| Cover story |
Healthy
eggs from happy chickens
Chickens
have free range at Mrs. Chicky’s farm By
R.D. Hohenfeldt When
she was teaching English to international students in “I
got so frustrated with him, I would just call him ‘ That
was 10 years ago. Seven years later, Rice and her husband, Henk
Benedictus,
moved to the Ozarks where they bought a 315-acre farm outside “This
is our third year of selling eggs. When I started, I was thinking about
a catchy name and I remembered ‘Mrs. Chicky,’” Rice says. Rice
sells Mrs. Chicky’s Farm Fresh Eggs off the farm and at Foods for
Health in Rolla. She delivers the eggs to a few customers in Rolla,
though she would like to expand her local deliveries. Mrs. Chicky also
sells fryers and stew chickens, gourmet cookies and gift baskets,
including cookie bouquets. In the fall, she opens her pumpkin patch to
preschools and the children receive a pumpkin, a pumpkin muffin and a
coloring book. Rice talks to the children about living on a farm and
then the children get to feed the chickens. “Mrs.
Chicky has a whole persona and when they kids come to visit, I put on a
chicken hat with legs that hang down,” she says. The children love
Mrs. Chicky and her chickens. About
50 chickens roam the property. Another 25 are in the freezer waiting to
be delivered to customers who have already bought them. The chickens are
of various breeds, Red Sexlinks and Black Sexlinks, Americanas (also
known as Archanas), Lakkenvelders, Production Reds and a Barred Rock
rooster. Most
of them lay brown eggs. The Americanas lay “Easter eggs” of green,
pink, blue or khaki. “You
can literally have green eggs and ham,” says Rice, smiling.
Lakkenvelders lay white eggs. “We
got the Lakkenvelders because my husband wanted something to remind him
of growing up on a farm in The
birds lay as many as four dozen eggs a day, although they’re down now
to about two and half dozen a day. Rice says she bought the Production
Reds earlier in the year to lay eggs throughout the winter. The other
birds start laying in the spring and then molt in September. Rice
prefers to call them pasture-raised or pastured chickens. “You
can call your chickens free-range and still have them confined in a yard
filled with dirt. Free-range just means they aren’t caged,” she
says. “Ours are truly free-range chickens. They wander everywhere,
eating fresh grass and bugs. This is what makes our chickens happy and
the eggs healthy.” Children
Anneke, 7, and Henry, 2, play freely outside with no worries about being
bitten by insects. “We
have no ticks and no chiggers here,” Rice says. Chickens
will not range a great distance from their coop, so Rice isn’t worried
about the birds wandering into the road and leaving entirely. The birds
go into the chicken house every night. Every morning when Rice opens the
door, they march or fly out and head into the fields and yard looking
for bugs. “They
also get some fresh vegetables, and we buy a lay pellet that provides
them some additional nutrients,” she adds. Rice
says the American trend to eat healthier food is prevalent here, too, as
people seek her out for eggs and meat that are grown without hormones
and chemicals. People also
like that the food is produced locally.
“There’s something special about eating food that’s been
produced in your own backyard and not 2,000 miles away,” she adds.
She
says she and Henk never have a problem selling their beef, eggs or
chickens. Her eggs are more expensive than regular supermarket eggs but
there’s a reason. “My
eggs are good,” she says. “You pay a bit higher price but you get a
premium egg. The shells are hard, and the yolks are a nice, deep yellow.
It’s still less than what you would pay for ‘free-range’
eggs at the grocery store. And
you’re always welcome to come and visit the chickens!” If you would like more information on home delivery or on the pumpkin patch program for pre-schools, please give Sydney Rice a call at 573-578-0468. |
