27/05/2026
We give our chicks training perches in the brooder. If they don’t practice when young, the meat breeds tend not to perch when they are older.
Indoors, the perches serve to enrich the environment by literally giving the chicks a different dimension.
Once outside, perching becomes important for health reasons, keeping the birds off damp or soiled ground, and helping them regulate body temperature.
Perhaps most importantly, perching also gives the birds a sense of safety, so their emotional well-being is being cared for too.
Allowing our birds to live as chicken-y a life as possible is part of our ethos – and that means doing chicken-y things like foraging and perching. Sure, it makes our husbandry more labour intensive than the average producer, but we’re OK with that.
A better life for the birds, in exchange for a far better tasting product at the end.
Seems fair to us!
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