POCOMOKE CITY — Carole Morison went bird watching in California and came back determined to get back into chicken farming. Her new feathered friends are like the ones she had observed — Rhode Island Reds — counted in the Top 5 of the hundreds of backyard chicken breeds. Now her family's flock is hatching a pastured egg agribusiness on their Byrd Road farm.
Morison and her husband, Frank, bought 500 birds this past summer, raising them in a pasture — an alternative to the indoor confinement of a commercial chicken house that is growing in popularity among nutrition-conscious consumers and advocates for animal and environmental protection. The birds roam the open space in the sunshine, building muscle and poking the Earth for a natural diet. Inside chicken houses, they eat grain with a careful mix of minerals and vitamins.
This month, the flock reached peak laying production, one of several sunny-side ups for an emerging small-scale poultry industry with potential for earning a respectable profit with minimal environmental impact and ideal animal care. At an average of 280 eggs per chicken a year, the flock's annual production would be 160,000 eggs.
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