# Ask the Pastured Poultry Farmer **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 4, 2011, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333 "2011-06-04T20:35:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/61 "2011-06-09T01:40:01Z")
Do the chickens ever get restless? How do the chickens behave around you? Have you ever thought of raising any other type of meat-bird? ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/62 "2011-06-09T02:48:18Z")
**Pullet** , thank you for the clarification on the bedding replacement issue. An additional question, why exactly are the chickens supposed to peck at the bedding which, as has been claimed upthread, might contain some feces? Why don’t they only peck at the feed plates? (which presumably are free of the feces). Is there some profound reason why we don’t mind that they do that, or is it a matter of us being unable to prevent them from pecking where they feel like pecking? ETA: would a hypothetical “pecking control solution” be useful and marketable? ---
**Author:** ![Pullet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Pullet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pullet)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/63 "2011-06-09T02:59:48Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > **Pullet** , thank you for the clarification on the bedding replacement issue. > > An additional question, why exactly are the chickens supposed to peck at the bedding which, as has been claimed upthread, might contain some feces? Why don’t they only peck at the feed plates? (which presumably are free of the feces). Is there some profound reason why we don’t mind that they do that, or is it a matter of us being unable to prevent them from pecking where they feel like pecking? > > ETA: would a hypothetical “pecking control solution” be useful and marketable? They are chickens. It is in their nature to be inquisitive. Lacking fingers, they peck at things to investigate them. Sometimes they eat the thing they peck, sometimes they don’t. Sometime this is bad for them, sometimes it isn’t. If you would like to teach them the germ theory, be my guest. There are serious efforts to limit pecking when this behavior becomes detrimental. It is less of an issue in the meat chicken industry. There are already several dozen methods employed and various on-going studies to find new ones. In short, we got our best gals on it. I wish you luck, but I don’t think you’re going to have the blockbuster, outside-the-box solution to this problem. ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/64 "2011-06-09T03:17:35Z")
> [@Pullet](#): > > There are serious efforts to limit pecking when this behavior becomes detrimental. It is less of an issue in the meat chicken industry. There are already several dozen methods employed and various on-going studies to find new ones. In short, we got our best gals on it. I wish you luck, but I don’t think you’re going to have the blockbuster, outside-the-box solution to this problem. what is special about meat chicken industry in this regard? So is pecking of feces a bigger issue for egg chickens? Are these dozens of existing methods complex enough to be used only in factory farms? Or does **jlzania** not use them because they would conflict with the philosophy underlying her farming methods? ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/65 "2011-06-09T04:06:19Z")
Do you have to limit how much you permit Cornish X chickens to eat? ---
**Author:** ![Pullet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Pullet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pullet)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/66 "2011-06-09T04:09:32Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > what is special about meat chicken industry in this regard? So is pecking of feces a bigger issue for egg chickens? > > Are these dozens of existing methods complex enough to be used only in factory farms? Or does **jlzania** not use them because they would conflict with the philosophy underlying her farming methods? How detrimental the pecking is depends on what is being pecked. For ease of discussion, let’s divide them into categories: 1. pecking of contaminated feces 2. pecking of other chickens To address #1: Eating feces isn’t actually an inherently evil thing. As **jlzania** pointed out, eating of normal feces can help populate the lower intestines with beneficial bacteria. Eating feces that is contaminated with intestinal parasites is bad, though. Large meat bird farms often choose to limit this bad effect through use of either antibiotics or medical dewormers as they are the most effective. There are a few herbal remedies, but their effectiveness is still debatable. All farms, large and small, also limit intestinal parasites through careful management of the ground the birds are kept on. That is the main technique **jlzania** relies on and it works great for her because she has a comparatively large space for the number of birds she is raising. In the world of egg-laying chickens, the most effective way to prevent transmission of fecal parasites is to keep the birds in cages. Egg laying birds are much lighter than meat birds, so being in cages isn’t as hard on their feet. Another advantage of keeping the birds in cages is it makes it easy to quickly separate the eggs from the feces, reducing salmonella exposure for people. To address #2: Like I said before, chickens use pecking to investigate their world. Anything new or different gets a few pecks to see what it is. If you are the weird bird in the flock, either due to injury or genetics, you get a few pecks too. For example, if a bird breaks a growing feather and is bleeding slightly, the red color will be interesting to the other birds, who will peck at the bloody feather. When you’ve got a house of 20 thousand birds, all picking at one injured bird, the injured one is quickly pecked to death. They also use pecking to establish dominance hierarchies amongst themselves. Again, not a big problem in small flocks, but more of a problem in large ones. Birds picking at each other is less of a problem when they are little, partly because they are too weak to do much damage to one another, and partly due to a lack of hormonal stimulation to really compete with one another. It’s the same reasons you don’t expect toddlers beat each other bloody in fistfights but see teenagers do it all the time. Because meat birds go to market at only 6 weeks old, long before puberty hits, aggressive pecking is less of a concern. Both large and small meat bird producers have less of a problem with picking for this simple reason. For facilities that keep adult birds, though, it is a big issue. Large adult bird farms limit birds picking at each other several different ways: carefully managing the number of birds in a house, keeping the lighting low so the birds are less stimulated, removing injured birds frequently, insuring there isn’t competition for food and water, and providing toys. In egg-laying facilities, having the birds in cages limits the damage to the victim bird since she only has a few other birds who can pick on her. So, the OP uses some methods large farms use and some they don’t. Because she doesn’t want to use medications, she relies more on ground management and bird density. All of this works fine for her because of her particular niche market. ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/67 "2011-06-09T04:37:26Z")
ok, (correct me if I am wrong), I think that post 66 by **Pullet** says, with respect to the meat chickens, that pecking of fellow chickens is a non-issue because they are too young to do damage whereas pecking of feces (if they happen to be infected with parasites) is indeed an issue. The pecking prevention methods mentioned in this post seem focused entirely on preventing attacks on other chickens, except possibly for the keeping lights down that may also be relevant to discourage exploration/pecking of feces. Ok, so suppose we will somehow completely eliminate the pecking consumption of any material that is not in the feed plates (hence including the feces). Could we then deal with the task of replenishing of intestinal bacteria by using relevant additives to the feed? E.g. could such additives be made by collecting feces and subjecting them to a treatment that kills the parasites while leaving bacteria intact? Or else just by culturing these bacteria on broth and then making chicken drink it? ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/68 "2011-06-09T04:57:56Z")
Just a quick question for everyone other than the OP. Am I the only one that keeps seeing the title as “Ask the Pasteurized Poultry Farmer?” ---
**Author:** ![Pullet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Pullet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pullet)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/69 "2011-06-09T04:58:34Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > ok, (correct me if I am wrong), I think that post 66 by **Pullet** says, with respect to the meat chickens, that pecking of fellow chickens is a non-issue because they are too young to do damage whereas pecking of feces (if they happen to be infected with parasites) is indeed an issue. The pecking prevention methods mentioned in this post seem focused entirely on preventing attacks on other chickens, except possibly for the keeping lights down that may also be relevant to discourage exploration/pecking of feces. No, I also talked about methods to limit transmission of intestinal parasites. These include keeping the birds in cages (not feasible for meat birds), managing the ground, and use of medications. Sorry if I didn’t make that clear enough, but it’s there in the first paragraph of #1. > [@code\_grey](#): > > Ok, so suppose we will somehow completely eliminate the pecking consumption of any material that is not in the feed plates (hence including the feces). Could we then deal with the task of replenishing of intestinal bacteria by using relevant additives to the feed? E.g. could such additives be made by collecting feces and subjecting them to a treatment that kills the parasites while leaving bacteria intact? Or else just by culturing these bacteria on broth and then making chicken drink it? Why? Why go to all this trouble? The methods I just re-outlined above help just fine with the detrimental effects of eating feces. Is there something about eating feces that unduly squicks you out? ---
**Author:** ![jlzania](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/67e7ee/32.png) [@jlzania](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jlzania)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/70 "2011-06-09T11:49:28Z")
> [@](#): > > lindsaybluth Interesting thread! > > OP, how much have the FDA/local/state regulators gotten in the way of you doing your job? How expensive was it for any certifications or licenses you have to sell/raise your chickens? Or is the climate near Austin simply conducive to what you’re doing? > > Do you know anyone who sells raw milk? What sort of hoops and struggles do they encounter? I really operate under the radar of the FDA. I had to have my processing building inspected and submit a plan for how I intended to kill the chickens. The inspection was free. I also have to deal with the Travis County health department because I sell in Austin at the market and renew my permit with them every year. That costs $90.00. The problem is that the health department doesn’t understand our operation because we’re not a mobile food unit. It’s just weird. The raw milk dairy farmers have it much harder. The FDA is really gunning for them. I do know of a small store in Round Rock that sells raw milk and they have to jump through hoops. > [@irishgirl](#): > > Your farm looks lovely and the chickens looks very healthy! > Good for you. > > Can I ask about the processing?I can imagine eviscerating and plucking 120-odd chickens isn’t the most pleasant way to spend a day- how much of that is done by hand, and how much by machine? > > What was the learning curve like wrt to slaughter, processing and husbandry? > > Do you look back on things you did in the early days of the farm and :smack:? > > How many tents do you have, and how many chickens in each one? Thanks for the kind words about our farm. . Processing isn’t for everyone. I wasn’t sure how I’d handle or if I could handle it. I learned to do it at another farm and they warned me that a volunteer had passed out on the gutting line the week before. I’ve never been especially squeamish and blood doesn’t bother me which is a plus. It’s certainly slimy and you do get rather messy but I wear a long rubber apron and boots. We have an automatic plucker but everything else is done by hand. I cut off the heads and feet and remove the guts. I’ve gotten much faster at it with time and it’s now one of those mindless tasks where you can crank up the music and just sort of drift and let your mind wander. Oddly enough, I’d rather spend the day on the gutting table then deal with office politics or traffic but then I never was one for chatting around the water coolerl The learning curve was huge because we went from running 600 chickens a year to 1,460 a month. Ironically, our success was our biggest problem. Suddenly our orders escalated enormously and we lacked the infrastructure to support the increase in numbers. For awhile, it was a mad scramble to build tents and brooders. Didn’t help that for the first two years, our area of Texas was in an extreme drought/heat situation or that the winter of ’09 was the coldest in a decade. When I look back, we did so many stupid things that it’s amazing we’re still in business. We currently have 15 tents. Each tent starts out with 120 birds and we begin pulling Cornish games hens at about 4 ½ weeks to reduce the crowding. ---
**Author:** ![jlzania](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/67e7ee/32.png) [@jlzania](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jlzania)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/71 "2011-06-09T11:57:06Z")
Thanks so much for stepping in with such a detailed description of the confinement house practices, **pullet.** (very appropriate user name in this instance). Admittedly, I have a very strong bias against CAFO’s and the only stories I hear from the AG inspectors are the horror stories. Overflowing manure traps and the like. One of the big problems right now is the rising cost of feed and energy. In order to cut costs, some CAFO operators are reducing the amount of time they run the vent fans in the buildings which is creating major problems. Pecking can be a sign of protein deficiency in adult birds as well. Personally I like the thought of putting 365 chicks to sleep while I clean the house but I haven’t decided whether it would be more effective to read them bad poetry or sing them lullaby’s. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/72 "2011-06-09T13:00:09Z")
> [@jlzania](#): > > We currently have 15 tents. Each tent starts out with 120 birds and we begin pulling Cornish games hens at about 4 ½ weeks to reduce the crowding. I don’t understand your reference to tents. Are they the chicken coops? ---
**Author:** ![Lionne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Lionne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lionne)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/73 "2011-06-09T15:05:10Z")
**Jlzania** , you mentioned above that you don’t like or trust Whole Foods…what are your reasons behind that? ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/74 "2011-06-09T15:55:47Z")
could meat chickens be kept in elevated cages (like egg chickens) if we were to increase the effective surface area of their feet, such as with “shoes” or “horseshoes” or other such semi-permanently attached contraptions? I.e. this “shoe” would be at any given time supported by several of the cage’s bars, and from the chicken’s standpoint it would be no different from standing on a small island of a “floor”. ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/75 "2011-06-09T16:11:13Z")
if egg chickens are kept in cages and so there are no feces around to peck, do they get feces or another bacteria additive placed into their feed? Or how do they handle the gut bacteria issue that the meat chickens handle by eating feces? ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/76 "2011-06-09T16:47:14Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I don’t understand your reference to tents. Are they the chicken coops? See here. > **[Kasta69 : Resmi Link Slot Gacor Situs Terlengkap Dan Terpercaya](https://www.febe.net/lasvart/dikter/)** > > Kasta69 telah resmi merupakan link slot gacor situs terlengkap aman dan terpercaya gampang jepe maxwin ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/77 "2011-06-09T16:59:40Z")
**Jlzania** , thanks for your answers- it’s great that the demand is out there for ethical meat. **code\_grey** the whole idea of pastured or free range chicken, which many of us like, is that it allows natural behaviours in a natural environment with fresh air and exercise for the birds and a good quality of life. Putting shoes on chickens in order to cage them is the opposite of what farmers like **jlzania** are about. Maybe you coud start your own thread “Help evaluate my intensive farming ideas and inventions”.’ ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/78 "2011-06-09T16:59:52Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > > [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > > > I don’t understand your reference to tents. Are they the chicken coops? > > See here. > > [Kasta69 : Resmi Link Slot Gacor Situs Terlengkap Dan Terpercaya](http://www.dhfarms.com/gallery.htm) OK, I see a photo of chickens under a tent, but no explanation as to why. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/79 "2011-06-09T17:05:59Z")
I’ve heard that brown eggs and white eggs are basically the same thing except for the color. Is that true? Here’s a weirder question. I’m Asian so I shop in a lot of Asian supermarkets. I know that in general, American markets don’t sell the more delicious parts of a chicken (heads, organs, feet, etc.) When you sell your chicken to whoever, do they just want the typical breast, thigh, legs, wing? What do you do, if anything, with the leftover parts of a chicken? Do you just toss a bag of heads in the garbage? Do you grind it up into some chicken paste and refeed it to the other animals? What happens to the delicious chicken heads and organs? ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333/80 "2011-06-09T17:45:47Z")
Just finished reading the topic and realized some of my questions were answered in regards to the innards. But I still want to know abuot the heads. I love gnawing on the chicken heads. Unfortunately I live too far away to drive to your farm and pick some up. But if someone requests it, like an Asian supermarket, would you sell it to them? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-pastured-poultry-farmer/584333.md?page=5)