Producer

Fog Hollow Farm is a small-scale pastured poultry farm located in the heart of the beautiful Coast Range mountains near the town of Walton, OR. Owners Steve Knox and Terah VanDusen manage the 7 acre farm where they raise chickens for both meat and eggs. The farm's goal is to produce nutritious, high-quality food for our local community in a way that provides the best quality of life for the animals and acts as a regenerative force for the land and the surrounding eco-system.

Here at Fog Hollow Farm we practice a multi-species, pasture-based, management-intensive grazing system. We maintain a small flock of sheep which we move from paddock to paddock every few days, slowly making their way over the entire pasture. This helps ensure that the grass is grazed evenly and fertility is spread evenly across the pasture all while offering the sheep constant access to fresh nutritious forage. Grazing like this both encourages the growth of beneficial grasses,making the pasture more nutritious, and turns the manure from a potentially harmful waste product into a fertility source for the pasture.

Directly following the sheep we run a flock of laying hens over the same ground. As the hens scratch around in search of fresh bugs they also break up and spread around the sheep manure helping to speed its breakdown. Keeping the chickens right behind the sheep also ensures a large quantity of insects in the pasture, thereby turning a potential health concern for the sheep into a protein bonanza for the birds. This combination of fresh grass and lots of bugs means the eggs laid by our birds are high both Omega-3 fatty acids and Vitamin D.

In addition to laying hens we also raise broiler chickens for meat. These birds are raised in mobile pens which are moved onto fresh grass daily. Their pasture-based diet is supplemented with a locally milled, corn & soy free, non-GMO feed, all of which is grown here in the northwest. All of our chicks are purchased from a local, 4th generation family-run hatchery and our birds are processed by another small family-run processor. We strive to support other local farmers and businesses and to encourage humane and responsible agriculture where ever possible.