Home of Rocky the Range Chicken®

Rocky the Range Chicken

Rocky was the first USDA approved free range chicken. A premium roasting bird averaging 5 pounds, Rocky has access to fenced yards where the birds are free to roam in the open air and forage through the native grasses. Rocky is about 9 weeks old when marketed.

What is Free Range?

Rosie
Rosie was the first chicken in the United States to carry a certified organic label. Rosie's diet consists of 100% certified organic corn and soybean grown on soil that has been free of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers for at least three years. Petaluma Poultry raises Rosie in accordance with the organic protocols independently verified by Oregon Tilth, a third party certifier. Oregon Tilth visits the poultry houses, feed mill and processing plant to confirm that organic practices are followed at all times. We maintain a rigorous audit trail documenting the hatching, growing, processing and distribution of each bird. A box of Rosies from our delivery truck can be traced all the way back to the field where their organic feed was grown.

Rosie is a free range chicken, allowed to run and forage outdoors in an open-air, fenced area outside the barn. At market, Rosie's weight averages 4 pounds.

What is Organic?

What does "free range" mean?

Rocky Jr. Natural Chicken

A premium quality broiler or fryer, Rocky Jr. is a younger bird weighing 3.5 pounds on average. The birds roam in the spacious growout houses. They do not range outside because they are young and only partially feathered.

What is Sustainability?

Our History

2002

• Petaluma Poultry named Environmental Business of the Year by the Sonoma County Conservation Council.
• Industry Safety Award from the California Grain and Feed Association.
• Randy Duranceau addresses the National Organics Standards Board advocating strict enforcement of the free range requirement for organic certification of poultry.
• WRAP award from the State of California for exemplary resource conservation.
  

• Sustainability Team convenes voluntarily. Goal: minimize the company’s environmental footprint.
• Ozonation pilot project begins. Goal: eliminate the use of chlorine in the processing plant, potentially reducing water usage by as much as 85 percent.
  

• Design and construction of a state-of-the-art hatchery in Sonoma County.

• Petaluma Poultry raises its first organic chickens.

• Introduction of Rocky Jr., a smaller, younger version of the antibiotic-free, flavorful chicken.
• Shainsky begins working on the creation of national standards for organic poultry and meat.
  

• Petaluma Poultry’s focus widens to include the emerging natural foods market. The company stops the use of antibiotics in feed.
• Allen Shainsky accepts the challenge from leading Bay Area chefs: develop a chicken with old-fashioned flavor.
• Shainsky goes to the Loire Valley, France to study European poultry husbandry.
• Shainsky develops a feed based on proteins of corn and soy with no animal byproducts, animal fat or antibiotics.
• Introduction of Rocky - the first commercially available free range chicken.
  

• Petaluma Poultry builds its own feed mill to provide the highest quality feed for its chickens.

• Darrel Freitas, current president, joins Petaluma Poultry.

• Allen Shainsky founds Petaluma Poultry, a company focused on product for specialty ethnic markets.

• Allen Shainsky earns a BS degree in Poultry Husbandry from the University of California, Berkeley.

• Allen Shainsky, age 6, begins working on his family’s chicken ranch.

• Russian immigrant Israel Shainsky moves to Sonoma, California. The Shainsky family begins raising chickens, becoming growers and distributors.