Nelson farm putting eggs on its plate

By Aaron Lee

Published: April 16, 2008

There are 24,000 chickens that, by the beginning of June, will likely make one Piney River farm the largest organic, free-range, egg producer in the state.

“We’ve always been all-natural, but never been organic,” said Ralph Glatt, president of Black Eagle Farm.

The 1,000-acre farm, in business as Black Eagle since 1980, pasture-raises beef cattle, lambs and goats.

Glatt estimates the chickens will lay roughly 20,000 eggs a day. He said the number of chickens should double by the end of the year to fill the little-less-than-a-football-field sized coop and packaging operation built over the last six months.

That addition should bring the farm’s annual egg production, marketed as Piney River Organics, to around 14 million.

The building that will house the birds will give them places to roost and will expose them to natural light and air, Glatt said.

With access to the outside, each bird will have an average of five feet of space to maneuver in a fenced yard, farm manager John Dobbs said.

“A chicken is supposed to be able to be a chicken,” said Catherine Cash, organics marketing specialist with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. “I think they’re being very careful to adhere to the organic standards.”

Those standards include keeping the farm free of pesticides and herbicides and keeping the chickens antibiotic-free.

As for the chicken litter, Dobbs said the waste created by the birds will, for now, be spread back onto the farmland.

While other farms around Virginia are producing organic and free-range eggs, Black Eagle is the first that Cash and Dobbs believe is doing it on a large scale.

Dobbs said apprehension about the organic egg market among some farmers has likely, in part, kept some from trying production on a commercial level.

“They’re afraid it’s going to fall apart,” Dobbs said.

For Black Eagle’s part, he said the farm is taking its cues from a European market where he said the organic market is rooted deep and where Glatt’s family raises sheep and cattle.

Black Eagle is talking with grocery stores statewide and along the Eastern Shore about selling the eggs. Dobbs said they will be also be sold at the farm, located off Virginia 56, and at nearby farmers markets.