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PPT017: Cooperative Livestock Marketing Cody Hopkins - It's Nice to Have Friends

Pastured Poultry Talk

Release Date: 08/21/2015

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza and Pastured Poultry Flocks show art Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza and Pastured Poultry Flocks

Pastured Poultry Talk

I have a conversation with Chrislyn Wood, DVM, about the threat of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) and pasture raised flocks. Dr. Wood is a veterinarian with USDA APHIS and she is involved first hand with HPAI monitoring and response efforts.  We cover a lot of ground, including historical observations, risk assessment, disease identification, and prevention. 

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The Days of Wholesale Pastured Chickens are Over for Greg Gunthorp show art The Days of Wholesale Pastured Chickens are Over for Greg Gunthorp

Pastured Poultry Talk

Greg Gunthorp joins the show to talk about his decision to step away from pasture raised chickens. Covid plays into the story, of course, but the challenges started long before this virus came to be front page news. 

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Turning a 20 year chicken hobby into a farm with Cynthia Capers show art Turning a 20 year chicken hobby into a farm with Cynthia Capers

Pastured Poultry Talk

Cynthia Capers, Heniscity Farm in Tennessee, shares her 20+ year journey from hobby chicken keeper to farm. Twenty years ago, the sight of six Black Australorps brought tears to her eyes. Today, she's serving  her community through egg sales, chick sales, and pullet sales.

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PPT114 - Small Layer Flock Profitability show art PPT114 - Small Layer Flock Profitability

Pastured Poultry Talk

I answer a listener question, "How can I make my small laying hen flock more profitable?" With feedback from the community, insights from The Fighting Farmer, and personal experience, we dive deep into ways to prosper from your small flock of laying hens.

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Perdue Acquires Pasturebird show art Perdue Acquires Pasturebird

Pastured Poultry Talk

Perdue acquires Pasturebird and becomes the biggest producer in the space. I unpack what it means on this episode and walk through some history. 

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Maintain Production with All In/All Out Rotation for 5,000 laying hens show art Maintain Production with All In/All Out Rotation for 5,000 laying hens

Pastured Poultry Talk

Listener Chris asks how to utilize an all-in/all-out pullet replacement strategy without duplicating infrastructure while maintaining egg production. To help answer the question, I share insights from Mark Harrison and Dave and Ginger Shields. 

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Community Q&A Plus a Monologue on Heritage Poultry's Role in Pastured (PPT109) show art Community Q&A Plus a Monologue on Heritage Poultry's Role in Pastured (PPT109)

Pastured Poultry Talk

I close out the pastured poultry training series with a live streamed Q&A between Terrell Spencer from The Fighting Farmer and myself. We went live on Facebook and fielded questions from our listeners, and this episode of the podcast includes an edited version of that conversation. If you want to watch a replay of the stream, find it on . Before we work into the questions, I offer some thoughts on heritage poultry's potential role in pastured community. APPPA has recently started to focus on breeding specific topics and offers monthly livestreams on breeding. Check out . We cover a...

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Feed Management Tips to Reduce Waste & Maintain Egg Production show art Feed Management Tips to Reduce Waste & Maintain Egg Production

Pastured Poultry Talk

In Pastured Poultry Talk episode 110, farmer Matt Steinman discussed how he used fermented feed as a solution to waste and fines. While fermentation can be a viable solution for some people, it's not the only way to deal with fines. This episode unpacks those options.

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Is Fermented Feed Worth the Time for 1,000 hens? show art Is Fermented Feed Worth the Time for 1,000 hens?

Pastured Poultry Talk

Farmer Matt Steinman (Foothills Farm in Sedro-Woolley, Washington) and Dr. Louisa Brouwer (technical advisor on the trial) share the results of a SARE-funded trial that sought to understand the economic impacts of feeding fermented feed to laying hens. The trial compared a dry feed, wet feed, and a fermented feed and then determined the net difference across to the bottom line.

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Community Q&A PIus a Heritage Poultry Monologue show art Community Q&A PIus a Heritage Poultry Monologue

Pastured Poultry Talk

I close out the pastured poultry training series with a live streamed Q&A between Terrell Spencer from The Fighting Farmer and myself. We went live on Facebook and fielded questions from our listeners, and this episode of the podcast includes an edited version of that conversation

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Cody Hopkins of Grassroots Farmer Cooperative and Falling Sky Farm joins Mike Badger and Grady Phelan to talk about the power of farming friends.  In it's second year of operation, the cooperative expects to market 70,000 broilers, 2,000 broilers, 400 hogs, and 60 head of beef.

Cody and his wife Andrea are first generation farmers who started in 2007 on rented land. They went from renting 40 to 250 acres. In 2010, they were full time farmers and encountered all the problems first generation farmers do including buying land, growing quickly, and cash flow.

A really important benefit was that they had an informal network of livestock farmers in Arkansas that enabled bulk feed purchases, collaboration, and support.  It pushed them to be better farmers.

"It made more sense to work together than to see each other as competition," says Cody.

That informal network of beginning farmers teamed up with Heifer International to build a sustainable, robust value chain that would help farmers around the state of Arkansas. And the informal network was formalized into the Grass Roots Cooperative in 2014.

Heifer has helped with strategic relationships, creative funding sources, market development and more.

Listen to the full episode to hear Cody's thoughts on competition, quality control, marketing, production, financing, apprentice farm memberships, difficult cooperative members, and much more.

Have a question? Send it to [email protected], and Grady and Mike will answer it on a future episode. Please don't forget to pop into iTunes and give us a review.