Started Reading "Pastured Poultry Profit$" - Joel Salatin

[Brunty_Farms]

Quote:
I'm intrigued by this... can you go into some detail of why it wasn't appealing to you. This isn't the first time I've heard this and I'm curious. There are different views in men and in women, not all guys think the same and not all gals think the same. But can you elaborate why you didn't like his farm or had a bad impression? If you want you can PM me... but I am interested in why you didn't feel he "is what he writes" as another person stated to me over the phone.

Thanks!

 

[anthonyjames]

I am curious as to this as well.

 

[bigredfeather]

Quote:
600 on 1 acre? What was the time frame you were back on the first spot again? Were you only running 1 tractor or 2? Are you moving 1 or 2 times daily?

Congrats on your year. Mine was not that big. But, I am hoping for that this coming year.

I started in April and didn't have to go over previously used pasture until August. At times I had 1 tractor running, and for one 8 week stretch I had 2 running. During the week I only moved them once, but twice on the weekends. By the time i got to the point where I had to reuse ground, the only way you would have know it was already used was that it was so much greener and taller than the rest. LOL An acre has 43,560 sqft. My tractors are 120 sqft, so I can techinally get 363 moves on a 1 acre pasture.

 

[Buster52]

Quote:
And women think with their hearts, men with their heads? Women are emotional, men logical? Men are from Mars, women from Venus? Sorry, I just don't buy into any of that sexist claptrap, regardless which gender it tends to elevate.

You visited his farm on a brief tour with a bunch of other tourists. You asked him a number of questions that could be considered challenging (in my view) of his methods and his knowledge. Judged his techniques because his place doesn't look like a pretty little hobby farm. He reacted the way any professor would to an upstart freshman level student who challenged his (or her) expertise.

But maybe I'm just gender biased. Defending a fellow member of the boys club. You know us guys. We gotta stick together.

 

[Buster52]

Quote:
600 on 1 acre? What was the time frame you were back on the first spot again? Were you only running 1 tractor or 2? Are you moving 1 or 2 times daily?

Congrats on your year. Mine was not that big. But, I am hoping for that this coming year.

I started in April and didn't have to go over previously used pasture until August. At times I had 1 tractor running, and for one 8 week stretch I had 2 running. During the week I only moved them once, but twice on the weekends. By the time i got to the point where I had to reuse ground, the only way you would have know it was already used was that it was so much greener and taller than the rest. LOL An acre has 43,560 sqft. My tractors are 120 sqft, so I can techinally get 363 moves on a 1 acre pasture.

I assume you mean once a day, not once a week.

 

[bigredfeather]

Quote:
I started in April and didn't have to go over previously used pasture until August. At times I had 1 tractor running, and for one 8 week stretch I had 2 running. During the week I only moved them once, but twice on the weekends. By the time i got to the point where I had to reuse ground, the only way you would have know it was already used was that it was so much greener and taller than the rest. LOL An acre has 43,560 sqft. My tractors are 120 sqft, so I can techinally get 363 moves on a 1 acre pasture.

I assume you mean once a day, not once a week.

Yes, I meant once or twice per day. Wow, I would have a mess if I only moved them once/week.

 

[guitari609]

Quote:
I had a very sarcastic response all ready to go, but for the sake of congeniality, I'll just say that I strongly disagree with nearly every part of this statement. It sounds straight up sexist to my young and inexperienced ears, and very much does not fit my experience in life so far.

 

[Beekissed]

Sorry if you all felt that was sexist....just my experience that some menfolk don't see the nitty gritty....ask their wives how good they clean house and you will get the low down. I'm, of course, not referring to all men....just the majority that I have known and known of.

Buster, your statements about my experience are patently untrue and your bias towards Salatin is clear and you have made it quite clear in earlier posts. I'm really not here to argue with you about those items and I have a right to post my opinion on this man's farming practices, which I have seen and you have only heard of.

I have pics. I visited his farm in April. His cows were squirting liquid feces...and I do mean liquid. I asked how long they had been on pasture and if their stool was likely to firm up(challenging? I think not. According to this man's book, he provides hay for his cattle when the grass is new so that they will not get scours from the new grass. He also goes into a lengthy description of what a healthy cow pat looks like, so think this was a fair question and not a bit challenging.) The man merely answered~very tersely~that it was rich pasture and they had been on it since Feb/Mar. Well...duh! I knew that it was rich, I have eyes...it just intrigued me that they had been out on pasture since Feb/March and still were squirting liquid feces and not a hay bale in sight to balance their rumens...as he described in his book.

His chicken tractors? About 75 birds to a 8 X 10 tractor that gets moved once a day? There is a small square in the corner of this tractor that lets in sunlight and the birds are given continuous feed. The grass under their feet was very trampled and covered in feces...I can't imagine that these birds had ingested any of this badly soiled grass, even when it was first relocated to fresh forage. Too many birds, too much poop, not enough grass. Sorry, but I don't exactly called that pastured....yeah, they were out ON a pasture, but were they eating any of it? I didn't see one bird foraging, just pushing and shoving against each other or lying down.

The Racken House? Severely overcrowded with Black Aussies who were in varying stages of baldness....evidence of lots of feather picking and no wonder....WAY too crowded. About 60 nest boxes for about 200 birds...they were crowded three deep in the nests, some were laying into the deep bedding, I saw one poor bird huddled under a feeder and she looked dead. I nudged her with my feet and she moved a little...she had been lying on a clutch of very dirty eggs. All these birds had pale combs, dull feathers and appeared unhealthy to me. The waterers were encrusted with algae growth. There was a dead rabbit in one of the cages along with live ones.

The pastured layers? Same issues. A portable coop that was too small for the number of birds, evidence of many bald birds-clearly not the time of year for molting, so this is not it~ and dull plummage. Great forage but dismal living quarters and total health appearance.

You really can't see just what I saw more closely in these pics. I just snapped a few because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I didn't go that place to see the faults...I was excited and had planned for that day for a long time. I respected the man and his methods. What I saw took that esteem down a far notch or two. These short descriptions are just the iceberg of what I noticed on my trip...a brief overview of just why I feel the way I do about it all.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

I've never been there so I can only judge the man from what he writes. However from the pics and your descriptions it does make you scratch your head a little bit. I think a lot of people have questions about his methods. Natures Harmony have had some opinions of him too that at first I didn't agree with but there has been multiple attacks against his practices from a few legit sources.

A man that makes as much money as he does on his speeches and writings makes me wonder on the farming as well. There is no doubt that Joel is by far a great trailblazer in this industry and he is definitely honored by many. But I agree, getting too big too fast will really slow things down and make the overall appearance of a farm look bad. The greed thing may not be too far off, I would not really consider him greedy but it's a lot to test a man when that much money is thrown around.

I know from experience that dead animals happen from time to time and sometimes at the worst times.... when you're on a tour. But it's the reality of a farm, which I'm sure your quite aware of. But like you said there was more to it than just that.

Regardless of where we all stand, he has done an amazing job at the forefront. Even if his standards are not up to snuff, he has inspired thousands to follow his steps on the right path and each farm has tweaked his system to work for them. Wether it's adding more space, adding more pasture, trying to be more sustainable... ect. I'm on board with what he preaches, I just tweak it to fit me and my customers.

Thanks for posting, very interesting.

 

[guitari609]

It sounds like you are describing an idealist vs. a realist, not a woman versus a man. A farm that I spend a lot of my free time on is run about as well as I can imagine, and I've seen all of the issues sited on any given day. I have 7 hens in a 50x50 space, all of which were in varying stages of baldness starting last spring through about two weeks ago. Several of my friends have similar issues with their laying hens. My friend, a doctor, raises polled herefords. He's known for running a tight ship, I've seen the cows poop water one day, and be fine the next. I agree regarding the size of the pens for the broilers, as I have recently done this myself and been dissatisfied with the results, but I will tell you this, his method far exceeds that used by the poultry industry. I am in construction, and when we have a customer that tears down to the degree that is happening here, I ask them what they feel is a better alternative, usually ends up being their current residence, and then I make an unannounced visit, and make a list of things that I would absolutely not let stand on my job site. Heaven forbid the man put some sort of emphasis on making a profit....if he didn't he'd go out of business and his customers, who obviously enjoy his products enough to pay for them, would be left buying from giant chicken houses where there are hundreds of thousands of chickens in a smaller per square foot area that aren't move EVER, and there is about a 10% or so death rate, I know, my friend works for one and spends half of every day just picking up dead chickens.

I've yet to see a farm where things like this don't happen. I've yet to see a perfect world. I've seen plenty of wild animals, free to run loose that have bald spots and the runs. There is no perfect answer. The question is, are you going to get on with life, or spend your time looking for specks of dirt in the corner? Personally, I wouldn't boast of such habits. I was referring to sexism against women, not men.