From a statement of principles jointly adopted by a committee of the American Bar Association and a committee of publishers. This book describes a proven production model, capable of producing an income from a small area equal to or better than that of most off-farm jobs. All of the recommendations contained in this book are the results of many years of expensive trial and error and should not be dismissed lightly in your initial efforts.
Start small and give yourself plenty of time to see if grass-fed poultry really suits your needs and lifestyle before investing a lot of capital. Due to the necessity to condition the pasture for the chickens and to rotate the land where the chickens graze, this production model is best used in combination with a form of ruminant production. All of us interested in seeing a rural American revival should thank Joel and Teresa Salatin for making the effort to share their experiences and recommendations for pastured poultry with you.
In a day when mainstream farm experts predict the continued demise of the family farm, the possibility of pastured poultry shines like a beacon in the night, leading the way to a brighter future. For the health of the rural economy, the health of the environment, the health of the poultry consuming public and the health of the farm.
PASTURED POULTRY?
The birds inhale faecal dust, which contains a high percentage of ammonia, and this causes lesions. They, as well as our salad community, know the value of green matter in the diet. Hot weight to cold weight gain in beef is a major problem in the beef industry.
We dressed the turkeys by heating water in a large pot over the fire and plucking the birds on the clothesline in the backyard. Dairy cows cowered near him and grazed near him in the pasture. This procedure kept the calves close to the cows, spread the droppings on the pasture and gave the cows a comfortable place to sit.
Art even drove 1 inch nails into the bottom board every inch or so. In the winter we moved the chickens and the pens onto mesh floors in the barn.
IN THE BEGINNING
One of the advantages of poultry is that getting started is as easy as it gets. I've used several of them over the years and found more differences in the post links than in the quality of the birds. You want the edge of the feeder to hit the birds at about breast height.
If the birds spread to the edges of the hatchery, it is too hot. When you go outside the hatchery, you should hear the happy chirping of the chicks. Usually, about 1 or 2 percent of the hatchlings will die within the first few days.
Perhaps nothing is more critical to the success of broilers than what the bird eats. The probiotic is too small to mix properly if you only add a small amount to the rest of the feed.
OUT TO
PASTURE
No hinges or fasteners are needed, and in fact should not be used so that the doors can be completely removed from the cage to facilitate the capture of the birds on processing day. But when the sun is up and the temperature is over 55° F., the birds prefer the cooler, reflective qualities of the. Although the birds do walk one cage length (12 feet), they are within normal breed movement parameters for water and feed the rest of the day.
Most of the birds' feeding takes place in the early morning, so it's critical that this is the time when they get fresh pasture. The big injections come as the birds grow up, and then I'm convinced that the pen offers the most efficient alternative. On the other hand, every week after four hours of keeping the birds in the incubator ends up costing you 10 percent carcass weight.
It's hard for us to realize how stressful this move is for the birds. It is much more stressful than a similar move when the birds are six or seven weeks old. If the weather is nice for a few days, we try to get the birds out early.
If a few good days are expected, I encourage you to go ahead and get the birds out. I usually ask one of the kids to come with me and help chase the birds away from the trailing edge for the first week. But that's why we want the birds to get fast-growing, vegetative food.
The more difficult it is for the birds to run forward into the new pasture, the slower the pen must be moved to avoid running over them. Ragweed, plantain, and other weeds that produce abundant seeds are bird favorites. In areas where grass is sparse, it may be necessary to move the pen more often to ensure the birds have enough to eat.
PROCESSING
We put the birds in a cone and cut the throat so that the autonomic nervous system continues to function and the heart actually pumps the blood straight out of the body. We have customers who work in the processing plants but buy their chicken from us and promise they won't eat one out of the store. All we have dealt with here is the economics of the decision to treat on the farm.
An employee does not have the same stake in the success of the business as you do. Using a plywood partition like a giant paddle, I push the chickens to the front of the pen. The autonomic nervous system continues to function, allowing the heart to continue pumping and actually pump the blood out of the bird.
It is helpful to pull the birds out of the water several times to encourage flocculation of the feathers, which helps expel oxygen from the feather follicle and promotes water entry. Everything is fine as long as the birds move in and out of the water for a certain amount of time at a certain temperature. He placed the thermostat about halfway and placed the elements through the wall, about eight inches above the bottom of the tank.
The idea of the scalder/dunker is to make the birds move in the water, preferably in and out, because this movement is essential to get good water penetration. Often a piece will stick up to the breast, which is the roof of the body cavity when the bird is on its back. The birds then go into a cold well water bath which unbalances the body temperature and sucks out any stray bits of blood.
Hearts and livers come out of the bird attached and we leave them that way. We take the chickens from the .. bins at random and try to drain as much water as possible. If we have to freeze or butcher the birds due to customer negligence, we usually add a large fee.
Because of the qualities of offal - smelly and runny - we generally don't get a good carbon breakdown during the first composting cycle. Many of the requirements are ridiculous or harmful when applied to small-scale on-farm processing.
PROBLEMS
IT'S NOT ALL ROSES)
By placing an ad in the national magazine for electricity co-ops, we found a small thermostatically controlled scalding tank on the other side of the state. Over the years, we've gone out several times in the middle of the night, with Teresa in hand. The larger birds in the field, on the same batch of feed, did well.
Within an hour we had all the chicks re-boxed and stacked in the house by the fireplace. Within a few minutes the chicks were all back in the incubators, as happy as they could be. They don't mind standing in the cold - even 3(?F to eat and drink - that long.
And worst of all, the birds ingest huge amounts of faecal dust in the air they breathe. A choice of lengths allows us to stop indentations in the soil that exceed an inch between the soil and the bottom of the pen. When you enter the brooder in the morning, you may notice that the chicks are unusually quiet.
They will dig too, and in fact seem to be the only animal smart enough to figure out that the way to get the birds into the back of the coop is not through the front poultry net, but by digging under the aluminum sides next to it. loft. where the birds sleep. I slept in the feed tanks and heard him barking at me from the edge of the woods. I had a professional fox catcher set traps in the field, on the edge of the pens, with and without bait.
We do not keep the enclosures only in the yard, where we can observe them carefully. They tend to stay the longest in the spot that stays the lightest, and only a few will seek shelter in the fully enclosed back of the pen. Being in the far western part of Virginia, right next to the mountains, we have.
If the weather is cold, so we have to keep the chicks in the hatchery for a few extra days, our weight will suffer. Remember that there is a marked drop in performance when the birds stay in the brooder beyond the fourth week.