From 40 hens
in Issaquah to
56,000 in the
Columbia Basin.
2024
40 hens. Two obsessions. One vision.
It started on Issaquah Hobart Road with 40 hens and a collision of two deep passions: a technologist's instinct to instrument and optimize everything, and a genuine, almost stubborn conviction that food should be raised the right way — humanely, transparently, and in harmony with the land that produces it.
Mohamed didn't just keep chickens. He watched them. He learned what a truly healthy bird looks like — how it moves, how it forages, what real pasture rotation does to egg quality. And he started asking the question that engineers ask: what if every variable on this farm could be measured, managed, and made better? IoT sensors for barn climate. Automated feeders. AI-assisted mortality detection. Manure captured, dried, and cycled back as fertilizer and compost pellets — not waste, but a resource. A closed loop. A farm that takes from the land and gives back in equal measure.
The birds roamed. They dustbathed. They expressed every natural behavior a hen is wired for — because welfare isn't a marketing claim, it's the operating condition that makes everything else possible. That backyard flock in Issaquah wasn't a hobby. It was a proof of concept. And it worked.
2025
A hobby became a thesis. A thesis became a plan.
What Mohamed observed managing a small flock — the gap between what pasture-raised eggs could be and what commercial production typically delivered — pointed toward an opportunity. The Pacific Northwest had strong retail demand for certified humane pasture-raised eggs and limited local supply. The Columbia Basin had the land, the water rights, and the agricultural infrastructure. The question shifted from "how do I raise better eggs?" to "how do I build the facility that produces them at scale — without compromising what made the small flock great?"
→ Now
56,000 hens. The same principles. Built to last 15 years.
Meadow Peck Farms is now developing a 160-acre, 56,000-hen HFAC Certified Humane® Pasture Raised facility just outside Pasco — purpose-built for a long-term contract grower partnership with a major Pacific Northwest integrator. The automation is state-of-the-art. The biosecurity is engineered in. The pasture rotation is genuine. And the commitment to bird welfare that started with 40 hens in Issaquah is now a contractual obligation, third-party audited every year.
"Those 40 hens in Issaquah taught me everything that matters. Not from a manual — from watching them, learning what they need, and asking how technology could serve that rather than shortcut it. The Columbia Basin facility is that answer at scale: IoT-instrumented, biosecure, circular by design, and built around the simple belief that a bird given space, real pasture, and a natural life produces something fundamentally better. That hasn't changed. It just got bigger."
— Mohamed Belali, Founder · Meadow Peck Farms LLC