Ask the Pastured Poultry Farmer

[jlzania]

@congodwarf

Thanks for starting this jlzania. It’s really interesting. I think you’ve already answered all my original questions so now I want to know, how often do you eat chicken? How did you get into this? Were you or your husband raised on poultry or other farms? How long have you been doing this? Were you doing something completely different before, like stockbroker in NY? What is an average day like for you?

Who doesn’t like to talk about themselves? And admittedly, I’m pretty passionate about what I do.

Today is very atypical in that I have time to surf the Dope. A freak thunderstorm roared in last night with 65 mile an hour winds and marble-sized hail. We were out in the fields until about 9:30, rescuing wet chickens whose pens had shifted.
Luckily, we only lost a few. The guys are out making repairs and I’m taking a break until I’m sent out to buy parts. If you’d like to see what I mean when I talk about a field pen, take a look at our website www.dhfarms.com.

On a normal Monday, I’d be processing birds but we’ve pushed that back until tomorrow. That’ll make for a helluva long Tuesday but it is what it is and I need a break.

We usually process three days a week. On those days, I walk the property and check on all the birds first thing in the morning. Then we select (by weight) the birds we will be selling and transport them in specially designed crates to the building. Our chickens have a nominal distance to travel which greatly reduces their stress.
Terry passed an 18-wheeler that was carrying chickens to a commercial plant in Austin last week. The truck had broken on the side of the road and because it was 100 degrees and the chickens were really packed in, the birds were dying in droves. Chickens scream when they start dying from the heat.

On a regular processing day, we crate the birds as early as possible and then break for a big breakfast. We get done with the killing by about 2 PM and stop for lunch and 2 hour rest in the air conditioning. After the birds have had ample time drain and air chill in the refrigerator, we weigh and bag them and allocate them for our restaurant and grocery store clients. Some chefs prefer to serve 2 pound birds and some want them as large as possible. It depends on what they’re using the chicken for.

Wednesdays, I make deliveries and run errands in Austin and I try to sell at the market every Saturday although I haven’t been able to go for a few weeks because the restaurants have been buying everything I can produce.
We will be back this week. I really love working the market-most of our clients have become friends. I know kids that began consuming our chicken in utero.
People are incredibly appreciative of what we do.
We chat for a few minutes, they say nice things about our birds and then they hand me cash.
What’s not to love?
Our customers are our best sales people-we’ve never had to advertise.

On other non-processing days, I get caught up on all the other chores that remain constant on a farm or just chill. Sundays we don’t have any additional help so we feed and move the birds ourselves. It only take about an hour and a half when we work together and we have the rest of the day off until we feed and water in the late afternoon.

Terry grew up on a farm and raised ducks as a 4H project but I was always a city girl. He had a small computer store in Austin for 19 years and I worked as a travel agent. We started out raising birds for a few friends and ourselves in 2003. We received such a positive response that we decided to start producing on a larger scale in 2008. It’s been a huge learning curve but then what new business isn’t.

We eat chicken for 4-5 meals a week. Does it surprise you to learn that my favorite cookbook is titles “400 ways to Serve Chicken”?

[jlzania]

@Dewey_Finn

Have you read any of Michael Pollan’s books or articles? In one piece in particular, he described the operations of Polyface Inc., a farm in Virginia that raises pastured poultry, as well as cattle and pigs (and other stuff). As I understand it, they carefully rotate the various animals through the pasture. Have you considered copying their methods?

On our webpage, we call our farm “The Omnivore’s Delight”" and our ‘bible’ is Joel Salatin’s (the owner of Polyface) “Pastured Poultry for Profits”. We used rotate cows behind the pens but 20 acres was just too small to run cows and chickens on without stressing the land. It doesn’t help that we’ve had 3 years of extreme drought.
Daniel and Sherry Salatin actually bought chicken from our farm several years ago because they were in the area for a family wedding. She’s a local girl.
We got a lovely email from her stating the chickens were delicious and that really they liked what they saw out here.
I was totally thrilled to get their stamp of approval.

abbeytxs Do you sell to any restaurants or farmer’s markets in the Austin area? I would love to get to try some of your birds!

I don’t want to violate any board rules by soliciting business so please smack my hands if I’m out of line, mods.
If you go to our webpage, you can find a list of restaurants that serve our birds.
Wheatsville Co-op also carrys them but they usually sell out before the weekend.
If you live anywhere close to South Austin, come by the Sunset Valley farmers market at the Tony Berger center this Saturday. Either get there early or reserve a bird via pm as we usually sell out by 11. Please let me know you’re a Doper and I’ll give you a SDMB discount. Terry thinks you’re all imaginary.

Weedy How many chickens do you have?
How many do you kill at once?

We have 2,400 birds of various sizes at any given time on the property.
On kill days, we usually process between 110 and 145 birds. We can do about 45-50 birds per hour, depending on the size of the birds.
However, there’s alway the pre and post sanitizing to be done as well as weighing and bagging.
It takes us about 4 hours to do a run if everything goes right.
On some days we take more breaks then others.

[jayjay]

@jlzania

If you’d like to see what I mean when I talk about a field pen, take a look at our website www.dhfarms.com.

I like the “Feeding Poultry” pic. o/ One of these things is not like the others, one of these things doesn't belong...o/ Is that a guinea hen near the upper left corner?

[Lynn_Bodoni]

I don’t want to violate any board rules by soliciting business so please smack my hands if I’m out of line, mods.

You’re OK. You didn’t sign up just to advertise, you usually don’t talk about your business, and this was a response to a direct question from another user. It’s a legit answer to a legit question. If you had a significant number of posts about your business with a link, or a lot of questions about how you could market your birds more effectively, that would be a different thing altogether. But you made this thread because people asked about your business, and you’re not really pimping your business.

Lynn
For the Straight Dope

[jlzania]

@Pullet

How much trouble do you have with predation? Do you have to irrigate the pasture or otherwise manage it, or are you in an area where the weather keeps the grass pretty well managed for you?

Raccoons are the number 1 predator we struggle with out here.
They can’t get in the pens but they snap off legs and heads through the wire at night.
We use a have-a-heart trap to catch them and we shoot them. There are quite a lot of them but the pens are only hit when we run close to the woods and we prepare for it.
Another major pest are the feral pigs. They don’t actually eat the chickens but they do knock the pens about trying to get at the corn.

I don’t really feel like I own the land. I share it with a lot of critters that were here first.
I won’t set foot traps and I believe in a nature ‘tax’. I don’t mind the owls or the redtails getting an occasional bird nor do I begrudge the silver fox or the bobcat making a meal of a chicken every once in awhile.
One year we had a major issue with a neighbor’s dogs. The dogs were in horrible condition-really painfully thin. I warned him once to keep his dogs on his property but he refused to take control of the situation so I did.
We trapped the dogs and shot them.
I apologized to each and everyone for my species failure before Terry put a bullet through its brain.

We don’t irrigate and even with the drought our pastures have remained green (thus far) because they are so heavily fertilized. It really all comes down to moving the pens.

[code_grey]

@jlzania

The most labor intensive part of our operation(besides the processing) is physically moving each field pen every day to a different part of the pasture.
We will be automating the brooder waterers as finances permit but they haven’t invented the machine that can scoop out dirty bedding while the chickens are in the building.

could you please clarify the dirty bedding issue? What does the bedding consist of? Do you continually buy new bedding to replace the dirty one that gets thrown out? From where do you have to remove it? (what does it mean that it is removed “while the chicken are in the building”?) How often is the bedding replacement done?

[code_grey]

@jlzania

Raccoons are the number 1 predator we struggle with out here.
They can’t get in the pens but they snap off legs and heads through the wire at night.
We use a have-a-heart trap to catch them and we shoot them. There are quite a lot of them but the pens are only hit when we run close to the woods and we prepare for it.
Another major pest are the feral pigs. They don’t actually eat the chickens but they do knock the pens about trying to get at the corn.

could the issue of raccoons and pigs be addressed using barbed tape spirals placed as a “wall” around the pen, on the ground? Razor wire - Wikipedia

Or would that be prohibited as animal cruelty and/or you just don’t like this approach based on your personal philosophy?

[jlzania]

@ShelliBean

I have a city guide to eating locally here in Birmingham and notice that some vendors list “chicken” while other specify “pastured poultry” - what makes the difference? Is it a regulating body or is it self- reporting and buyer beware? What things should I look for to tip me off - color, size, taste? I want to buy and eat locally and more humane, but in the past I heard someone close to me make the comment that a particular group was buying the chicken from the grocery store and repackaging it. I couldn’t tell if that was just ignorance/snootiness talking or what.

Do you trust the stuff available at Whole Foods? They have numerical orders of meats (designating how local, where the animals are raised and such) but it’s still a chain. Do you hear of large scale chicken farmers selling to them?

Also, do you live close to or deal with commercial farmers? Is there tension? I’ve seen a couple documentaries about them and felt awful for them. It’s like by the time they realize how hard the chicken companies have a choke hold on them, they’re screwed.

As far as I know, it’s self-regulating but unless the chicken is sold as pastured, it probably never saw the light of day.
Pastured poultry should taste like chicken. Sounds simplistic but most supermarket chicken is flavorless once you know the difference.
Our farmers market is pretty strict about who gets to sell but I can’t speak for other markets. However, all farmers should have a transparency policy.
You should be able to visit the farm by appointment. We don’t want strangers just showing up and interrupting the work day but we’re happy to give tours if contacted in advance.
A number of our customers have come to the farm to visit or volunteer.

I don’t like or trust Whole Foods for a variety of reasons. I prefer to shop at a smaller co-op but you may not have that option.

Most of the CAFO chicken farms in Texas are located around Gonzales. We’re a ways from there.
Those farmers are pretty screwed. They go heavily in debt to erect the houses and the corporations dictate the terms and prices.
They really are sharecroppers. It’s sad. Plus the conditions in the house are so nasty that the workers can develop ‘chicken lung’ from the ammonia /fecal dust the air.
Our neighbors raise cows-they think we’re crazy.

AaronX What do you do with the feathers/offal?

We bury the feathers and compost some of the offal
The rest goes to the carrion recycling crew aka the vultures.
When we drive out the gut tubs to the dumping ground, the vultures follow us like the winged monkeys in the Wizard of OZ.
They can usually clean up everything in about 2 hours.
We even have a couple of welfare buzzards-birds with crippled wings that live close by in the woods and hop to the piles.

kushiel No chickens running around with their heads cut off? My parents got out of livestock when I was little, but my brother remembers being freaked out by headless chickens when he was a kid.

Every once in awhile, I have to cull a sick bird. You have to get them out of the flock as quickly as possible or they can infect the other birds. This is probably TMI but I snap their heads off. Then the body does run around,flapping. It is weird to watch.

jayjay I like the “Feeding Poultry” pic. o/ One of these things is not like the others, one of these things doesn't belong...o/ Is that a guinea hen near the upper left corner?

Good spotting,sir! That guinea hen actually belonged to our neighbors. We also found a visiting tom turkey in the pen one morning-he’d walked about 2 miles to come calling.

Thanks Lynn. I may change my user name to Chicken Pimp.
Or not.

[Cat_Fight]

@jlzania

We even have a couple of welfare buzzards-birds with crippled wings that live close by in the woods and hop to the piles.

I don’t know why but that sounds kind of sweet.

[jlzania]

@code_grey

could you please clarify the dirty bedding issue? What does the bedding consist of? Do you continually buy new bedding to replace the dirty one that gets thrown out? From where do you have to remove it? (what does it mean that it is removed “while the chicken are in the building”?) How often is the bedding replacement done?

We bed the chicks on pine shavings for 3 weeks and as chicken poop a lot, we remove the bedding before a manure layer builds up and make them sick.
Chicks peck in the shavings and sleep on the shavings and nothing can survive living on its own filth.

code_greycould the issue of raccoons and pigs be addressed using barbed tape spirals placed as a “wall” around the pen, on the ground? Razor wire - Wikipedia

Or would that be prohibited as animal cruelty and/or you just don’t like this approach based on your personal philosophy?

You are kidding, right? We physically handle these pens every day. If we used razor wire, we’d be a mass of cuts.

[StarvingButStrong]

Do you simply dump all the chicken guts?

I ask because the regular store-bought chickens always include a chunk of neck plus a baggie with a random handful of bits. (Yes, random: one time we got three hearts, one time two gizzards and no liver, etc.)

Is that simply a scheme to get us to pay chicken flesh prices for stuff most of us simply toss?

OTOH, people do buy tubs of chicken livers, so maybe you save the livers out?

[abbeytxs]

@jlzania

I don’t want to violate any board rules by soliciting business so please smack my hands if I’m out of line, mods.
If you go to our webpage, you can find a list of restaurants that serve our birds.
Wheatsville Co-op also carrys them but they usually sell out before the weekend.
If you live anywhere close to South Austin, come by the Sunset Valley farmers market at the Tony Berger center this Saturday. Either get there early or reserve a bird via pm as we usually sell out by 11. Please let me know you’re a Doper and I’ll give you a SDMB discount. Terry thinks you’re all imaginary.

I can’t make it this Saturday, but I will pm you when I can make it down to reserve my bird. However, no discount please!! This is your livelyhood!

[abbeytxs]

I just read the list of restaurants you sell to. There is a pretty good chance I may have already had one of your chickens. Several of my favorite places are on that list. All are places that take their ingredients very seriously. Yumm

[SeaDragonTattoo]

I don’t really have any questions for you, jlzania, I just want to say thanks for being the kind of farmer you are. I watched “Food, Inc.” over a year ago and became a vegetarian overnight. (it was easier for me than for most, I think, because I already work among vegans and vegetarians for many years, so was already more familiar than most with changes that I needed to make) I did some additional research by reading Pollan’s book, studying Polyface’s farming model, and finding a couple more documentaries on where our food comes from. Since then, I’ve added a little meat back into my diet, but it’s extremely selective, and for arguments sake I just tell people I’m vegetarian, because the only meat I find acceptable is not available socially and I just prepare it at home for myself. I’ve also switched to nearly all organic produce which I purchase from a tiny little organic store that’s only about 100 yards from my apartment.

Your chickens would be among those I would find acceptable to eat, and I have to thank you for that, even though I won’t be able to support your farm locally, you can know I am supporting the ones near me! I think what you’re doing is great, I hope many more follow in your footsteps and start farming (again) the way they always should have.

[jlzania]

@abbeytxs

I can’t make it this Saturday, but I will pm you when I can make it down to reserve my bird. However, no discount please!! This is your livelyhood!

Trust me, it wouldn’t be much.
Just let me know when you can make it.

StarvingButStrong Do you simply dump all the chicken guts?

I ask because the regular store-bought chickens always include a chunk of neck plus a baggie with a random handful of bits. (Yes, random: one time we got three hearts, one time two gizzards and no liver, etc.)

Is that simply a scheme to get us to pay chicken flesh prices for stuff most of us simply toss?

OTOH, people do buy tubs of chicken livers, so maybe you save the livers out?

Don’t know if it’s a scheme or not. We sell livers separately but will always reserve hearts and feet for those that request them.
Thanks,SeaDragonTattoo.
Without people like you, we wouldn’t have a market so it works both ways.

And now I am going into several very long days because we’re making up time we lost doing storm repairs so I may not be back to the computer any time soon.
Thanks for all the questions-I think we’ve covered about the bases.
Eat well and wisely.

[zagloba]

Why don’t you save out the gizzards, too?

[Lynn_Bodoni]

My husband LOVES the chicken innards, and is always disappointed when a whole chicken doesn’t have a proper assortment of innards.

[code_grey]

@jlzania

We bed the chicks on pine shavings for 3 weeks and as chicken poop a lot, we remove the bedding before a manure layer builds up and make them sick.
Chicks peck in the shavings and sleep on the shavings and nothing can survive living on its own filth.

got it.

Ok, so upthread you said that this process of replacing the bedding is a manual one in your farm. Are there mechanized approaches on other farms? Or do other (presumably big/industrial) farms use some completely different way of housing the young chickens to avoid this labor-intensive operation? (Hypothetically speaking, given that the shavings are presumably much smaller than chickens, perhaps chickens could be placed on a net/hammock and then lifted up/down to slide out the trough with dirty bedding and replace it with a clean one?)

Is the throwing out and replacement of dirty pine shavings bedding cost-effective, or would it have been nicer to have a recyclable bedding that could be mechanically cleaned of the manure and reused indefinitely?

[kayaker]

@jlzania

will always reserve hearts and feet for those that request them.

Feet? What is done with chicken feet? I bought my son a chicken foot at a voodoo shop in New Orleans years ago (good luck charm) which he hung onto for years.

[Lionne]

I want to echo a lot of what **SeaDragon **said…it’s been several years since I’ve eaten meat or poultry not humanely certified, and I had my misgivings about reading this thread, but you’ve eased them by your thoughtful and complete answers to all the questions. I heartily endorse what you’re doing and I appreciate the care you take in providing your birds the best quality of life possible.