2023 Stewing Hen Reservations
The oldest flock of laying hens (or no-longer-laying hens, as they had pretty much ceased egg production due to age) is currently being converted to stewing hens for your freezers and soup-pots. After reserving some for ourselves and our crew, we have about 120 hens available for purchase.
To reserve your hens, just fill out the simple form below with your contact info, number of birds desired, and pickup time. Fresh, non-frozen hens will be available this week only, for pickup Monday, November 20th and Tuesday November 21st. Frozen birds will be available for pickup on other dates, during Tuesday hosted farmstore times, but it helps us a lot to send some of them straight home with you due to limited on-farm freezer space.
Please note that these are NOT broiler chickens! Standard “meat birds” are selected for rapid growth with little activity, raised to size very quickly and butchered at 10-12 weeks of age for plump tenderness. In contrast, these stewing hens had a long rich life of building and using their muscles by foraging, digging, free-ranging in their pasture eating weeds, bugs, grass, and organic feed. Therefore, they really do need “stewing” via a long slow simmer, to become tender and tasty. A great blog post from another farm describing both cooking methods and the importance of utilizing stewing hens if you support small-farm egg production is here. We are also happy to advise home cooks on the best way to use these birds, and we believe it can lead to some of the best soups you’ve ever had.