Fulton Valley Followup

A few readers may remember that when we visited the Fulton Valley Farms processor in December, Fulton — while totally transparent in their processing operations — informed us that for “biosecurity” reasons we couldn’t go visit the chicken farms themselves. That was frustrating, since we really want to know what “free-range” chickens means to Fulton Valley Farms.

Well, we were lucky to meet Sandra Ouellette on our trip to Brandt Farms, and Sandra now represents Fulton Valley Farms — a decision she made only after visiting the farms herself and verifying that they met her standards for humane and thoughtful treatment of animals. Plus, she took pictures. She graciously gave her permission for me to share the photos with you. Here are a couple that I thought give a good sense of the operation.

Apparently the chickens also have access to the outdoors, however, according to Sandra, when she was there it was so hot — Fresno in the summer — that neither person nor poultry had any interest in being outside. In any event, it looks to me that the chickens really do have room to walk around freely, even inside. Similar to Brandt, it’s not pastoral, but it’s obviously a step up from the minimum standards of factory farming.