Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How does Shipping Work?
We ship from our farm to your doorstep Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday every week! We use high grade insulated liners and dry ice to ship to ensure that your meat arrives safely – generally overnight or within 2 days. If your package was delayed and arrives thawed and over 40 degrees, please contact us immediately.
We ship at a flat rate to all 50 states! Flat Rates are $19 to NC and by time zone for the rest of the US. Eastern: $29, Central: $39, Mountain: $49, Western: $59, HI and AK: $99.
Do you ever offer FREE SHIPPING?
Yes! Orders over $199 ship free to Eastern and Central time zones – with $39 off of the delivery to other time zones. We also occasionally send out free shipping codes to our Farm Friends Newsletter group. You can sign up here to join!
What is Local Delivery?
We deliver locally to the Raleigh/Wake Forest/Rolesville area twice a month – typically every other Friday – for a $10 flat fee. The cutoff for delivery is midnight the night before the delivery date. Orders are delivered between 8 am and 6 pm on delivery day. Deliveries are packaged in our insulated boxes with ice packs to your front door! We package each order to be sure it will still be at optimal temperature when you get home that evening and unpack into your fridge or freezer.
Do you ever offer FREE DELIVERY?
Yes! Orders over $149 deliver locally for free! Also, sometimes we can do a custom delivery for large orders. We also occasionally send out free delivery codes to our Farm Friends Newsletter group. You can sign up here to join!
Also, we offer a box return program for a $10 farm credit which coincidentally would cover your $10 delivery fee.
What if I need a different delivery day?
If you missed the local delivery day, you can either switch to shipping or pick up on our farm. We ship every week Monday-Wednesday from our farm using insulated boxes and dry ice. Local orders arrive overnight via UPS for a flat fee of $19. Pick up is also available nearly every Saturday on the farm from our self service farm coolers.
Large local orders (over $149) can sometimes be delivered on a different day, dependent on our farm schedule! If you have a large order and need a different delivery day, please reach out to Stephanie at Stephanie@happyhenfarmnc.com and we will see what we can do to help!
Box Return and $10 Credit
We love to reuse our packaging materials – especially the high grade insulated liners! Reusing them keeps them out of the landfill and saves us (and you!) money. For every box you return, we will send you a $10 farm credit to use on your next order!
There are three ways to return a box to the farm:
1 – Delivery customers can leave their box on their front porch for pick up on their next order. We’ll pick it up and email a $10 farm credit when we are back on the farm.
2 – Drop off box at the farm on pickup days (Saturday mornings from 9 am to 2 pm). Boxes can be left in the pickup area. Be sure that your name is on the box so we can send your $10 credit!
3 – Mail box back to the farm using the most economical method – USPS Media Mail. If you have multiple boxes, you can combine the liners into one box and recycle the other boxes. You will get a credit for each box’s liner. To use USPS media mail, place a book that you would like to donate to charity in the box and ship it to:
Happy Hen Farm
60 Happy Hen Lane
Louisburg, NC 27549
How does Farm Pickup work?
Farm pickup is available on most Saturday mornings from 9 am to 2 pm! We send an email when your order is ready for pickup with directions to the farm and details on the self-service farm coolers’ location. Be sure to look for the cows in the pasture while picking up! If it is bad weather, we will do pick ups on our front porch instead and will reach out with details.
What if my item is out of stock?
Are you looking for something that is out of stock? This happens sometimes with a small farm. Some items sell out almost immediately because they are in high demand and/or are items that are lower quantity. The best way to know when items are restocked is to sign up for our weekly “Chirp” newsletter. These farm friends are the first to know when new items are available!
Location
We are located in the rolling hills of the piedmont of North Carolina in Franklin County just east of Raleigh. The mild weather in our region allows our animals to remain outdoors year around. Our pastures have longer growing seasons as well, which minimizes the amount of hay needed.
Do you use antibiotics?
Happy Hen Farm meat is 100% antibiotic free. We pride ourselves on transparency and do not sell meat from any animal that has received antibiotics on our farm. In the rare case that we have to use an antibiotic to save the life of an animal, that animal is pulled from our meat program. This animal is sometimes still processed and the meat used by our family, friends, or donated.
Do you use any Growth Hormones?
We never use any growth hormones so all of our meat is 100% free of any added hormones.
Is your meat Organic?
The USDA Organic sticker is most helpful in situations where consumers are not able to ask the farmer about their practices and can know looking at a label in the grocery store that they meet certain criteria. Getting “certified organic” by the USDA is cost prohibitive for most small farms. Our farm is what can be considered “beyond organic” – meaning that all of our inputs are transparent to our consumer. We source locally grown, non-GMO, supplemental grains for our animals. We work hard to grow our animals sustainably and humanely in order to provide an all-natural product that we can be proud to offer to our customers.
Is your meat frozen?
Our meat is vacuum sealed and flash frozen at the USDA processor in order to preserve peak freshness. It is then stored in our freezers at sub-zero on the farm until packed and shipped or delivered to your front door. This means that when you defrost the product in your kitchen, it is the FIRST time it is defrosted ever. Compare this to typical grocery store meat which can be defrosted and refrozen and defrosted again multiple times and still labeled “fresh.”
What is Dry Aging and why do you do it?
Dry-aging is a craft tradition that used to be the norm, but has been replaced in favor of expediency and efficiency in most of the US. Pork and chicken can be eaten soon after harvest, but that is not the case with beef. Beef benefits from aging to promote tenderness and enhance flavor. Most beef sold in the US is split into large pieces called primals soon after harvest, then bagged, vacuum sealed, and boxed up for transport, where it “wet-ages” during transit to grocery stores, meat distributors, and similar locations. When it arrives, it is ultimately cut into steaks, roasts, and other familiar cuts for the consumer. Ground beef is often packaged and shipped without the benefit of any aging at all. In contrast, dry-aging beef involves hanging it in just above freezing temperatures in a humidity controlled room with ample air flow, for at least 14 days. As it hangs, moisture dissipates from the beef, increasing tenderness and concentrating flavor.
At Happy Hen Farm, we dry age ALL of our beef for 14 to 21 days and not just the steaks. This helps to give our beef enhanced tenderness and flavor. It costs extra and takes more time to do this, but we believe that the final product is well worth it.
Can I visit your farm?
We occasionally hold farm events that allow customers to visit the farm. Since we are a working farm without any hired help, we concentrate our time on caring for the animals and raising our family. If you pick up an order on the farm, you can see the front pasture where we keep our breeding stock of cows during most of the year and the mobile chicken tractors! The rest of the farm and our homestead is not visible from the road, but we may be up there working when you pick up and would love to say “hi!” If you are interested in future farm events, sign up for our Farm Friends Newsletter and get notified when we hold these events!
We ship from our farm to your doorstep Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday every week! We use high grade insulated liners and dry ice to ship to ensure that your meat arrives safely – generally overnight or within 2 days. If your package was delayed and arrives thawed and over 40 degrees, please contact us immediately.
We ship at a flat rate to all 50 states! Flat Rates are $19 to NC and by time zone for the rest of the US. Eastern: $29, Central: $39, Mountain: $49, Western: $59, HI and AK: $99.
Do you ever offer FREE SHIPPING?
Yes! Orders over $199 ship free to Eastern and Central time zones – with $39 off of the delivery to other time zones. We also occasionally send out free shipping codes to our Farm Friends Newsletter group. You can sign up here to join!
What is Local Delivery?
We deliver locally to the Raleigh/Wake Forest/Rolesville area twice a month – typically every other Friday – for a $10 flat fee. The cutoff for delivery is midnight the night before the delivery date. Orders are delivered between 8 am and 6 pm on delivery day. Deliveries are packaged in our insulated boxes with ice packs to your front door! We package each order to be sure it will still be at optimal temperature when you get home that evening and unpack into your fridge or freezer.
Do you ever offer FREE DELIVERY?
Yes! Orders over $149 deliver locally for free! Also, sometimes we can do a custom delivery for large orders. We also occasionally send out free delivery codes to our Farm Friends Newsletter group. You can sign up here to join!
Also, we offer a box return program for a $10 farm credit which coincidentally would cover your $10 delivery fee.
What if I need a different delivery day?
If you missed the local delivery day, you can either switch to shipping or pick up on our farm. We ship every week Monday-Wednesday from our farm using insulated boxes and dry ice. Local orders arrive overnight via UPS for a flat fee of $19. Pick up is also available nearly every Saturday on the farm from our self service farm coolers.
Large local orders (over $149) can sometimes be delivered on a different day, dependent on our farm schedule! If you have a large order and need a different delivery day, please reach out to Stephanie at Stephanie@happyhenfarmnc.com and we will see what we can do to help!
Box Return and $10 Credit
We love to reuse our packaging materials – especially the high grade insulated liners! Reusing them keeps them out of the landfill and saves us (and you!) money. For every box you return, we will send you a $10 farm credit to use on your next order!
There are three ways to return a box to the farm:
1 – Delivery customers can leave their box on their front porch for pick up on their next order. We’ll pick it up and email a $10 farm credit when we are back on the farm.
2 – Drop off box at the farm on pickup days (Saturday mornings from 9 am to 2 pm). Boxes can be left in the pickup area. Be sure that your name is on the box so we can send your $10 credit!
3 – Mail box back to the farm using the most economical method – USPS Media Mail. If you have multiple boxes, you can combine the liners into one box and recycle the other boxes. You will get a credit for each box’s liner. To use USPS media mail, place a book that you would like to donate to charity in the box and ship it to:
Happy Hen Farm
60 Happy Hen Lane
Louisburg, NC 27549
How does Farm Pickup work?
Farm pickup is available on most Saturday mornings from 9 am to 2 pm! We send an email when your order is ready for pickup with directions to the farm and details on the self-service farm coolers’ location. Be sure to look for the cows in the pasture while picking up! If it is bad weather, we will do pick ups on our front porch instead and will reach out with details.
What if my item is out of stock?
Are you looking for something that is out of stock? This happens sometimes with a small farm. Some items sell out almost immediately because they are in high demand and/or are items that are lower quantity. The best way to know when items are restocked is to sign up for our weekly “Chirp” newsletter. These farm friends are the first to know when new items are available!
Location
We are located in the rolling hills of the piedmont of North Carolina in Franklin County just east of Raleigh. The mild weather in our region allows our animals to remain outdoors year around. Our pastures have longer growing seasons as well, which minimizes the amount of hay needed.
Do you use antibiotics?
Happy Hen Farm meat is 100% antibiotic free. We pride ourselves on transparency and do not sell meat from any animal that has received antibiotics on our farm. In the rare case that we have to use an antibiotic to save the life of an animal, that animal is pulled from our meat program. This animal is sometimes still processed and the meat used by our family, friends, or donated.
Do you use any Growth Hormones?
We never use any growth hormones so all of our meat is 100% free of any added hormones.
Is your meat Organic?
The USDA Organic sticker is most helpful in situations where consumers are not able to ask the farmer about their practices and can know looking at a label in the grocery store that they meet certain criteria. Getting “certified organic” by the USDA is cost prohibitive for most small farms. Our farm is what can be considered “beyond organic” – meaning that all of our inputs are transparent to our consumer. We source locally grown, non-GMO, supplemental grains for our animals. We work hard to grow our animals sustainably and humanely in order to provide an all-natural product that we can be proud to offer to our customers.
Is your meat frozen?
Our meat is vacuum sealed and flash frozen at the USDA processor in order to preserve peak freshness. It is then stored in our freezers at sub-zero on the farm until packed and shipped or delivered to your front door. This means that when you defrost the product in your kitchen, it is the FIRST time it is defrosted ever. Compare this to typical grocery store meat which can be defrosted and refrozen and defrosted again multiple times and still labeled “fresh.”
What is Dry Aging and why do you do it?
Dry-aging is a craft tradition that used to be the norm, but has been replaced in favor of expediency and efficiency in most of the US. Pork and chicken can be eaten soon after harvest, but that is not the case with beef. Beef benefits from aging to promote tenderness and enhance flavor. Most beef sold in the US is split into large pieces called primals soon after harvest, then bagged, vacuum sealed, and boxed up for transport, where it “wet-ages” during transit to grocery stores, meat distributors, and similar locations. When it arrives, it is ultimately cut into steaks, roasts, and other familiar cuts for the consumer. Ground beef is often packaged and shipped without the benefit of any aging at all. In contrast, dry-aging beef involves hanging it in just above freezing temperatures in a humidity controlled room with ample air flow, for at least 14 days. As it hangs, moisture dissipates from the beef, increasing tenderness and concentrating flavor.
At Happy Hen Farm, we dry age ALL of our beef for 14 to 21 days and not just the steaks. This helps to give our beef enhanced tenderness and flavor. It costs extra and takes more time to do this, but we believe that the final product is well worth it.
Can I visit your farm?
We occasionally hold farm events that allow customers to visit the farm. Since we are a working farm without any hired help, we concentrate our time on caring for the animals and raising our family. If you pick up an order on the farm, you can see the front pasture where we keep our breeding stock of cows during most of the year and the mobile chicken tractors! The rest of the farm and our homestead is not visible from the road, but we may be up there working when you pick up and would love to say “hi!” If you are interested in future farm events, sign up for our Farm Friends Newsletter and get notified when we hold these events!