Jan Dircks grew up outside of Aurora, Minnesota, and has raised chickens all her life. Her husband Joe grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. Jan worked at Great Scott Meats for 20 years and Joe worked in the mines. But they had this small 40-acre farm down by Zim, too, and in 2006 they got their first hens and started an egg farm. I met Jan several years ago at the Virginia Market Square Farmers Market where she sold Dircks Farm eggs. At the time, she had about 800 hens. Now there are closer to 400.
These hens produce what are called “pastured” eggs, which means that the hens are not caged and have free access to the outdoors. In the winter, it’s a bit snowy in their large outdoor fenced area. But in the summer, they alternate between two very large pastures where they eat greens and bugs in addition to their non-GMO feed. They rotate from one pasture to another, eating down the grass and plants in one while the other re-grows. Chickens are known to love grass and clover, dandelions and dock, and ticks and slugs, grasshoppers and crickets and spiders and flies. And yes, they eat mosquitos! While it’s easy to provide grass and bugs for the hens, it’s harder to find non-GMO feed. The Dircks’ go-to source is Floodwood Farm and Feed where Nate and Maria Manner operate a solar-powered feed mill. (check them out on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Floodwood-Farm-Feed-163195343880162 ).
The day I visit Dircks Farm it’s warming up, 39 degrees, but extremely windy. Most of the hens are in the large barn just hanging out. Some are in the laying boxes, some on the roosts, and others walking around. I meet many heirloom breeds as well as some “production chickens” bred to lay lots of eggs and not eat too much. There are Red Laced Wyandottes, Delawares, Barred Rocks, Lakenvelders, Mottled Javas (the second-oldest breed in the U.S.), Black Sex-Links, Hy-Line Browns, Silver Laced Wyandottes, some Guinea hens, and a few roosters. The most interesting-looking hen is a Buff Brahma—known to lay through the cold winter when others quit. She has “furry” feet that help to keep her warm.
I comment that the roosters here are pretty laid back and friendly. I’ve known of some mean roosters. Jan says if a rooster gets mean, she kills him. Period. Okay, that explains these gentlemen. Roosters rule the roost, as the saying goes, and that’s part of the pecking order established within every flock in the world. The top chicken gets the best place on the roosting bar at night as part of this complex hierarchy. The pecking order has an influence on feeding, drinking, egg laying, roosting, crowing, mating and even dust bathing. Chickens are very social animals and enjoy being together, but they’re intricately organized in that togetherness.
The barn is huge and cleaning it every few days is quite a job—taking 5 hours or more. Sometimes the grandchildren or the neighbor Thronson boys help. There is no smell at all in this barn, contrary to what folks think a barn full of chickens might be like. Every few days the huge roosting frames are moved out into the open field and all the wood shavings and chicken poo are shoveled out to a manure pile where they are composted for a year, then spread on the gardens. Jan and Joe plant the gardens with squash and pumpkins, which grow like crazy. They freeze in the fall and, in the winter, the hens eat them as a special treat. They love pecking them apart. Jan says that a huge pumpkin will turn into a paper-thin remnant of skin overnight. Their winter feed is also supplemented with organic alfalfa meal, a green treat. And in the spring the old hens are culled, bought by a neighbor woman who, with her family, butchers them and cans the meat. New chicks or pullets join the flock, and the circle continues.
In the washing shed, a gleaming stainless-steel counter and sink covers one wall. Opposite that wall are huge refrigerator/coolers stacked high with the signature yellow cartons of Dircks Farm eggs. Each carton is signed by Jan or one of the grandchildren and marked with an “x” when it is re-used. The grandchildren who live closest have learned the trade. The oldest, Marley, knows the whole process—gathering, washing, candling, and packing the eggs for sale. The grandchildren also love the horse and the miniature goats who share this place. And, until a bobcat killed them all recently, there was a breeding pair of geese and 23 banties in a separate building. The bobcat’s footprints in the fresh snow showed that it had tried to get into the big barn, too, but hadn’t been able to breach the doors, thank heavens.
Dircks Farm sells eggs to Natural Harvest Food Coop in Virginia, the Positively Third Street Bakery in Duluth, Cobb Cook Grocery in Hibbing, and The Grocery Store and Floodwood Farm & Feed in Floodwood. Jan delivers out of their pickup truck which is fitted with an insulated box built by their son. The bottom of the box slides out for easy delivery. This is what farm-to-grocery looks like. No industrial-style egg production here, just Jan and Joe delivering eggs from pastured hens to buyers they know by first name. That’s what a local food system is all about: the food, the humane treatment and care of animals, and the human connection.
