Heritage Hen Farm

About Heritage Hen Farm

Svetlana and Marty Simon raise over 30 diverse breeds of laying hens on their 15-acre farm in Boynton Beach, an otherwise suburban community in south Florida. Their chickens are truly free-ranging, living outside on pastures all year, where they can scratch and peck, spread their wings, take dirt baths, and search for grubs and seeds to eat.

In addition to the grasses, grubs and insects that their chickens forage on the farm, Svetlana and Marty take pride in the supplemental feed they provide their laying hens. “The food they eat directly affects the flavor of the eggs, so we try to give them all-natural, organic foodstuff,” Marty explains. “We feed whole oats with bran and some dried cereals, plus sprouted millet, sprouted garbanzo beans, sprouted flax seed, and wheatgrass, which we combine ourselves. Also, we occasionally collect seaweed from the coast which we wash, dry in the sun, and then make into a powder. We sprinkle this into the chickens' feed to supplement their minerals.” In addition, the farm is a completely chemical-free: “We use no fertilizer, no pesticide, nothing. Everything is organic and natural,” says Svetlana. Choosing traditional and often rare chicken breeds that are adapted to living outdoors is an important part of Svetlana and Marty’s farming practices. “We try to diversify the flock as much as possible, which helps with the health of all the chickens,” Svetlana says. A pleasing by-product of this diversity is that Heritage Hen Farm’s eggs range in color from blue-green to chocolate brown. “We even have a few chickens that lay white!” she adds.