Chickens

We at Shoal Creek Farm have the goal of producing the finest pastured poultry available.

These Cornish – White Rock cross chickens are raised and processed under special conditions so they will have a better taste and texture than those sold by commercial processors.

The birds spend the first three weeks of their stay at Shoal Creek Farm in the brooder house. Inside they are kept under heat lamps on a soft aerobic bedding of mostly soil, wood chips, and saw dust.

Out to Pasture

After three weeks of pampered life in the brooder house, it’s out to the pasture. The chickens are kept in 8’ x 16’ shelters I like to call my “two door coupes.”

The high meat, double breasted birds are given lots of room for exercise and plenty of good food to eat.

The shelters are meant primarily to protect the birds, not to confine them. We do everything we can to make their stay at Shoal Creek Farm as comfortable as possible. Curtains are added to the shelters on cold or stormy days. We move the homes, which have wheels to new spots daily so that the chickens will have a fresh patch of grass for grazing.

Feed

We grind & mix our own feed using as much of our own grain as possible. The feed consists of mainly corn, soybean meal, and oats. The soybean meal is extruded and not chemically treated to remove oils. It also contains fish meal, kelp meal, and special vitamin pack to help keep the birds in tip-top shape

Processing

After eight weeks, the chickens stay at Shoal Creek Farm is complete. The birds are averaging 3 to 5 lbs. Are taken to Central Illinois Poultry Processing in Arthur. It is a USDA inspected plant owned by Andy and Vera Jess.

They have many years of experience of processing chickens and other poultry. They have quite a talent when it comes to handling chickens. Time tested abilities that they take for granted but we don’t. We at Shoal Creek Farm feel very blessed to have the Jess’s contributing efforts to the total quality of our chickens.

We have two main types of packaging. Whole vacuumed wrapped. Cut up on a Styrofoam flat vacuum wrapped. Giblets are included with each bird. We will do special cuts to match customers’ needs. Free delivery for larger orders.

Scheduled harvesting dates for 2004 are still up in the air. Please let me know with you desires and we will try to meet them. We do stop production during the winter as our birds are really outside.