Glendale Farm -- Notes of Nature and Farming in Middle Tennessee
Why Glendale Farm does chicken right -- naturally, on pasture, no chemicals, no drugs, no GMO and processed by us on the farm.
by Delk on 05/05/13
At Glendale Farm you get chicken raised on the farm and processed in an approved on-farm facility, built in consultation with the USDA and the Tennessee Department of Health and Environment to qualify under USDA regulations as an on-farm processing facility.
Carson Sharpe, Sam Kennedy, Mary Susan Kennedy, Betty Kennedy and Sam Kennedy, Sr. in front of Glendale Farm's on-farm chicken
processing facility the day construction was complete.
Notice the smooth walls and floors, allowing a thorough cleaning before and after work. This is the way the USDA asked us to do it. We are the first to get this successfully accomplished in this area.
Young Glendale Farm chicks in our spacious brooder in the barn.
What does this mean for us, our families, friends and customers? It means we control the whole process from day one until that fresh chicken is sealed in a bag with a label -- from the animal friendly conditions in which we raise our chickens, to the forage and feed the chickens receive, to the chemical-free processing, and finally to the packaging of the birds. It means healthier, humanely raised and processed chicken.
We serve these chickens regularly in our family and feel good about sharing a healthy, rightly raised, processed and packaged product with our friends and customers.
Sam and Cousin Jacqueline Howard inspect one of our mobile chicken houses.
Once out of the brooder, our chickens are raised in mobile houses which are moved every day to fresh pasture. We raise our chickens on pasture using methods developed by Joel Salatin on Polyface Farm in Swope, Virginia.
Cousins John and Jacqueline Howard discuss chicken feed (in the bucket) with Sam Kennedy.
At Glendale Farm in addition to the pasture, bugs, worms, etc. which chickens naturally consume on pasture, our chickens get non-GMO grain. We get this good grain from the Taylor Family Farm in Etheridge, TN. When you buy a chicken at the store, you don't know what drugs and chemicals that factory chicken has routinely been given or fed (including antibiotics, caffeine, anti-depressants and arsenic).
Cousin Sarah Howard packaging a fresh broiler at Glendale Farm
The story doesn't end with how the chickens are raised and fed. In our on-farm processing unit we do things the old fashioned way --- slowly and by hand. We don't use conveyor belts, chlorine baths or salt water injection often used for high volume production. Read more about factory chicken processing here and here.
Rachel Vest Kennedy weighing and labeling freshly processed Glendale Farm chicken.
At Glendale Farm, either Rachel or Sam personally handles or checks every chicken before it goes to the freezer. They do chicken the way they like it and share it with you.
Raised, processed and packaged at Glendale Farm in the freezer in our shop and ready to go.
Glendale Farm - Chicken done rite (and right)!
How do I know Glendale Farm does it right, you say? Come by anytime and see for yourself. Get to know your farmer, Sam Kennedy. Sam would appreciate a call before you come, but if you want to drop by, we'd love to see you!
