Table Poultry

We don’t own a hatchery at the farm, so we buy in our poultry as day old chicken, guinea fowl Keats and ducklings. This happens every month, and after 4 weeks of living in a warm brooding pen the babies go outside into their own houses, ready to enjoy the fresh air and free access to the pasture.

We actually use a French breed of chicken, called the ‘Sasso’. The Sasso has been developed to grow slowly within a free range environment, unlike the British hybrid birds that are used within the fast growing, intensive broiler industry.

We grow all our poultry to 16 or 18 weeks. Typically, poultry is killed around 6 weeks old. We believe this is a much kinder way to produce chicken as well as producing a mature, textured meat that is full of flavour. It is particularly unusual in ducks as almost all are killed at 7 weeks old just before they moult. The moult is when the birds lose their baby feathers, which means they cannot be easily plucked and it also causes their growth to slow down. We take them through the moult as we believe it is worth the wait! By doing so you get a much bigger, more mature bird with amazing flavour and depth of meat.
All the birds at Hyden Farm are not only reared here but are also killed at home. They have no travelling and we believe this means less stress for the birds. They are then hung, before being processed, for a few days (similar to game) to aid the maturing of the meat. They are then finished ready for the oven.

One possible drawback to our production methods could be the size of birds we get! The chicken can be between 2-3kg, 1.5-2kg for guinea fowl and up to 3.5kg for the ducks! We like to think this increases the enjoyment time of the meal – if you don’t eat it all in one sitting then all the poultry is delicious cold!!

We do like to try and think of new things to try, and offer to our customers all the time, ensuring what we produce is just that bit more special than the mainstream. Some of the’new’ breeds we are using were once favourites of the Victorians and are now considered rare breeds, such as the Dorking chicken.

Read about our;
ducks & guinea fowl | pigs | cattle | sheep | egg layers | turkeys & geese