Our Chickencyclopedia

Four categories of fresh chicken are available in major banners, specialty grocery stores and butcher shops in Quebec.

Ferme des Voltigeurs has chosen to market two of the four categories, to achieve the highest quality standards:

1. Grain-fed chicken certified organic by EcoCert Canada, fed exclusively with ingredients from organic crops: no pesticides, insecticides, chemical fertilizers, antibiotics and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). This category of fresh chicken is air-cooled.

2. AgroCom Verified Grain-Fed Chicken, fed exclusively on grains and minerals, free of animal by-products, animal fat, animal meal or bone meal. This category of fresh chicken is also air-cooled.

You will also find on the market:

3. Grain-fed chicken without antibiotics, fed grains that may include animal by-products and animal proteins, raised without antibiotics. These chickens are cooled with water or air depending on the company’s choice.
4. Conventional chicken, fed grains including animal by-products and animal proteins, using antibiotics during breeding. These chickens are cooled with water or air.

A grain-fed chicken fed without animal by-products benefits from a diet consisting only of premium vegetable grains (corn and soybeans), vitamins and minerals. No animal by-products are added to the chicken feed such as bone meal, animal fat, animal meal and other by-products from inedible meat and residues from slaughter or butcher shops.

This feed allows our chickens to be well-fed, offering products with a protein content that is 2-3% higher per serving than the conventional fresh chicken category and is lower in fat. A great way to eat well.

Ferme des Voltigeurs offers a customized diet based on the exclusive use of plant products, ranging from cereals to the gelatin used to coat vitamins. This shift was made in 1985 and since 2014 we have become, the only company to offer AGRO-COM verified grain-fed chicken in Quebec.

In addition to requiring a feed of grain (corn, soybeans, wheat) and minerals, entirely free of animal by-products, animal fat, animal meal or bone meal, to certify organic chicken, Ferme des Voltigeurs must offer exclusively organic diet, including cereals grown without the use of pesticides, insecticides, chemical fertilizers or GMOs. Our breeding rules are adapted and audited annually by EcoCert Canada and our collaborating farmers.

We also make sure to provide more roaming space than the required standards, so that our chickens can move around more and thus offer better muscle development, an element that we also apply to our grain-fed chickens without animal by-products.

Organic chickens also have access to the outdoors when weather conditions allow, so they can eat all-natural ingredients and enjoy daylight.

Our choice to produce a line of certified organic grain-fed chicken was a natural choice to offer the best at a premium level for our consumers since 2008.

Cooling the chicken prevents bacteria proliferation. Two cooling modes are mainly used: air cooling, which uses cold air to ensure that the chicken is cooled in a short time, and water cooling, which involves immersing the chicken in a tub of ice water.

To ensure the best quality and maximum shelf life, Ferme des Voltigeurs has chosen facilities for air chilling our chickens, so that each customer will be able to benefit from fresh and equally plump products after cooking.

Air chilled will give you more bang for your buck, prolonging the freshness of the chicken. Our factory is federally certified by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and meets the highest standards of air quality and control, providing proliferation-free air-chilled and ensuring that our chicken will remain plump after cooking.

As water is a source of bacteria growth, the conservation period for this cooling method will be lower. Chicken that is waterlogged during the cooling phase will be affected by an increase in weight that will be lost during cooking due to water evaporation. So :

• • Air-chilled, method used by Ferme des Voltigeurs – minimal weight loss when cooling ensures you have a plump chicken after cooking.
  • Water-cooled – about 8% weight gain that will evaporate during cooking

A feed is a preparation of ingredients intended to feed chickens. There are two main types of feed for poultry farming: cubed (cooked) feed and flour feed (raw).

Cubed (cooked) feed is digested more quickly, thus increasing the fat content since it requires less effort from the chickens during digestion (many grains very compressed together)

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Being more volatile, the flour feed requires the chickens to expend more energy to swallow it and therefore digest it, thus ensuring a chicken with a lower fat content.

The feeds offered to Ferme des Voltigeurs chickens are made of flour and consist only of top-quality corn and soybeans, vitamins and minerals. This feed ensures that we offer a chicken with a lower fat content, more protein and tasty.

Our founder, Mrs. Denise Martel liked to give the example that 100 calories of apple is much easier to digest than 100 calories of chocolate and above all better for your health. This mention remains a key element when raising our chickens, we want them to eat the best to ensure that we eat the best available.

It should be noted that in conventional chicken farms, a cooked feed containing animal proteins, animal fats and animal by-products is fed, thus reducing the nutritional aspect of the feed in addition to being digested much faster.

Yes. We use corn and soybeans for our chickens (check Agro-Com) fed grain without animal by-products, while for the feed of chickens fed on organic grains, we may also add wheat, barley or other organic grains.

The feed formulas offered to organic chickens will consist of organic ingredients only, i.e. cereal crops produced without pesticides, insecticides, chemical fertilizers, or genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

The feed formulas developed for the growth of grain-fed chickens, fed without animal by-products, also rely on first-choice ingredients, and combined with the breeding methods favoured by Ferme des Voltigeurs, offer consumers the opportunity to benefit from a superior quality product offering an attractive value for the money spent.

To properly assess the quality of a fresh chicken product, it is important to look for:

• Its organoleptic qualities, bet on chicken products fed without animal by-products or certified organic which will offer you more flavour.
• Its freshness lasts, remember that air-chilled allows a better preservation of the product and a plump chicken.
• Its weight after cooking, seeing a piece of chicken that remains plump after cooking demonstrates the absence of injected water into the flesh to cool it and thus a better quality.
• Its raising period is also an element that makes a difference. The more growth days the chicken has to consume a premium diet, the more you will benefit from chicken with a reduced fat content and a higher percentage of flesh.
• Its raising space will have an impact on its fat content, the bigger the floor space per chicken when raised, the easier a chicken will be able to move around, and its fat content will be reduced.
• Its packaging will also be an important element in preserving the quality of the chicken. Choose vacuum packs that ensure the chicken stays fresh longer and can be placed in the freezer if your product is approaching the best before date.
• Its living conditions: animal welfare is an important element; animals raised according to ethical principles will have better raising conditions which will have an impact on their muscles. Products displaying the federal crown certify that the company complies with Canadian Food Inspection Agency procedures. During raising, the PASSAF is a certification ensuring the sanitation of poultry farms.

An antibiotic is a product intended to treat an animal when it is sick. It can be used to cure (curative mode) or prevent infections (preventive mode).

In animal farming, it is important to distinguish between different types of antibiotics:

Curative Antibiotics Class 1: As of May 1, 2014, poultry farmers in Canada have eliminated the use of antibiotics because they allowed bacteria to develop antibiotic resistance.

Curative antibiotics: given under veterinary prescriptions, they are sometimes administered to promote the recovery of animals and control the spread of a disease within a flock. They are given over a short period of time and require a withdrawal period to ensure removal of traces of antibiotics in consumer products.

Preventive antibiotics: given in small doses to prevent disease outbreaks in a flock.

Since 2017, preventive antibiotics growth promoters have been eliminated to ensure that antibiotic resistance in humans is reduced.

While our organic grain-fed chickens with no animal by-products are raised 100% without antibiotics, our grain-fed chickens without animal by-products are raised in the use of antibiotics or drugs that can cause antibiotic resistance in humans. In cases of illness, curative antibiotics are administered within the timeframes allowed by the CFIA in order to meet our priority of avoiding antibiotic resistance in humans.

Yes, all chickens in Canada are free-range with an average raised area of 0.7 square feet per chicken.

At Ferme des Voltigeurs, our grain-fed chickens, fed without animal by-products, benefit from a larger growth area, 1 square foot per chicken.

As for our certified organic chickens, they benefit from 1.25 square feet per chicken as growth area.

By offering a larger growth area, Ferme des Voltigeurs offers better conditions to its chickens and creates a lower fat chicken with a higher percentage of meat.

By removing oxygen from the packaging, we extend the shelf life of the product while preserving its flavour all the way to the consumer’s table.

By combining vacuum packaging and air cooling, the freshness of Ferme des Voltigeurs’ products reaches 16 days, while the industry average is 10 days.

In October 2025, Protégez-vous magazine published an article “Best before” does not mean “bad after”. This article listed several points relating to our desire to reduce food waste.

At Ferme des Voltigeurs, our cooling method and packaging have been designed to ensure a longer duration of chicken freshness, thanks to vacuum packaging.

In addition, the packaging of our fresh chicken cuts offers two fresh servings, allowing you to open only one package at a time and even place it in the freezer.

Our grains come from Quebec, except during exceptional weather conditions. In this case, we source as closely as possible, usually in Ontario.

Chicken is a very versatile product and can be cooked in different ways, we took the time to create a table with our recommended cooking times by different cuts, in the oven, on the BBQ, in the pan and not forgetting the popular air fryer.