Heat lamps give the spa treatment to a batch of week-old Welsummer chicks, a Dutch breed known for their “dark, terra-cotta-red eggs, often speckled with large freckles,” according to William Morrow, co-owner of Whitmore Farm outside Emmitsburg, Maryland. In less than six months, those eggs, the best of them labeled with the name of their originating hen, will be on sale at the Chevy Chase and Westover (Arlington) farmers markets.
Since 2003, Morrow, a former EPA scientist, and Kent Ozkum, an anesthesiologist, have provided humanely raised pork, lamb, and eggs to chefs Bryan Voltaggio (Volt, Range), Spike Gjerde (Woodberry Kitchen, Parts & Labor), and Jon Sybert (Tail Up Goat), among others. Meanwhile, the farm’s chicks—of breeds from Chile, France, England, the Netherlands, and Delaware—hatch at a rate of 600 a week.
This article appears in the May 2016 issue of Washingtonian.
