Redefining Why the Chicken Crossed the Road

I would be lying to say I love chickens. I grew up on a chicken farm in Illinois and refused to consider chickens as a part of our farm. That said, the chickens on Union Grove Farm are beloved. In fact, they even have a custom-built home, aptly-named ‘Le Palais de Poulet’ [check it out in the video]. The Palais was fashioned after Bunny Williams’ aviary house with our beautiful French and Polish hens and Plymouth Rock chickens in mind. But for most of the day, these gals are ‘free range’ and a strategic part of our regenerative farm culture experiment.

As regenerative farmers, Union Grove recognizes that chicken-nurtured soil produces less runoff and supports healthy water systems, and that poultry-nourished soil is resilient soil, and healthy soil captures more carbon. In fact, our grapes sequester almost 3x the amount of carbon each year that a mature forest does. That means as a regenerative farm, we not only avoid polluting the region, we actually can help reverse global warming through carbon sequestration.

Since our chickens help replace damaging pesticides and herbicides, they help to welcome the company of bees, birds, and bats that bolster balance and diversity in the surrounding landscape. Watch these awesome gals as they spend their days under the vines, helping us to control the insects, including the arch nemesis to our grapes, the Japanese beetle. The birds don’t do it alone, but along with our other regenerative practices, minimal or no pesticides or herbicides, they can be substantial contributors to the game-changing system we are building on our family farm in Chapel Hill.

TW: @greghbohlen IG: @UnionGroveFarm IG: @bohlengreg