Preaching to the choir... PICS

[barred-rocks-rock]

Many people do not have the opportunity, space , etc,, to free range. For many people it is not an option. And not completely on the topic of meat birds, what is the diffference between a 10 by 5 foot chicken tractor, or a 10 by 5 foot run. There is nothing inhumane about a tractor if you know what you are doing. If you were a chicken, and you were going to be eaten in 6-8 weeks, would it calm you more to live in a quiet place , with a good amount of space, plenty of grass, all the bugs you could, eat , or a crammed up, tight cage that is 2 x 2 feet long, with 5-6 birds in it, then add thousands of birds. It stinks, it is crowded, you are probably missing feathers, dead birds around you. Does this portray a spitting image of paradise to you?


- BRR

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

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Broiler chickens are not raised in 2' x 2' cages. That is a very inefficient way to do things.

People around here have been using a rule of thumb of 10 square feet per bird for a run. That is a far cry less dense than a chicken for every 2 square feet for a moveable battery cage, commonly known here as a chicken tractor. Personally I use 87 square feet per bird, or 500 per acre.

If a person does not have the room to farm, then maybe they shouldn't be farmers.

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

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If the ducklings do not have a hen, then they are in brooders until three to four weeks of age. Then they are released into their peer groups section. This year the brooders will have small outside runs where I will keep the water tubs. A muscovy hen with ducklings will be let out after one to two weeks. She tends to keep them close, even though the ducklings will wander outside the fence at times. She teaches them how to forage which lowers my food costs and strikes me as being more humane. I have found a duckling stuck in the fence once, and it had a burnt wing. My LGD alerted me to that.

Muscovy ducks don't just hang out at a pond. They will forage quite a distance away from the coop or pond. Given an opportunity, the dirt road in front of the house is a popular place to be during and after a heavy rainstorm because of the mud puddles and earthworms. So, your argument that raising ducks is not like chickens or turkeys is not applicable.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

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Good points but these are problems that have been answered by raising poultry in pens. First off we don't use tarps. They tend to blow away and get beat up when the wind is very strong. They also trap way too much heat. During the summer months, they are open with the tops strapped down. I use tin with two colored sides. One green, the other a white. Reason is on cooler days we use the green side facing the sun, on warm days.... the white faces the sun. Thus the dark color warming the pen and the white reflecting most of the light keeping the pen cool.

These houses are much more easily regulated with temperatures than the big houses your referring to. If it was an issue, I would not be able to raise them all summer and up until November in the cooler months.

When it's cold we cover the whole pen with giant tarps to trap the heat to keep them warm... works perfectly. If the suffered heat exhaustion, got wet or became chilled.... I would be out of business.... the birds must be comfortable to be able to preform. Especially WHEN YOU DO NOT USE routine antibiotics to mask the living conditions. Don't let those houses fool you... the only way it's able to be done is the fact of what is laced with the feed. It only covers up the underlying problem.

Happy birds.... equals money in the farmers pocket.... I'm going on year number 11 so I have some pretty happy birds! LOL...

 

[Buster52]

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But you should know there is a vast difference between a bird permanently secluded in a run and a bird that over its lifetime will be moved to new ground every day with new grass. The second bird will have access to far more land in its lifetime than the first ever will. In a 64 square foot tractor, my bird has access to that entire 64 square feet on fresh grass, every day. The math is completely different.

And I have a Muskovy, and he most certainly does mostly hang out at the pond.

I'm not sure I get your central point though. Are you saying tractoring isn't as good as your system, or are you saying it is no better than factory farmed birds locked in a windowless, grassless building their entire lives? You seem to go back and forth on it.

 

[Buster52]

Never mind.

 

[Buster52]

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Serious system question here, because I do want to try netting. Not trying to bait you...

How old/big are those ducklings when you move them to the netting system? I assume you hold up on it to keep them from slipping through the netting.

Brooding my birds with mothers would be my preference as well, but it just doesn't work for me. Too many cats around here, I think, at least I assume it is the cats getting them. They have to be a certain size before I can let them completely out in the open.

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

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I was raising chickens way before you even started reading about them.

What sort of meat birds did you raise and what was your system?

It was my dad's system, actually. He was a full professor at the NYS vet school, and every once in a while he would bring home some extra chicks from somebody's research project. We had a 8' x 10' section in the barn that was screened with 1/4 " expanded metal where the chickens were kept. There would be probably 8 to 10 birds at one time in the coop. My job as a kid was to feed and water the birds. Also had the honor of shoveling out the manure. Don't know the breed, but they were white. Then when they were big enough, I got the honor to hold the flashlight as he cut off their heads on a stump. Mom and Dad would scald and pluck the chickens in the kitchen. It was over 40 years ago.

My speciality as a 4-Her was sheep, where I personally had 15 Dorset ewes and one ram.

As a 4-Her I toured quite a few chicken farms, because many successful sheep farmers also had chickens to supplement their livelihood. We are talking tens of thousands of chickens here. My impressions were that they were very clean and efficient operations. I also received many classes in animal husbandry at Cornell, targeted at the 4-Her.

My Dad supported humane farming methods, as he felt even an animals life was important. My brother later became a large animal vet, as did my nephew.

I raise ducks.

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

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They are moved to the electric poultry netting at three to four weeks if they have no hen. The poultry netting has 2" X 2" squares on the bottom that a duckling can slip through if it is younger than four weeks. Premier acknowledges this on their website. The netting should definitely deter cats. If you are trying to say that I cage my animals until four weeks of age, that could be a correct statement. I don't know what you mean by "hold up on it".

I tried subdividing sections with non electric plastic netting. However the LGD liked to chew on it, and drag it all over the place. Maybe next year.

My muscovy drakes are lazy too, and like to hang out at the feed bowls in anticipation of mating with a hen.

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

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My point is that I buy my chicken at a grocery store because I will not pay the high prices that people want for birds raised in a chicken tractor. To me, high density farming is just that. Whether it is done in someone's backyard or in a commercial broiler house, I see high density farming techniques being employed. Therefore, the lowest bidder (and USDA inspected) gets my money. I see pro's and con's to each system, and the difference just isn't enough to make me pay more to support the chicken tractor farmer. Furthermore, I am also quite sure that less than sanitary conditions are being employed in backyard chicken processing operations.