More Chicken Talk

Chickens have been the topic of conversation in our home for the last 6 months.  We have now raised 7 different breeds of chickens and tried to evaluate the pros and cons of each breed.  There has been a lot of failure and some success.

We have evaluated the different methods of raising chickens.  The commercial industry raises their chickens in dark warehouses as most of our customers understand.  Joel Salatin of PolyFace Farms is one of the pioneers in pasture based farming in our era. He raises Cornish cross chickens in "Salatin" pens or chicken tractors.  These consist of large 8x12 pens with an open floor that allow the chickens access to fresh pasture.  The pens are moved each day onto fresh pasture.  This system offers many benefits to the chickens when compared to traditional chicken CAFOs.  However, there is one drawback which is the chickens are still closely confined.  In our experience, this has led to more pecking problems and less exercise for the chickens, which in turn negatively impacts the quality of the meat.

We have been raising our New Hampshire Red chickens in large paddocks enclosed by electrified netting.  The chickens are protected from the shock due to the insulating properties of their feathers.  However, predators receive a shock that sends them running.  To date, we have not lost one chicken to predators.  The chickens get to run around, flap their wings, and enjoy roosting on top of their portable shelters.  Those who have visited our farm have enjoyed watching the chickens roaming about.

The additional exercise does slow down our growth rates which has resulted in us pushing our delivery dates far longer than we had originally anticipated.  The hatcheries told us that our chickens would reach a harvest size in 9-10 weeks.  However, we found that it actually takes 11-12 weeks.  Now that the days are getting hot, the chickens stay in their shelters until it cools and primarily come out in the mornings and evenings.  While we feel they are comfortable, they just aren't eating during the day like they used to.  This means that they have slowed down even more.  We are now looking at 14-15 weeks to reach a harvestable size.  This is basically 6 weeks longer than we calculated when we first set up our schedule and calculated our chicken prices.  At 14-15 weeks, we are making very little (if any) profit after we have accounted for all the costs.  Pound for pound, chickens are far more labor intensive than pigs or cows.  These two elements combined are the reason we are talking chickens lately.

So we have decided to change things up a bit.  Next spring we will build an open shelter in the pasture that will allow the chickens access to food and water in the shade.  We will also provide them with misters during the warmest part of the summer to help cool the area.  In addition to the New Hampshire Reds, we will also start raising Cornish Cross chickens.  This is a significant change for us as we have been opposed to the use of this breed as we feel that many of the chickens suffer because of their fast growth rates.  However, we found that by making some adjustments to the way we raised them, that we were able to raise happy, healthy chickens that didn't experience the leg problems and heart attacks that we had seen in the past.  The result is a beautifully dressed chicken with abundant white breast meat.  Because they are raised on pasture, they still produce firmer, leaner, healthier, and more flavorful meat.

We are also excited to announce that all our poultry is now fed a mixture of Utah grown grains.  Like our pigs, the chickens are now exclusively on a diet of Utah grown wheat, barley, triticale, corn, alfalfa, and of course, pasture.  All of the feed is mixed right here in Vernon using recipes created by me.  It is part of our continued commitment to sustaining the local economy, supporting local farmers, and reducing pollution.  I also don't like the idea of buying govenment subsidized grain.  It also gives us peace of mind knowing exactly what goes into the feed.  This really hit home recently after reports of high levels of arsenic was found in some children who eat home grown eggs.  The chickens producing the eggs were all being fed feed from a large feed mill here in Utah.  I am sure there are investigations under way and it may or may not actually tie back to the feed mill.  However, it really brought a feeling of peace when we heard about this and didn't have to panic.

We still have lots of chickens on the way!  So if you haven't ordered yet or didn't order enough to get you through the winter, hurry and get your order in!  Click here to order from our website!  We really work hard to keep our prices affordable.  We believe that healthy, humanely raised meats should be the standard and not a luxury.  While we know we can "get away" with charging more, we are striving to keep our prices low while still staying profitable/sustainable as a farm.

Thanks for supporting your local farmer!  We thank those who have provided us feedback and would love to continue to hear your thoughts and ideas.

Turkeys and Chickens

We have been going crazy trying to figure out how to offer our customers chicken and turkey.  The challenge has been that we can't find anybody to process them for us.  We have finally decided that we will just have to process them ourselves.  We don't want to be butchers, we are very content being farmers.  However, we don't see any other way right now.  Assuming we can get all the USDA certifications and other hoop jumping out of the way we are prepared to try a very limited amount of turkeys and chickens.  We will process all the chickens at one time probably in June/July and all of the turkeys at once right before Thanksgiving.  These birds will be raised the right way, on pasture with wholesome grains, naturally without any growth promoters or antibiotics, and they will be treated humanely of course.  All of our animals are pampered like pets and given the best treatment we can provide.  They are stress free and very happy!

We will raise non commercial heritage breed turkeys and probably start with 100 or so.  We anticipate we will be able to sell them for $4.00/lb.  This is far cheaper than other farms we have seen.  As we have stated before, our goal is to make wholesome, clean, yummy food affordable for as many families as possible.  Heritage breeds grow slower than the commercial breeds and take more feed to raise as well.  They are more expensive to purchase as chicks because they are not as common.  Also our farming methods are sustainable and more labor intensive than factory lots like the ones you see in Moroni, UT.  We will also be setting up our own processing station and purchasing all of the equipment necessary.  We really don't anticipate making a profit our first year and will try this as an experiment.  The heritage breed turkeys offer a whole new world of flavor.  When you combine this with our sustainable farming practices and premium feed, it truely offers a mouthwatering, gourmet meal for your family. 

We will also start small with the chickens with 400-500.  We are unsure of which breeds to use.  We have a great source for Poulet Rouge type chickens which are traditional breeds raised on pasture.  Poulet Rouge is a label placed on chickens that are raised on pasture and allowed to grow to the age of 11 weeks+.  These chickens are the not the heavy breasted chickens most people are used to which is why we are a little reluctant to start with them.  Any type of pasture raised poultry has firmer, denser, leaner meat that is similar to turkey in texture.  This is because the chickens actually get to run around and be chickens!  The commercial chickens are raised in such confinement that in most cases they can't even stretch their wings. The non Cornish X chickens have longer lighter breasts and longer legs.  We will most likely try to raise both varieties since we are in the experiment phase and see what our customers prefer.  In crunching the numbers, we will most likely be priced at $3.00/ lb for pasture raised Cornish X (heavy breasted) and $3.50/lb for the Poulet Rouge chickens.

This past year we raised 35 of our own chickens.  The meat is the most flavorful chicken I have ever tasted!  The texture is out of this world!  In addition to eating this delicious food, it is also more nutritious than factory raised chicken and without the chemicals and drugs!  It also feels good to not support the factories that produce meat that comes from animals that in our opinion are tortured.  Did you know in many beef, pork, and poultry factories that wastes like chicken manure, processing extras (guts) and all kinds of bizarre and disgusting things get cooked and fed back to the animals?  It's no wonder that the animals need a constant supply of antibiotics to stay alive.  Nor is it any wonder that we have all of the food recalls and health problems.  I would be willing to bet that if as a country we ate wholesome, local, natural food raised sustainably that a large portion of our health problems would go away.  It sure makes a lot more sense than spending trillions of taxpayer dollars on health care reform.  Let's fix the problem at the source and stop trying to put a bandaid on it.  I'll step down from my soap box. : )   

We actually have 5 turkeys this year that we are selling for Thanksgiving.  They are pasture raised, humanely treated and all natural.  These will be harvested the day before Thanksgiving and be sold fresh not frozen.  They are $4.00/lb.  We can meet you in SLC on Wednesday evening to deliver them.  Since we only have 5 available, you will need to call quick to get one in time.  They will be processed at a facility in Tremonton as part of this year's 4H projects.  We expect them to dress out at 15-25 lbs.  Please call with any questions.

Based on the information above, we would like to know how many people are interested in buying pasture raised chicken and turkey from us.  How many birds do you think you would buy at one time knowing they were only available once a year?  How many a year would you buy if they were availble 2-3 times a year?  Any feedback you can offer us will be helpful in determining how much money we can justify investing and how many birds to buy.  Also, if anybody is interested in a business opportunity and would like to set up a small processing facility we can send A LOT of business your way.  This would allow us to raise more chickens and turkeys as well as offer them at a lower price.  If you are interested in this, call us and we can go over more detail.  Thanks again for all of your support of our local, family farm and loyalty!

Busy Preparing for Winter

Will life ever slow down? Hollie and I ask ourselves this nearly every day. It seems like every time we get close to catching up on our projects a new one pops up that costs both time and money. Here is one of those extra projects we had last week.

We bought 12 tons of premium dairy grade alfalfa that is a staple ingredient of our All Natural, Humanely Treated, Pasture Raised Berkshire pigs’ diet. We purchased the alfalfa from our neighbor Scott or “Scooter” as us locals call him. Even though I learned how to judge alfalfa in college, I am sure that anybody could take one look at this alfalfa and recognize quality when they see it. Scooter, does many things well but he excels at putting up quality hay. Because he was so busy selling his hay this year, I arranged for another neighbor, Marlin or Vern as us locals call him to pick the bales up out of the field with his bale wagon. (Are you noticing a pattern here with nicknames? I don’t dare ask what they call me : ) ) A bale wagon is a nifty piece of equipment that picks up and stacks the hay 9 or 10 bales high. When Vern came to drop off the hay, I was prepared with a 16’ long steel section of pallet shelving to serve as a brace as his bale wagon slowly scooted the hay stack from the wagon to the ground. As I was bracing the hay, the 12’ high stack started to swagger and I dove out of the way as 4 tons of alfalfa came crashing down. Unfortunately, the next two loads didn’t go any better and when we were all done, I had a huge unstable mess with rain in the forecast. I quickly realized that I wouldn’t be able to restack this hay by myself before the rain came. So I called the biggest kid in town Melvin or Big Mel, and offered him a higher wage than he normally charges to come help me stack hay. Then I called Vern and asked him to come over with his tractor so that we could stack bales in the loader and lift them as we stacked higher and higher. For the next two nights we met after Vern and I got home from work and Melvin got home from baseball practice. My brother in law Stan and good friend and neighbor Rich were kind enough to stop by and help stack as well. We finally got the hay stacked and covered. When I woke up the next morning, it had rained all night and fortunately, the hay was dry.

Extra projects like our hay experience can quickly eat into our time and profits. We closely track our farm budget to help make sure we are staying profitable. However, when we forecast our budget it is difficult to anticipate these unforeseen expenses.

Once the hay was stacked, I was able to finish my watering station. This is my own invention consisting of a pressurized pipe with watering nipples lined with a heat cable and then heavily insulated. We will see if it keeps us from chopping ice all winter. Part of this project was pouring a concrete pad all around the watering station to prevent a mud hole. I decided to mix and pour my own concrete which ended up using 38 bags. It honestly was a little easier than I anticipated and I have some other projects I will attempt next spring using concrete. In order to power the heating cable, I needed to run electricity out to our pasture. So I bought lots of wire, conduit, fittings, and outlets and went to work. I decided to run the conduit on top of the ground along the fence lines. In this case the cost of the extra wire and conduit around the perimeter was cheaper and faster than trenching a line across the field. While I was at it, I ran a line up to the chicken coop so that we can heat the chicken waterer and provide extra light so we can have a few eggs through the winter. Once you have eaten fresh eggs, you just can’t go back to store bought eggs regardless of the bogus labels they put on their eggs.

In between these projects, we also decided to till up an acre and replant it with new pasture. It is coming up nicely and hopefully by spring it will really take off. Prior to tilling our field, I dug up and moved some fruit trees that we had planted a few years ago. They just haven’t done so well. When I dug them up, I saw why. The gophers have been eating the roots. On some trees the trunk was just a sharpened stick in the ground. So now it is World War III at our place. With the field plowed, it is easy to identify the new mounds that they dig. I have been digging their mounds until I find their tunnels and then set traps in the tunnels. With just one acre, I have already trapped 18 gophers; including one great big gopher that dug a huge mound right in the middle of our new lawn. It would be much easier and quicker to poison the gophers but we are committed to keeping our land free of chemicals and such. Besides, with chickens and pigs roaming the pasture, we don’t want to ever risk poisoning our animals and food.

As you can see, we have been busy, but we love (almost) every minute of it. : ) I hope we have made all the necessary preparations for winter.