Where We Shop For Eggs Now
(Food • )
Rachel Long raises a few hundred free-range chickens, 15 sheep, four dogs, a goat and a horse on 10-acre Bellecreek Farm in the general vicinity of Rosharon.
She lost 200 hens during Hurricane Ike, but a replacement flock of young Black Rock hybrids has stepped in and apparently are laying nicely. Rachel keeps Barred Plymoth Rocks and a few other breeds, too. They range over several acres of pasture, with little to fear from most daytime predators thanks to the watchful presence of two impressive Great Pyrenees dogs.
No pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, hormones or hens packed six to a cage. No cages. Just nice brown eggs from healthy, contented birds. Price? A little more than the thin-shelled, higher-cholesterol, lower-in-nutrition eggs gathered from cage-confined birds and sold at the supermarkets. A little more, but surprisingly little more. And a bargain to me, because there’s no mystery about where they came from, how they were raised or whether they’re safe to eat.
Long is a member of the American Pastured Poultry Producers, and for anyone to whom such things matter, Bellecreek Farm is one of only 33 nationally, and the only one in Texas to have received a 2008 Animal Welfare Approved Good Husbandry Grant. She doesn’t advertise that fact; I found out by accident when googling for a map to get to her place.
She also just took possession of a gourmet variety of meat chickens I’d never heard of, but which i intend to try in a few weeks – Label Rouge. The designation applies not just to a chicken variety, but a method of raising those birds. Several Houston restaurants buy both meat birds and eggs from Rachel, and we’re happy to be among her new customers.
More information? Rachel can be reached at 281-431-5060.
→ B.Dunn, Mar 07, 2009, 03 25 pm
