Have you ever seen a chicken fly into a tree?
The chicken flaps its wings, aims, and somehow lands on a branch just right.
It’s like Magic.
A ruffle of the feathers, tuck of the head, and a chicken settles in like it has been doing it forever….
Chickens didn’t start in backyards or barns. Long before anyone collected their eggs or tried to fence them in, chickens lived in forests. Their ancestors, the red junglefowl, still roam the woodlands of Southeast Asia, roosting in trees every night to stay safe. That instinct persists. It’s in every hen I raise.
I’ve felt like the further we pull animals from nature, the less we understand them. So when I started designing our mobile chicken home, I thought about more than just eggs and fencing. I thought about trees.
Every evening here, as the sun drops behind the field, our flock makes their way into their elevated roost. It’s not a plastic crate. It’s not a dusty corner of a metal shed. It’s a space designed to echo the forest: high, sheltered, open to the breeze, and shaded by the trees they love.
I’ve seen the way chickens light up when they have real cover. The way they move with confidence under tree limbs, scratching the leaf litter for bugs. The way they nap in the filtered sun. The way they choose the highest perch when the wind picks up. They were made for this.
Chickens are meant for more than just pasture, they need to live in the shade of trees.
There’s a reason the jungle is still in their bones.
– ADAM THOR GEISLER
Founder, Coop De’Tat
HomegrownPasture.com
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