PPT090: Is it time for pastured poultry to slaughter some sacred cows?
Release Date: 07/17/2019
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
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
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
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
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
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)
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
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?
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
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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In the week or so preceding this episode, Polyface announced it was slaughtering one of its sacred cows. They were going to ship product. Social media was a angry throng of pastured poultry injustice warriors. If you're looking for commentary on Daniel and Joel's decision, you're in the wrong spot. My commentary is for the people commenting, and I'll place that commentary in the context of pastured poultry.
Episode 89 of the podcast featured Garoleen Wilson and Jhawk Farm in Kansas. That chat Garoleen brought into focus the context from which we should be evaluating whether or not shipping is a viable option for your farm. It won't be for everybody, but that doesn't mean it's wrong for the community at-large.
A critical distinction, from my perch, is to ask yourself, what are the principles that can't be compromised and what are the limiting beliefs (for you Ravenscraft listeners)? Shipping is a limiting belief, an obstacle that could prevent you from growth. It could keep you and the community from relevance. Or it could fizzle from the consumer demand.
I implore you to go beyond the copy cat-style of production. Don't adopt another farms business vision, mission, and beliefs just because you idolize what they're doing. Learn your craft. Learn the principles to stand on and then innovate around those principles. In pasture-raised poultry, two principles to stand on are rotational grazing and seasonally appropriate outdoor production.
Should you ship pasture-raised poultry?
Not all of us live on the coast or have easy access to population centers that can sustain a direct-to-consumer model. Garoleen lives in a county that is 30 miles x 30 miles and has a population of 3,600 people. It's over two hours to a town that's big enough to support a Wal-Mart. She's producing as many chickens as there are people in her county. And we know not everyone in the county is eating pastured poultry.
Garoleen has the foundation for her pastured poultry business - she can articulate a why, a how, and a what. To make it a business, she has to work through coops and distributors. The coop takes the chicken to the Denver and Golden, Colorado markets and stretches local to about 200 miles. She also works with Crowd Cow who consigns the chicken and then ships it through the mail to customers.
These two sales channels enable Jhawk Farm to grow a business that wouldn't have been feasible 10 years ago. The coop would have been possible, but the expanded regional or national distribution would not. And it's that additional option that builds scale within the community or at least provides potential.
The fight for relevance is real. Pastured poultry gets an upsized exposure due to social media and the ease of information delivery. But if we want to impact the health of the environment, the health of the chickens, the health of our rural economies, and the health of our eaters, we need to slaughter some sacred cows.
If shipping product bothers you, take a personal stand. Don't abstain just because you heard a presentation five, ten, or twenty years ago.
Resources
https://pasturedpoultrytalk.com/2019/07/16/side-hustle-kansas/