Our Story
Hello! We are Marie and Ryan, a husband and wife team, who love making things from scratch the natural way. We’ve worked on or with farms for decades. And we’ve grown a lot of our own food, too!
When Marie was working with Miller’s Bio Farm, there was a bit of an egg-splosion in 2024. You see, the egg farmers found a “soy oil” tag on their corn & soy free feed. Yikes! This was the final straw in a line of questionable things. Trust was finally lost.
So they quickly decided to switch feed suppliers. They found an amazing partner - John at County Line Feed. This was an incredible opportunity to create something better and something custom. Marie worked with the farmers and the feed supplier to design a new feed that was truly natural and unquestionably corn & soy free.
During the process, they made a bold choice - they would no longer put marigold and paprika in the feed. Why? The main reason it’s in there is to make the yolks orange. Did you know colorants (natural and otherwise) are basically in all chicken feed nowadays? They are!
Although there are minor nutritional benefits, marigold and paprika aren't needed for the hens' nutrition. And plus, with color in the feed, you kinda lose that indicator of what the hens are eating (yup, egg color changes based on forage).
The hens were happy and healthy on the new feed. The eggs were delicious. But, after a couple months, the yolk color started to lighten. They were yellow instead of the orange they used to be. And customers started asking questions. I mean, in the natural food world, it's kinda become common knowledge that orange yolks mean the hens were pasture raised and therefore the most nutrient dense. It was confusing.
Marie’s big question was —- but wait, does the yolk color matter? The farming practices are the same as before, and the feed is even better. The eggs should be better, too.
So Marie sent eggs for testing. She sent orange and yellow yolk eggs from Miller’s along with 3 other eggs from stores and farms. Turns out yolk color doesn’t matter! But what was more surprising was that the eggs from hens eating this new feed were highly nutritious. More vitamins, less PUFAs, and a stellar 4:1 omega 6/3 ratio. Wow! I mean, they even got the attention of the scientist who did the testing (and is currently using them in a USDA nutrition study).
And as Marie told people about this story, more and more home growers started asking, “Where they could get this feed?” The sad answer was, “You can’t.”
You see, as a home grower or homesteader, you’re not big enough to have feed mixed especially for you… even if you want something as simple as removing the color. And our feed supplier (and most other feed suppliers) only sells in huge quantities to farms. You’re kinda limited to brands of pre-mixed feeds. And when you value natural and transparency, Tractor Supply simply doesn’t cut it.
So Marie and her husband Ryan decided to start Merry Natural. Because everyone should have access to this awesome chicken feed. You are not alone. It takes a village to make your homesteading dreams become a reality. We'd be so happy to welcome you into our natural food community.
