Home grown organic chicken and wool-less sheep are two of the latest additions at Wadson's farm in Southampton.

They are the farm's latest bid to produce healthier food in a more environmentally friendly way.

Customers snapped up the first batch of 90 organic, oven-ready chickens at the Farmer's Market on Saturday and at a stand at Whale Bay.

Another 50 will be ready this weekend and a similar number the following week.

The birds are kept in portable coops which are moved around the field almost daily to provide new grass to feed on while making sure the whole field gets fertilised - one of the aims of the exercise.

Grass-fed meat is higher in vitamin E while lower in calories, fat and saturated fat claim advocates.

The movement of the coops also has the added benefit of not concentrating the manure which means a lack of the pong often associated with chicken farms.

Oats will then be planted for the chickens to eat. At the moment, they are also given feed free of red meat, chemicals, hormones and antibiotics.

Animal science has reached the stage where birds can quickly be grown for market without the need for chemical trickery, said Wadson Farm employee Brian Payne, who has a lifetime's experience with livestock.

“We wanted to reduce the dependency on commercial fertiliser,” Mr. Payne said. “We want to integrate livestock into the market garden process and diversify the farm.”

“We are looking to farm in a more sustainable way and to make sure we have manure replacing the chemical fertiliser.

“It's good for the community if you can have livestock and create healthier soils and a healthier product.

“We have a great year-round climate here and it (chicken) is a real staple, it's something that has to come into the Island all the time. Now we can produce a superior local product.”

He said the system, developed in the US, was a first for Bermuda.

At four dollars at a pound it is twice the price of non-organic chicken but comparable with imported organic chicken. However advocates say the meat is twice as tasty.

He said his first taste of organic chicken turned him into a evangelist.

“It's the tastiest chicken I have eaten.”

His wife Kate agreed: “I don't like chicken that much but I was really impressed with it. It was really tasty.”

The farm now has 700 birds at various stages of life but those hoping for home grown organic turkey this Christmas are out of luck.

“We looked at doing some turkeys, but they are notoriously more difficult to raise than broilers.

“The broilers are a lot quicker from a cash flow point of view.

“In eight weeks they grow from chick to processing but turkeys take 16 weeks and they are seasonal, you are limited to that Thanksgiving and Christmas market.”

Livestock farming has diminished in Bermuda over recent years, said Mr. Payne, but he said Bermudians suffering from the high cost of living could learn to make the most of even small plots of land to provide food, both arable and livestock.

He said the farm was looking at running school tours. “I started my interest in farming through school garden programmes.

“You could have a cage of five birds and a little kid could be pulling that across his home garden plot and fertilising the potatoes and onions and carrots and feeding a family.

“What you can get out of a little packet of seeds and a little ingenuity by putting these systems in a semi-urban environment is phenomenal.

“There are so few opportunities where Bermudians can put their dollars back into their own economy. One thing about this operation is we spend it all in Bermuda.”

The farm in Luke's Pond Road introduced the chickens in October and soon after brought in hair sheep which shed hair rather than having to be shorn which cuts down on labour costs which outweigh the price of wool in a depressed market.

The meat also has a different flavour.

“You get a different taste to the meat, it doesn't have that oily taste from the lanolin in the wool,” said Mr. Payne.

“They are here to be the lawnmowers for the pasture/poultry operation and drop their manure and give us another product.

He said grazed grass was more nutritious for the chickens.

“We think the sheep are indispensable to the whole system.”