Pastoral Poultry, Traditional Farming For A Modern Era

[bayocum]

Well, here I am. Nice work on the thread, Brice. Seems that there are a number of people interested in poultry in the proper way. As for the conversation pertaining to Delawares, I wish I could be of more use. I originally purchased a small flock from Whitmore Farms a little over a year ago just to see half taken away by the local coyote crew at about 13 weeks. I did butcher a few of the roosters at 16-18 weeks and found the carcass to be well proportioned and of reasonable weight (4 lbs. roughly).

I still have four hens from that crew and their laying is second to none. I noticed someone on here offering up a spreadsheet that would help me make more sense of my production, but I can assure you that the Delaware's don't really miss a beat. The did shut off and molt this past winter for about six weeks, but once they came back on, they were on. I now have them in the hog pasture with the BCM rooster that Brice gave me, and am interested to see what kind of hybrid meat project I can play with. I did notice that someone on this thread has played with this hybrid before; I'd love to hear the details. Anyway, I'll do my best to keep engaged with this thread. I've been with Backyard Chickens for a few years now and have mostly been uninterested with the ongoing discussions. Now that this thread has started, it's nice to have a place to share thoughts with like minded individuals.

One final thought on cover crop / forage pasture. Over the past few years, I've paid a small fortune to Peaceful Valley (love them, this is not a disparaging comment on them) on cover crop and have been quite happy with the results. The only problem was, I was paying a small fortune each season. This past fall I decided to try and experiment and purchased a few pounds of pigeon feed and spread it out in my garden beds to see what would happen. It was in a white bag under the label "Breeder's Cup," if I'm not mistaken. It contained a hodgepodge of whole grains and legumes (wheat, triticale, milo, field peas, vetch, safflower) and in just under two weeks, I had a gorgeous patch of cover crop growing. Coolest thing is that it is an all season blend with wheat, peas, vetch dominating in the cooler months, and triticale, milo, and safflower dominating as the month begin to warm. Cooler still, it was only 50 cents a pound as opposed to the $3-4 per pound that I was spending. The chickens go absolutely crazy for it as well. Keep on keeping it on!

Cheers,

Seth

As soon as I saw the avatar I knew this would be someone I liked...didn't realize right away that it would also be someone I'm related to. Thanks for coming on over, I know how busy you are..with a toothless cat and all...ha ha. That was Fogelly (Ron) talking about the FBCM x Delaware... I think. I'm sure he'll chime back in here somewhere. I'm going to try that "Breeders Cup" and see how well it does in the orchards.... year round would be great. Super excited to have you on brother!

 

[bayocum]

Brice,
I hope this thread takes off. We grow chemical free naturally grown produce that my wife sells at the local Certified Farmers Market.
We will also be selling eggs there in the future.
We use our flock for both meat and eggs. Our main breeds are Rhode Island Reds, Columbian Plymouth Rocks, and Barred Plymouth Rocks. All of which are non Hatchery "Heritage" strains.

I won't say this too loud, but I also experiment crossing these strains onto other breeds to produce meat birds.
One of my best crosses to date has been HRIR to BC Marans, which produced fine table birds.
This cross also makes a Very Nice laying hen.....

Ron Fogle

Seth,
Here it is...
-Brice

 

[Partyfowl]

Thanks for coming on over, I know how busy you are..with a toothless cat and all...ha ha.  

Ha. My cat has 27 toes. Imagine their spawn! Not really breeding to standards there are we.

 

[Partyfowl]

Thanks for coming on over, I know how busy you are..with a toothless cat and all...ha ha.  

Ha. My cat has 27 toes. (Yes, thats 9 more then normal) Imagine their spawn! Not really breeding to standards there are we.

 

[BobbyJr]

The best thing to do is check with your local certified farmer's market, they are usually a wealth of information. There are federal laws, but each state has the option to have its own (stricter) set of laws regarding the processing and sale of poultry and eggs. In CA I believe we default to the federal laws. So you can produce and sell without USDA oversight as long as it's less than 1,000 birds a year. My understanding was that you had to sell them "from your farm," meaning actually from your property, but there may be room for interpretation there. I noticed that a lot of the grass-fed beef guys would have you sign up as an "owner" and then you could purchase your share. So I'm sure that was part of a co-op situation that allowed them to sell meat at the farmer's market that they wouldn't otherwise be able to sell "directly." We are looking at the Farmer's Market option for this summer/fall, but right now we are still experimenting with breeds. We have Bresse, Buckeye, HRIR, Bielefelders, and Basque Hens that we are working with. We are developing relationships with a couple of restaurants, which is pretty exciting.

Have been doing some reasearch on how and where to sell. Here is a link to a USDA pdf that talks about the poultry exemption. It tells about how many birds you can slaughter and sell and to whom. I hope this helps.
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/.../Poultry_Slaughter_Exemption_0406.pdf

 

[wsmith]

Is anyone raising poultry these days for production? If so, what breeds for what purposes? Is it just for your own use, or have you found a way to connect with others through a farmer's market, co-op, or by direct farm sales? We'd love to hear your experiences.

Though I don't raise for commercial meat production, I was curious how you get the word out to folks for whatever product you may be trying to market, be it eating eggs, hatching eggs, chicks, etc.

We have a co-op type website, where several of us have individual pages. We used to have the link in our signatures here, but had to remove the link... We also use FB and have seen alot of results from that, bth from our farm page and also breed club pages. Also BYC, the local "where are you" threads have brought us business.

We haven't done the farmer's markets yet, but may in the future. I guess most of our business has been through word-of-mouth.

 

[wsmith]

Have been doing some reasearch on how and where to sell. Here is a link to a USDA pdf that talks about the poultry exemption. It tells about how many birds you can slaughter and sell and to whom. I hope this helps.
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/.../Poultry_Slaughter_Exemption_0406.pdf

Also look up your state and county regulations. They vary.......

 

[bayocum]

Have been doing some reasearch on how and where to sell. Here is a link to a USDA pdf that talks about the poultry exemption. It tells about how many birds you can slaughter and sell and to whom. I hope this helps.
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/.../Poultry_Slaughter_Exemption_0406.pdf

Hi Bobby,
I tried to follow the link, but it said the page didn't exist. Can you double check that because this information will be very helpful. Its also important to note that the State can have stricter laws than the Feds, but this is a great starting point. Thanks a lot Bobby, glad to have you on the thread!
-Brice

 

[bayocum]

Sorry... I see that's already been said...I need to read more before replying. Thanks again Bobby.
wksmith...did the link work for you?

 

[bayocum]

Though I don't raise for commercial meat production, I was curious how you get the word out to folks for whatever product you may be trying to market, be it eating eggs, hatching eggs, chicks, etc.

We have a co-op type website, where several of us have individual pages. We used to have the link in our signatures here, but had to remove the link... We also use FB and have seen alot of results from that, bth from our farm page and also breed club pages. Also BYC, the local "where are you" threads have brought us business.

We haven't done the farmer's markets yet, but may in the future. I guess most of our business has been through word-of-mouth.

I think "WofM" is really the way it happens most. One person tells another and sooner or later some critical mass is reached and people in your community just "know." That said, I do think that the Farmer's Markets are a really great way to get started, and they have a lot of helpful information. We're still exploring the idea. Right now most of our business is with "chicken people," so we are not yet doing a lot with produce. Our hands are pretty full at the moment, but I'm hoping that we can get started on the FM soon, and get my teenage daughter something to do on the weekends that actually brings in money