It’s not about ‘hugging your chicken’. It’s about raising the birds humanely and without the use of antibiotics. It’s about using a natural and time-honored method to fertilize your fields instead of spraying them with petroleum products.
It’s about having meat that’s actually nutritious, that won’t make you sick.
We have a tractor but it’s not necessary to use it to move our field pens. They designed to be pulled easily along the ground. I weigh 115 pounds and I can move them with no problem.
There isn’t an excess of feathers and, as the mobile coops we use don’t have a floor, nothing really needs to be cleaned except the waterers.
Finally, our repeat customers are proof that there is an enormous difference in taste and quality. The fat is different, the texture is different and there’s no comparison in flavor. Our chicken really tastes like chicken-not a bland mush. We charge 3.50 per pound and we sell out just about every week we go to market although you can often by CAFO chicken for .89 per pound.
Our customers aren’t rich-they buy our chicken because it’s tastes good, it’s raised right and they know they’re not going to get salmonella or E. Coli from eating it.
Our chickens were raised humanely as well; my grandfather had a cigar box of blue ribbons his chickens were awarded at the Texas State Fair over the years. I’m just a grouchy old guy who refuses to quit an argument. If your system works for you, that’s great. I dislike chickens enough that I wouldn’t bother with them.
What part of Texas are you from? I grew up in Dallas County myself.
Trust me, it’s not that I have an overweaning love for chickens,except on my dinner plate.We raise chickens because it’s the best way I know to use our 20 acres to earn a decent living by farming.
However, I do insist that any meat I eat is raised and slaughtered humanely- as much for my benefit as any thing else.
CAFO meat is just plain disgusting. And I really don’t trust the big processing outfits.
We employed a young man last year who had previously worked at the Sanderson Farms slaughter house in Bryan for 3 months.
He had a fungal infection under every nail from handling those birds.
We farm outside Lexington in Lee County.
We’re lucky in that we’re only 50 miles from Austin and Bastrop which gives us a solid market of foodies for our birds.
Dammit. I keep opening this thread, because I was interested in the original story. I keep forgetting that it’s turned into a discussion on chicken-rearing techniques.
I’m flattered,** Mithril** but I’m not an organic farmer per se-I operate in a very niche market, sustainable pastured poultry.
I suspect dopers would be more interested in hearing from an organic vegetable farmer-if they had any interest in alternative farming at all.
How very true. In my experience, rich people get that way by the simple expedient of not giving any money to anyone else. If I had a thousand dollars for every millionaire who has whined about what I charge for my services or product…why, I’d be a millionaire!
[Total hijack) Saje!
(Squeals girlishly with delight.) I’ve missed you too. Great to see you here. I’m very much a lurker on the Dope and have been for years and years. Every once in a while I wander into a thread but it’s not very often. [/hijack over]
Yes, I’m that saje, I’m broadening my horizons 