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Kipster’s positive impacts on the animals, people, and planet
CIWF highlights Kipster’s positive impacts on the animals, people, and planet in a new and upcoming case study. Kipster provides its hens with a complex, natural environment allowing them to express more behaviors associated with positive welfare, such as dustbathing, foraging, scratching, and perching. Kipster’s spacious hen houses feature indoor gardens, natural light, outdoor access, and climbing structures, such as small trees, branches, straw bales, or wooden perching structures. The climbing structures are installed in every house so that hens have many opportunities to perch, a common behavior of both modern laying hens and their wild jungle fowl ancestors.
Photo credit: Kipster Farms
Photo credit: Kipster Farms
Sustainability is also a key principle in Kipster’s mission. By installing solar panels and evaluating the environmental impact of laying hen feed and litter, Kipster farms actively measure and work to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Learn more about Kipster’s efforts to improve welfare and sustainability in commercial egg production in our new case study (publishing soon).
Handsome Brook Farms: Redefining humane and sustainable egg farming
Handsome Brook Farms is redefining humane and sustainable egg farming in the United States. Starting as a small family venture in upstate New York with just five hens, the company has grown into a leading producer of organic pasture-raised eggs, now operating in 10 states across the Midwest, Southeast and East Coast.
"Acting handsomely" is more than a slogan at Handsome Brook – it is a philosophy. Since its inception, the company continues to work to implement practices that improve hen welfare, support the farmers raising these birds, and encourage regenerative farming practices. Handsome Brook Farm’s ethos is emboldened in their partnerships, with over 150 farms now a part of its grower network. Handsome Brook Farms operations are third-party audited by the USDA Organic Program, American Humane (free range and pasture), and/or Certified Humane, further attesting to the farm's commitment to transparency. Although many of its on-farm standards go above and beyond the minimum requirements of these programs.
Organic Pasture-Raised: Room to Roam
Handsome Brook Farms is a pioneer in organic pasture-raised egg production. The hens on these farms roam freely on lush pastures, forage on fresh grasses, and express natural behaviors such as dustbathing and scratching. Handsome Brook's open-pasture model provides each hen with over 108 sq.ft. of space, approximately 231 times more than the space allowance of hens kept in battery cages.
Innovating for the planet
Photo Credit: Handsome Brook Farms
Environmental responsibility is a core to Handsome Brook Farm’s mission. In 2021, the company launched its Regenerative Egg Farming Project, a USDA-funded initiative to integrate climate-smart practices into commercial egg farms. The program focuses on enhancing soil health, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and supporting biodiversity on five of the company’s partner farms. Implementing practices, such as rotational grazing, cover cropping, and planting trees helps lower the carbon footprint and enhance farm sustainability and resilience.
Handsome Brook Farms is further advancing its environmental efforts through its Climate Smart Organic Egg Project, funded by a $3.6 million USDA grant. This initiative supports small farmers in adopting sustainable practices, including renewable solar energy installations and advanced pasture management, to promote a more sustainable future for animal agriculture. To date, the project is set to achieve significant milestones, with over 20 enrolled farms, covering more than 900 acres of pasture, supporting 500,000 hens, and expanding operations across seven states—NY, PA, OH, KY, IN, MO, and OK.
Supporting Farmers, Strengthening Communities
Beyond environmental efforts, Handsome Brook Farms is deeply invested in the wellbeing of its farmers. Programs like the Farmer Cost-Share initiative provide farmers with tailored resources for infrastructure improvements. This initiative allows small-scale predominantly Amish and Mennonite producers to thrive in a highly competitive market. Smaller farmers who may not have the acreage for Handsome Brook’s’ pasture-raised model are encouraged to consider a contract with The Farmer’s Hen, Handsome Brooks Farm’s free-range subsidiary. By fostering these partnerships, the company provides these farmers with reliable support while also helping to revitalize rural economies.
From the soil to the carton, Handsome Brook Farms demonstrates that agriculture can be animal welfare friendly and regenerative while remaining scalable. Their success serves as a model for better farming and a pathway to a more compassionate and sustainable future.
Vernon Martin Farmer Handsome Brook Farms
My goal with the trees being planted would be to hopefully have better [shelter] for the chickens to venture out. Then have some cattle on the pasture when the chickens aren’t using it. I’m hoping to eventually get into more rotational grazing, meaning I’d let the birds out one side and just have the cows graze down here once the trees are big enough and we don’t have to fence them off anymore.
“Just look where they all are,” said Martin as hens crowded around the shade from the maturing trees planted last year. “If you come into a farmer, and you tell him you should plant the trees in your pasture, they will look at you kind of strange like, ‘Trees in the pasture?! We want grass in the pasture. We don’t want trees,’” Martin remarked while carrying a bucket of water to a row of transplanted spruce and pine trees.
