Yes, these two ladies really are operating chicken ranches with 200 chicks. Angie LeNoir and her good friend Patricia Whitt have a business selling dressed, pasture-raised chickens.

LeNoir is married to the camp manager of Camp Bethel and they live in a two-story brick home near the camp with their children just off Bethel Road. She has 100 chicks in a movable chicken pen and in a shed by her garden.

Over in Lithia on Hodges Road, Patricia Whitt has another 100 chicks. They order the chicks from Mount Healthy Hatcheries in Ohio.

Both women say their husbands are very supportive of their enterprise.

"When the chicks arrive, we get a call early in the morning from the Troutville Post Office to come and get the brood," said LeNoir. "There's a lot of peeping going on when we arrive."

The business is named Blue Ridge Poultry Co-op. They call themselves Farmer Angie and Farmer Patricia.

They met seven years ago at a Bradley child birthing class and have been friends ever since. They have been doing the chicken pasture technique commercially for a couple of years.

They have movable coops designed by the guru of chicken ranching and sustainable agriculture, Joel Salatin, from the Shenandoah Valley.

"Every where the coops have sat the grass is greener the next year," said Whitt. They have the lighter-weight models that women can move.

"Chickens feed on bugs, worms and natural products," she said. They also supplement with chicken food from Sunrise Farm near Staunton. "It isn't organic, but it is grown locally."

They raise a particular type of chicken -- the Cornish Cross, a fast-growing chicken that reaches market size, five to six pounds, by eight weeks of age.

Chicken will sell for $3 per pound and dressed whole. The chicken ranchers offered the first batch of chickens for sale last week.

They are part of the Farmers Market at Ikenberry Orchard every Saturday and can be contacted there.

Asked how they prepare chicken for the family, LeNoir fries her chicken in an iron skillet and Whitt bakes hers in the oven.