The
Pastured poultry require shelter, predator protection and efficient feeding and watering
systems. In addition, the fresher the pasture, the greater the quantity the birds will consume and healthier they will be. Just pasture is not enough. It must be fresh.
Birds are extremely hard on pasture, for a couple of reasons. One is that they physically scratch the crowns of the plants, which is good but only for a short time. The second is that their manure is extremely high in available, soluble nitrogen. This "hot" manure, as it is called, can easily cause nitrate toxicity in the soil or water. An excess can quickly deplete humus in the soil just like chemical fertilizers.
Capitalizing on this valuable resource, however, is an important goal. It should be assimilated into growing plants as quickly and efficiently as possible.
The classic picture of pastured poultry is the proverbial clay chicken yard. Traditional American homesteads had them. The chickens scratched out all the grass and their manure buildup turned the soil into brick. Wet weather
produced a mudhole and dry weather produced a dustbowl.
One solution, of course, is to simply let the chickens free range around the homestead. This is fine for a dozen chickens, as long as the farmer doesn't mind chickens roosting on the back porch or in the equipment shed or eating vegetables out of the garden. But for commercial production this is not a solution.
High density, short duration grazing is the answer with poultry, just like it is with livestock. But chickens do not herd easily and they require shelter, protection and feed in addition to the forage. They are not herbivores.
Typically, poultry producers range birds on a large pasture for a relatively long period of time until the pasture is denuded of vegetative cover. Moving the birds is a major problem, not to mention negotiating equipment through a flock of hundreds to move feeders, shelters and waterers without panicking the birds or crushing
some of them.
All these problems came together for us with a single solution, which we call the portable pen.
This is a floorless cage, 10 feet x 12 feet x 2 feet high and light enough to be moved by hand with the aid of a little dolly. By breaking up the
flock of birds into many small units, absolute control over pasture, feed and water can be maintained. The small groups mimic natural flock numbers, reducing stress and increasing effi- ciency. Each pen holds 75-100 birds.
Made of pressure treated softwood lumber to resist rotting, these pens weigh only about 150 pounds and can be moved with the dolly, which serves as a portable axle. Moving each pen takes
roughly 20 or 30 seconds, and the birds walk on the ground as the trailing edge of the pen pushes them forward. Of course, they are eager to get to fresh pasture and therefore tend to stay well ahead of the trailing edge. Daily or twice daily moves ensure fresh pasture, not only to stimulate eating, but also for hygiene. Parasites and disease are a major problem of poultry under commercial production, but by giving them a new spot to lounge on every day, pathogenic problems can be virtually eliminated.
A framework of wood, carefully braced for strength, offers a cheap yet strong structure.
The long pieces are pressure treated 1 inch x 6 inch boards ripped in half. These boards are ripped in thirds for all the braces. A 2 inch by 4 inch board, ripped in half, serves as the bottom
Photo 10-1. The pen, 10 ft. x 12 ft. x 2 ft. high, made of pressure treated softwood, aluminum roofing
and poultry netting.
board on the front and rear of the pen, as well as the brace that holds the waterer. These pieces take quite a bit of abuse and need to be strong.
One end is entirely enclosed with aluminum roofing screwed into the light framework. We use screws throughout because of the flexing that occurs when we pick up and move the pen. Nails soon begin working loose. Using cordless drills and self-drilling, fine-threaded drywall screws allows us to build pens in a jiffy. The other end is one inch poultry netting on the vertical wall.
Bigger netting allows predators to enter. Smaller netting, like hardware cloth, blocks out bugs like grasshoppers and crickets and is also more expensive.
The top of the non-enclosed end is made of two doors, one of netting and one of aluminum
Photo 10-2. Note the turnbuckle and crosswire along the ground to keep the middle from sagging and the sides from bowing out.
roofing. The material is fastened to a light framework (heavier for the aluminum) that just lies on top of the pen framework. No hinges or fastenings are necessary, and in fact should not be used so that the doors can be completely removed from the pen to facilitate catching the birds on processing day. In windy areas like Nebraska and Kansas, fastenings may be required.
The totally enclosed end we run facing west, the normal direction of wind and weather. The east end is open to the morning sun. The netting door faces south to emit as much sunshine as possible. The opaque aluminum door covers the feed trough. The waterer, a commercially produced hanging type, is suspended from the top brace near the pen's middle, but under the netting quadrant door so that if it rains, the rain water will go into the waterer trough.
A 5 gallon white plastic bucket sits atop the pen on the eastern end, on the door and pen bracing, as a reservoir to gravity flow into the waterer. (See Photo 10-3.) The waterer and bucket ride with the pen when it is being moved. The trough feeder must be removed for moving. We use trough feeders because the long rectangle pro- vides more linear feeding space as a ratio of feed volume than do round feeders. Bridging (feed not falling down) is also a major problem in round feeders.
In hot climates, it may be necessary to hinge the vertical wall roofing on the west end for increased ventilation. A Florida friend actually made the west end a peaked roof with netting in the triangular end to increase ventilation.
Another friend built a pen of aluminum conduit to lighten it, but it was so light that predators could come in underneath and a stiff
Photo 10-3. Water reservoir and fittings to gravity- feed hanging waterers.
breeze could blow it over. He ended up having to stake it down every time he moved it. Another friend had the same problem (too light) after building one out of PVC pipe. The pen should be heavy enough to mash down grass.
Tarpaulins for the opaque shelter, rather than aluminum, can be used to heat the interior of the pen. But if the sun is up and the temperature is more than 55° F., the birds much prefer the cooler, reflective properties of the
aluminum.
If the pen is built too heavy, it becomes cumbersome. Moving the pens with a tractor is unacceptable because it frightens the chickens.
Movement speed is also much less flexible,
simplest, quickest and most efficient way to go as far as I can tell.
A floored pen which the birds go into at night and free range out from during the day has many disadvantages, especially with Cornish Cross broilers, which are extremely lethargic.
They simply will not walk enough to find and eat fresh pasture and bugs. They are bred to eat, drink, lie down and gain weight. The portable pens afford the birds fresh daily pasture without their really having to walk for it.
Although the birds do walk one pen length (12 feet) , the rest of the day they are within normal breed movement parameters for water and feed. And their floor is forage. The portable house/free range model also requires much more building material. It is more disruptive of the birds'
routine because they are penned up, especially until you get there in the morning to let them out.
The bulk of the birds' eating occurs in the early morning, so it is crucial that that be the time they receive fresh pasture.
Predation during the day is a real problem.
Raccoons, chicken hawks, foxes and other preda- tors will attack in broad daylight. By keeping these chickens within the safety of the pen 24 hours a day, they receive the protection benefit along with the amenities of fresh pasture and lounge area. There is no building to clean out, no litter to haul. All the droppings go immediately on growing forage, which can utilize it right away to capitalize on the nitrogen injection.
The downfall of many alternative poultry operations has been with a chicken yard. In an effort to provide ’’range” to the birds, producers have not differentiated between stale range and
fresh range. This is a critical factor because it spells the difference between success and failure. Many people view the pen as an unnecessary, labor-intensive component of this model, and balk at implementing it.
But you simply cannot get the level of health and forage utilization without the pen. If a stationary house with rotated pastures extending out like spokes is used, the areas closest to the house will invariably be overgrazed and turn to dirt while the far reaches are undergrazed.
Pathogens build up around the house in the traffic areas and there is simply no way for nature to cleanse that area.
To my knowledge, nature sanitizes itself in only two ways : sunshine/rest, and decomposition . These limited alternatives have great import to livestock producers.
In the sunshine/rest mode, the sun, which is the great sterilizer, gently bathes the areas it touches with radiant heat that dries moisture.
Ultraviolet radiation kills pathogenic organ- isms. The rest period is necessary to let this slow ray gun do its work. Most parasites, for example, cannot live more than two weeks without a host.
Most parasites, too, require moisture to go through their life cycle. Wet grass blades contain many more pathogens than dry ones.
Realize that many of these critters are micro- scopic, and moisture provides the only way for them to paddle around from place to place.
Deprive them of that, and they become fairly immobile - and localized.
The rest period is necessary to deprive these pathogens and parasites of a host. The rest
period should include some dry time to help destroy the organisms, as well as be long enough to deprive parasites of a host.
Clearly this natural sanitation principle discredits any sustained-stay model that in- cludes range.
But now let's move to the second natural sanitizer: decomposition. This not only occurs in the field, but is extremely important in housing models. This gets into the deep litter
concept.
It is worth being reminded that as soon as we overload the soil or the house floor with too much nitrogen, we create harmful nitric acids, we destroy beneficial organisms, we lose nitrogen through vaporization or leaching, and we have a cold, hostile medium. Remember that the carbon/
nitrogen ratio should be around 30:1, and that an ammonia smell indicates you need more carbon.
As limited as it is, confinement housing CAN be sanitary, but it requires a tremendous injection of management, energy and materials to keep it functioning within sanitation param- eters. Our only confinement house is the brooder house, but that is only on the front end where not too much manure is generated, and not much costly housing is required. The big injections come as the birds get big, and then I am confident that the pen offers the most efficient alternative.
Certainly a yard, even if it is rotated, does not do the job.
It is better to totally confine the animals in a well-lighted (many skylights), well-venti- lated (leave the eaves open) facility than to confine them in a barn with continual access to an adjacent "exercise yard." Poultry, for
example, that are classified "free range" on a yard that has constant poultry pressure, is hygienically unacceptable. The birds would be better off completely confined in a facility that meets the parameters of this discussion. In fact,
some of the largest organic poultry operations in the country have succumbed to disease and gone belly up for exactly this reason. They had range, but not enough rest.
We all know the historical record of human plagues when hygiene wasn't followed and unsanitary
conditions prevailed. Animals fall under the same rules. Disease outbreaks are not necessary.
Any true husbandman can and will institute rearing models that maximize hygiene in his animals.
I cannot overemphasize the value of the pen to the smooth running of the pastured poultry model. It answers the need for small flock grouping, sanitary conditions, fresh forage, proper manure management and predator control.
It is also far cheaper and simpler to maintain than a stationary house of equal square footage.
Certainly we would not want to disparage any attempt to properly pasture poultry, but for us the small portable pen seems to have addressed all the critical elements associated with commercial pastured Cornish Cross broiler production.
Chapter 11
Moving the Chicks Out to Pasture
Sometime between two and four weeks, the baby chicks are ready to move out onto pasture.
In extremely hot weather, they can be moved out earlier. In fact, we have moved them out at seven days, but I wouldn't advise that. It's too soon.
The birds are simply too small to negotiate the grass. The earliest I would advise putting them out would be twelve days.
On the other hand, every week past four that the birds are kept in the brooder will cost you 10 percent in carcass weight at the end. Remember that the reason factory raised birds receive hormones and antibiotics is to compensate for the unnatural conditions under which they are being raised. Their air is full of fecal dust, their litter is filthy, they do not receive fresh air and sunshine, and they are not receiving green material or exercise. The brooder house period closely resembles conventional production and therefore must be cut as short as possible. If we raise birds without the artificials, hormones and antibiotics, we must necessarily expect tremendous disease problems as well as dramatic performance loss when they remain too long in the brooder house.
The only way these birds can perform well without negative inputs is to get them out on the positive pasture.
To minimize stress, move the birds early in the day. This has both the benefit of moving them when it is cool and of allowing them to have at
least half a day in new surroundings before nightfall. It is hard for us to appreciate just how stressful this move is on the birds. It is far more stressful than a similar move when the birds are six or seven weeks old. Not only are the birds being moved to a new area, they are going
from inside a house to outside in the pasture. It really does shake up their world. For that reason, we want it to go as smoothly and comfortably as possible.
Photo 11-1. Rachel loads three-week old chicks into the pasture pens.
Obviously you want to be aware of the weather report. You don't want to move the chicks out on a rainy day, or a cold, blustery day. If the weather is going to be nice for a couple of days, we try to get the birds out early. Or maybe we will move out half of them to try to minimize the risk. Moving out half at least gets some out and certainly takes pressure of those who remain. You can push it, or wait until the final hour, depending on what the weather is doing.
If a couple of good days are expected, I encourage you to go ahead and get the birds out.
Within just a couple of days they acclimate well and take right off in the pasture. If the weather is good, the move seems to just stimulate them to grow faster. Once they are acclimated, even if it's just for a couple of days, they can take some rough weather. The critical thing is not to throw them into rough weather in the first 24 hours.
When you go in to catch the chicks, remove as many obstacles as possible. Take out the waterers, feeders, and get the lights and hover out of the way. Otherwise you'll be tripping and falling, or breaking things, and that gets both you and the birds all worked up. We use a couple of plywood pieces about 4 feet long and 2 feet high as partitions to crowd the birds into a corner.
Don't try to get all the birds at once. Just ease some into a corner, pen them in with your handheld partitions, and then fill a crate.
Even though you can put more than 50 in a crate, especially if they are only 14 days old, do not. Give them plenty of room. If you put in
75 or 100, they will pile up and smother. It doesn't matter if it's cool or warm; when they get excited they will pile up. It's especially critical not to overload the crates when it's warm.
Be patient catching the chicks. Take two or three bites if necessary. You don't want to force more than 100 or so into a corner or they will pile up and suffocate. I can't stress enough the propensity of these little birds to pile up and
suffocate. As they pile up in the corner where you are catching them, keep raking the top ones down to expose the lower ones to some air. They really do panic, and you must be aggressive about giving them air.
Do not be abusive when picking up these chicks, but you need not treat them too gingerly, either. I catch them by one leg, putting seven or eight in one hand and a couple in the other hand so I pick them up ten at a time. That makes counting easy. I slip the legs between my fingers to hold more. Be sure to pick the birds up randomly so you do not end up with a pen of cockerels and a pen of pullets.
After loading the crates, you will put them in a trailer or pickup to go to the field. The birds will spread out in the crate and calm down.
Many of them will even go to sleep, sticking their heads clear through the slats of the crates. Be sure not to crush heads when you are loading crates. It happens real easy; I know.
Drive carefully out to the field so the birds are not shaking around. The more you shake them, the more they will pile up in fright. Just take your time; it really is worth it.
Have the pen situated where it is going to be before you put in the chicks. You want to give them at least 24 hours before they go through the trauma of their first pen move. Take the chicks out of the crates as fast as possible so you can shut the lid and leave them alone. If the move goes smoothly, within 20 minutes the birds will