The Vital Voice

We were pleased to host 17 members of the Florida Whole Foods Market Marketing team at our South Austin Farm last week. The group braved the morning heat, had tons of great questions and really enjoyed visiting our girls, as well as site-seeing and eating ice cream made from Vital Farms eggs at great restaurants, like La Condesa. Thanks for the visit, Florida! We look forward to having groups of bloggers, chefs and customers out to the farm in the Fall.

Check out some of our visitors’ quotes below:

The farm was absolutely beautiful. Letting chickens be chickens -
running around pecking the ground for bugs, worms, natural nutrients!
It put everything into perspective when Jason said “Our chickens don’t
just have access to the outdoors, they are outdoors with access to the
inside.” Just another example of the importance of knowing our farmers
and creating win-win partnerships. Thank you again for letting us see
first hand how farming is meant to be! P.S. La Condessa – AMAZING!
Highly recommend to anyone visiting Austin, TX.
– WFM Naples

Last night 18 or so of us were fortunate enough to enjoy the ice
creams at La Condesa made with your eggs … amazing! Since we
couldn’t all agree on a favorite, we’ll just have to make another
visit back soon (and get more breakfast burritos too!) Thanks for the
hospitality and the education, we’ll never look at egg farming the
same way. Keep up the good work and say hi to ‘the ladies!’
- WFM Aventura

Tell the chickens we had a great time hanging out with them in their
beautiful green pastures and thanks for all of the most amazing eggs!
– WFM Wellington

At vital farms pasture-raised organic eggs, the story begins with
organic, green pastures where their girls spend each & every day.
Their humane farming practices provides the birds with an outdoor
lifestyle where they are free to exhibit natural behaviors & forage.
- WFM Boca Raton

Hi there! We truly appreciate your taking the time to show us your
incredible farm. La Condesa was amazing – especially the ice cream
using eggs from Vital Farms! We’ll definitely be in touch.
- WFM Coral Gables

Thanks so much for having us out and showing us around. It was a great
learning experience and we’ll be taking it back to educate our
customers and team members. Dinner was really good. Didn’t have a bad
meal the entire time we were in Austin. What a great city. Thanks
again and we’ll be in touch if we need any more info about your
amazing eggs. – WFM Ft. Lauderdale

Thank you so much for the tour! We LOVE VITAL FARMS!!!
– WFM Palm Beach Gardens

Matt O'Hayer, (Left) Michael Cox, (Center) Jason Jones (Right)

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in living in Summers, AR. on the farm with my dad. I just turned 30 last week. Now it’s time to grow up! Currently my wife Courtney and our two boys Tate and Jax live on our Holcroft farm, which is where we have our Vital Farms production.
How did you start chicken farming? What did you do before this?

I was raised in the egg business. My grandfather oversaw Cargill’s egg operation until his retirement and my father began with a contract to produce for Cargill in 1981. My father broke from Cargill and produced as an independent farmer in 1984. From that he grew into a vertically integrated company with pullet production, laying production, feed mill, processing plant, and trucking. I grew up around the farm. I was often into trouble with my siblings and had to pack eggs for punishment! I still hate packing eggs to this day. I have never had a job off the farm. One year into college I dropped out to work full time on the farm. In 2001 I started Arkansas Egg. We were a caged egg producer.
Why do you think it’s important to raise animals using organic feed, an environmental consciousness and humane conditions?

At one time my father had 2.5 million hens. When I began I had around 800,000. That’s small stuff compared to the big guys in the industry. Today you have farms with 605,000 birds in a single barn and 6 million on a farm. To me, the number is for shock value. A small cage house with 30,000 birds has the same conditions as the largest of barns. We converted into organic production for several reasons. One, we had old, run down facilities which helped me see first hand the environmental and welfare issues that accompanied (a conventional) style of production. Second, the market for this production was stable compared to the conventional side. We could obtain the margins we needed to do a lot of things differently, the right way.

Conventional egg production is a great example of how over the last 50 years, the focus has been on cheap food at all cost. Most consumers demand it. Look at prop 2 in California. 60% of citizens voted for it. Only 5% of consumers support it at the store by buying a cage free egg. That’s an astounding voter disconnect. In 1950 it took Americans 2.5 hours of work on avg. to pay for 1 dozen eggs. Today it takes a fraction of that time. Americans spend less on food than any other nation and they get what they pay for.

We began transitioning to organic production in 2007. Today we are 100% organic, cage free and pasture roaming. For us its about two distinctly different advantages. One is the living conditions and overall welfare of the birds compared to traditional cage production. The second is that by being Certified Organic, our consumers can know with certainty they are getting a food that fits their lifestyle or diet needs. These two items are big issues to consumers today.

What do you see happening to family farms in your area and the U.S. in general?

As food production focus has been on cheap foods, there is a direct trend to what’s happening on the family farm. Farming in general has a grow or die mentality. Small farms are dying as new, larger ones take their place. In one generation, a family farm that made a living on a small dairy herd and a small barn of chickens is gone. Today’s family farms typically are sustained with a job in town. It takes hundreds of thousands of chickens or 100′s of cattle in a herd to make a living.

Our contract farms that produce for Vital Farms are making a better living raising a fraction of the birds they once did. We get over one hundred calls a year from producers wanting to know if we are looking for more contract production. A shift to sustainable farming practices (with a focus on animal welfare) is dependent on the consumers’ willingness to pay more for that item and understand why it costs more. Organic farming has been a breath of life into small farms across the country. It creates an environment where the focus is on doing the right thing, not the cheapest thing. As a result the products cost more to produce and net more income that sustain this method of production.
How did you meet Jason and Matt? What attracted you to Vital Farms?

How I met Matt and Jason is a funny story. I became interested in pasture egg production in 2009. After only a few weeks of thinking hard about how I would peruse this, Matt called me out of the blue about buying some feed from our mill. Before that, I had heard of Vital Farms but knew nothing of them. We talked for 30 minutes on our first call and it ended with a planned visit to Austin the next week. I have felt good about our relationship from the first call. We are very excited about the opportunities ahead.
What do you like to do besides farming?

Outside of working I enjoy hunting and fishing and spending every minute possible outside.

Our hens have a drink from our drip-down hydration system

As the rest of the U.S. heats up, in the Southern States it’s been steamy for about a month already. At our farms, we make sure to keep our hens hydrated while giving them plenty of access to shade. Pasture-raising is still a very successful and viable method of farming, even in the heat. However, even when monitored very closely, heat stress can disrupt a chicken’s laying process and affect the overall quality of their eggs. High temperatures will put additional stress on the body, which also directly affects interior egg quality. As the days get hotter, it becomes  highly important to monitor water availability, feed intake, and duration of eggs  exposed to high temperatures.

In order to maintain a body temperature of about 106.5 degrees, the chicken must  increase its rate of breathing (panting) to cool itself down. Heavy panting increases  CO2 in the blood, which causes the pH of the blood to become alkaline. This  disturbance in acid-base balance can reduce the availability of calcium. Calcium intake  reduction is not only due to pH disturbance, but also to reduced feed consumption.  (The less heat needed to maintain body temperature, the less feed the chicken will eat). Reduced feed consumption will then directly influence the metabolism of a chicken. This heat stress can cause more soft shelled and cracked eggs in the summer.  A little water in the feed becomes a treat for the ladies and they love it! Along with the reasons listed above, and the obvious threat of dehydration, it is crucial to have adequate amounts of COOL water supplied to laying hens at all times! (And any other

Heat can damage egg quality, so in the summer, we gather eggs quickly and often

animal spending lots of time outside, for that matter). The duration of eggs left in the summer heat should also be monitored at all times, as this diminishes the egg quality. Lastly, a major indication of the overall interior quality of an egg is the albumen (egg white). A thinning or watery albumen is a sign of quality loss. When cracked on a plate, the yolk should be in a central position surrounded by a thick albumen. Quality control is very important to us, and we’d like to give our customers all of the information they need to recognize quality when they see it.

We know you will enjoy our delicious and nutritious Summer eggs! Please keep in mind that we are more than happy to give consumers insight into our daily farm operations. Tell us, what about pastured, organic hens is a mystery to you?