains bacteria, fungi, insects, earthworms, plant roots, minerals, organic matter, air, and water interacting in an enormous biological community.
1. The soil feeds the grass
Plants need nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, iron, zinc, and many other nutrients. But simply having minerals somewhere in the ground doesn't mean plants can use them.
Soil organisms break down organic material and help transform nutrients into plant-available forms. Fungi interact with roots. Organic matter helps the soil retain both moisture and nutrients.
2. The grass captures sunlight and becomes living food
Through photosynthesis, plants combine sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide with nutrients gathered through their roots to create new living tissue.
Grass contains proteins, fatty acids, pigments, antioxidants, vitamins, and other plant compounds. Something as ordinary as a blade of grass represents sunlight, water, minerals, and an entire soil community brought together into living food.
3. The chicken eats from that living system
Our chickens eat the growing forage. Green plants can provide carotenoids, natural vitamin E compounds, and omega-3 precursor fatty acids. Chickens also find seeds, insects, and other foods as they forage.
Those nutrients help build the bird's muscles, bones, organs, skin, and other tissues.
What the chicken eats helps determine what eventually becomes the meat on our table.
4. The chicken returns nutrients to the soil
The chicken doesn't keep everything it eats. Much of the nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, carbon, and organic material in its food returns to the ground through manure.
If too many chickens stay in one place, those nutrients become concentrated. So we move the birds.
Instead of continually depositing manure in the same place, they spread it across the pasture as they move.
5. Soil life turns manure into future fertility
After the flock moves, bacteria, fungi, insects, and other soil organisms begin breaking down what the birds left behind.
Nitrogen helps support new green growth. Phosphorus supports roots and plant energy transfer. Potassium contributes to water regulation and plant resilience. Organic material feeds soil organisms and contributes to soil structure.
The manure isn't the end of the cycle. Under careful management, it becomes raw material for another generation of plant life.
6. Then we give the land time
Movement isn't enough. The pasture needs rest.
New leaves capture sunlight. Roots rebuild. Living roots feed organisms beneath the surface. The pasture begins storing energy and growing forage again.
7. Eventually, that cycle reaches our table
The recovered pasture can nourish another flock. Those chickens eventually become food for our family and yours.
Our children need complete protein and amino acids for growth and tissue repair. They need iron for oxygen transport and normal development. Essential fatty acids are important components of cell membranes, the brain, eyes, and nervous system. Vitamin E helps protect cells from oxidative damage.
There is something deeply humbling about that cycle.
We didn't invent it. God did. Our job is to learn how to work faithfully within His creation.
Healthy birds matter too
A chicken was made to walk, scratch, peck, forage, stretch, dust bathe, feel the sunshine, and investigate the world around it.
Pasture gives our birds the opportunity to do those things. Moving them onto fresh ground also provides fresh plants, natural exercise, cleaner resting areas, and less continual exposure to concentrated manure.
- Living grass and active foraging
- Sunlight and fresh air
- Regular movement and exercise
- Fresh ground
- Better manure distribution
- Natural scratching, pecking, and insect hunting
- Room to simply behave like chickens
Spend a little time watching chickens scratching through fresh grass, chasing a grasshopper, stretching their wings in the sun, and settling together after a day of foraging.
You're watching a chicken doing what chickens were made to do.
We believe that matters.
Fresh pasture can also mean a cleaner system
Regular movement doesn't only affect the grass. It changes the biological environment surrounding the bird.
As our chickens move, manure is distributed across living ground rather than continually accumulating beneath the flock. The birds move forward, while sunlight, drying, vegetation, insects, microorganisms, and time begin working on what they leave behind.
Research comparing pasture poultry with conventional poultry has found meaningful differences in pathogen levels.
A newer comparison of smaller outdoor poultry flocks and large commercial operations found Salmonella in 19.1% of samples from the smaller outdoor farms versus 52.3% from commercial farms.
Research has also found important differences in antimicrobial-resistant bacteria between poultry-production systems.
Fresh ground matters. Clean water matters. Healthy feed matters. Stocking density matters. Movement matters. Processing sanitation and rapid chilling matter.
We pay attention to all of it because these are the chickens our own children eat too.
Pasture can change the food itself
Pasture changes more than where a chicken stands. When chickens genuinely consume living forage, compounds from that pasture can enter their bodies and affect the nutritional composition of their tissues.
Research on pasture-fed and free-range chickens has documented differences including:
- Higher levels or proportions of omega-3 fatty acids in pasture-based systems
- Changes in the overall fatty-acid profile
- Transfer of pasture-derived carotenoids into chicken tissue
- Transfer of natural vitamin E compounds from pasture into the bird
- Differences in antioxidant compounds and oxidative stability
- Differences in iron and other nutritional characteristics in some comparisons
Researchers have specifically studied the transfer of bioactive compounds from pasture into chicken meat.
The health of the soil influences the plants growing from it. Those plants become food for the chicken. Compounds and nutrients from that food help build the bird. Eventually that bird becomes food for us.
Protein
Chicken provides complete protein and essential amino acids used to build and repair muscles, organs, and growing tissue.
Omega-3 fatty acids
Omega-3 fatty acids are important components of cell membranes and play important roles in the brain, eyes, and nervous system. Living green forage supplies omega-3 precursor fatty acids that chickens can consume and incorporate into their tissues.
Vitamin E and natural antioxidants
Vitamin E helps protect cells from oxidative damage and supports normal immune function. Green plants contain natural vitamin E compounds and carotenoids, and researchers have documented their transfer from pasture into chickens.
Iron and minerals
Iron is required to make hemoglobin, which transports oxygen throughout the body, and adequate iron is particularly important during childhood growth and neurological development.
This is why the connection between soil, plants, and animals means so much to us. Food doesn't begin at the grocery-store shelf.
It begins in a living system.
What “regenerative” means to us
For us, regenerative farming needs to describe something real.
- Living roots instead of bare ground
- Chickens actually consuming growing forage
- Manure distributed instead of concentrated
- Soil organisms recycling nutrients
- Rest and recovery after the animals move
- Stronger pasture returning behind the chickens
- Healthy animals producing nourishing food
It is a cycle of stewardship.
And the farmer isn't the center of it.
We're caretakers.
Why Avodah?
Jesus taught that the greatest commandments are to love God and to love our neighbor.
For our family, Avodah is one small way we're learning to live that out.
We want our work to be worship.
We want our farming to be service.
We want to care well for what God owns, raise animals with compassion, deal honestly with people, and produce food we're genuinely happy to feed our own children.
We're still learning. We'll keep learning.
But you'll never have to wonder whether there's a real family on the other side of your food.
There is.
We're raising these chickens for our table too.
And it would be an honor to raise them for yours.
Welcome to the Avodah family.
Know your farmer. Know your food. See why every step matters.
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