Our chickens are free range, meaning that they have access to the outdoors during all daylight hours. They are pastured, meaning that they have access to at least 108 sq ft per bird of rotated pasture area. To protect the chickens from predators while they graze, we have built them a mobile chicken tractor that we rotate around the pasture. Their pasture areas are seeded with flax, clover and other plants that promote the formation of omega-3 fatty acids in the chickens' eggs (omega-3 cover crop). The chickens are also fed excess fruits and vegetables from the farm.

We want our chickens to have happy, stress-free lives so we provide them unlimited access to high quality feed and clean (and chilled during the summer!) water. They sleep inside a (very) secure coop at night and excitedly go out to play under their shade structures as soon as their automated coop door opens at sunrise each morning.

Our chicken enterprise is not certified organic, but we practice research-based, best in class husbandry aligned with organic principles.

Our current practices far exceed those set out by the organic standards, both in minimizing toxic herbicides and pesticides and maintaining good soil health. Above and beyond the organic requirements, we use no synthetic fertilizers and have no internal combustion engines in our crop rows. Because we are a young, small farm, organic certification (and all the cost and paperwork that entails), organic certification hasn't made sense for us. We invite you to visit our farm to see firsthand how our no-tillage, herbicide-free, and pesticide-free practices create a truly sustainable food system.

Conventional farming is a major source of worldwide carbon emissions. That is why we have embraced regenerative farming practices to flip this scenario, so full Circle Farm is not a net emitter, but in fact, net stores carbon.

Using solar panels and whole-home batteries, our farmhouse is a net energy exporter.

All green waste generated on the farm (and the farmhouse!) is either happily eaten by our chickens or composted.

To conserve water, we exclusively use drip irrigation, a dramatically more efficient water delivery mechanism than sprinklers or flood irrigation. Over the past year, we have incorporated almost 200 cubic yards of high quality compost into our growing areas, dramatically increasing the organic matter and thus the water holding capacity of our soil. By extensively using mulch, we have cultivated enormous numbers of earthworms that naturally mix the compost into our native clay soil (worms are nature's tillers!).

Fully avoiding the use of plastic is virtually impossible in a modern irrigated farm. Nevertheless, we prioritize minimizing our use of plastics whenever possible. For example, we avoid using plastic landscape fabric on our vegetable crops by mulching with cardboard (we recycle all of our delivery boxes plus those generously donated by our local Costco). We also receive dozens and dozens of cubic yards of wood chips and shredded leaves from local arborists that we use to mulch our vegetable beds and orchard.

We use cover crops to prevent soil erosion, fix atmospheric nitrogen, and add organic biomass to our soils.

Conventional agricultural fertilizers represent 5% of worldwide greenhouse emissions from their generation and transport. We are able to avoid these products completely by using our flock of chickens as a nitrogen source. Additionally, by cultivating our soil microbiome, we are able to access the abundance of fertility in our Northern California soil to grow delicious, nutrient-packed produce.