Hello
and welcome to our family standing in front of one of our Pasture Poultry
Project 12X24' field hoop house structures which serve as primary housing
for all livestock on our farm. We have been blessed with a
wonderful family life here with each family member learning how to work
first collectively with others and then more independently as each begins
developing skills for jobs they can take the lead in. There is no
shortage of challenge to the daily stewardship of our resources. It is
certainly a joy to take on these challenges surrounded by those who have
each others' best interests at heart.
Our
first enterprise was pastured poultry. Thanks to the encouragement of
Joel Salatin and others, we embarked on a journey that would have us
producing 11,000 pastured broilers on our farm in 2004. Chicken has
become our centerpiece enterprise where we process 400 birds per week in the spring and
summer and then plan our fall harvests to provide the best quality pasture
raised birds, harvested and then flash frozen to last throughout the winter.
Our farming operation sells pasture raised table meats year round based on
this model. We produce when the pastures are lush and nutritious, harvest at the peak of
growth and preserve the product for distribution
throughout the non growing months. This has made it possible for us to
balance out our income for the full year by providing a year round supply of
food for our customers. This also gives us a few months
off from production, where we can take a look at what we did and plan how to
improve for the next growing season.
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These
adapted hoop structures are really excellent in so many ways. There
are challenges though, but all in all, we plan to use and improve this model
as we continue fine tuning our pasture based farming practices. Here
you'll see turkey poults which are brooded and then grown out from the same
structure on pasture. We eliminate the stress event of having
to catch them all and move them from the brooder to the field houses.
We just brood in the hoop, and when the weather is suitable, we simply move
a straw bale and start marching the feeders towards the great outdoors.
The birds soon follow, and within a matter of days, they run out to eat
during the day, coming in to drink and to sleep.
Pastured
pork is our most recent enterprise and do we ever like it. We had no
idea pigs were so capable of not just surviving, but thriving on
pasture. Our herd breeds, farrows and grows out entirely
outdoors with small run in shelters as their free choice housing. The deep bedded straw huts
are welcome in the rain and especially in the cold winter months, but
the pigs really prefer to be outside and we want to let them do what they
want to do. Don't let anyone fool you though, pigs are the absolute
roughest of any of the livestock on pasture. In their natural
'pigginess' they just love to rip up the sod and eat roots, grubs, worms and
even a bit of dirt which is why pastured piglets are able to forgo the
traditional iron shots of conventional pigs. We love our pigs.
There are
three primary ways to grow chickens out on pasture. The
pasture pen, a 10x12 foot bottomless cage which is moved daily is excellent
for predator control and the even distribution of manure. The Day
Range or stationary hoops with movable fence are also good, allowing the
birds to be moved to new pasture around a stationary hoop structure.
We believe our pasture poultry model is the least labor intensive of all. We
don't use interior fences, but instead, move the feeders twice a day to
spread manure and encourage ranging of the birds. All watering is done with
miles of standard Wal-Mart garden hoses. We have been able to observe natural flock grazing, roaming and
social characteristics unobtainable using any other system. You can read all
about it in
The 5 P's of
a Sustainable Small Family Farm.
This photo is a wide shot of our hoop house (a 12X24 factory direct hoop garage staked out
in the pasture). The house sits stationary from brooding to harvest
and birds are encouraged to move about the pasture by placing feed troughs
in a systematic pattern around the hoop. Hoops are placed 200 feet
apart, and the different age birds rarely if ever intermix, negating the
need for portable fencing around the hoops. The 30 acre pasture perimeter fence is a 6
wire high tensile powerhouse with a super smacker shocker that works well on
fox, coyote and dogs. These birds are
8 weeks old and ready to be harvested.
By
working with a small number of local farmers who agree to grow to our clean
food protocol, we've had the opportunity to experiment with
numerous breeds of beef cattle including Angus, Hereford, Belted Galway,
Shorthorn, Longhorn, Devon, Holstein, Jersey and beef crosses. We also have a herd of
Hereford/Shorthorn crosses and 30 Angus/Galway crosses that really do well on our pastures. The
beef program is one of the most difficult to do because it is a full 3 years
from breeding to harvesting of a McDonald Farm pastured beef. Compared
to the 8 weeks of a chicken or 10 months for a pig, you can see the patience
it takes to do beef at all, let alone do it well. It is well worth it
though, as our list of beef loving customers continues to grow especially in
light of all the negative press about mad cow and mistreatment of
conventional beef.
Our
pastured lamb enterprise is the oldest on the farm. Beginning in 1991
with 20 Finn X Suffolk ewes, we have grown the flock to 150 bred ewes
producing a 180% lamb crop. We do not use anthelmintics (chemical
wormers) on the flock, preferrin a very aggressive rotational grazing
program and the mild natural toxins of the weeds in some areas of our farm. We try to have as natural an environment as
possible for the ewe and her lambs, and we never wean, preferring
to harvest the 80 lb. lambs off the pasture and the ewe at the same time.
The social, biological and emotional relationship of the ewe and lamb is
maintained intact for the duration of their time on the farm. This
quality of life is reflected in the quality of the product. No grain
is fed to the sheep, lambs, beef or calves on McDonald Farm. They are
all grass fed.
Pastured turkeys are a wonderful addition to any multi-species
table meat venture. They have 100 times the personality of chickens,
and seem to really enjoy the company of our chore lads. They spend the
first days of their lives running from us, and the rest of the 18 weeks
running toward us. They are
voracious grazers, filling up on organic whole grains, and then grazing
and foraging the day away. They will range the full 30 acre
pasture....and beyond. They mow our lawn, use the swingset and even
play in the sandbox. Very fun.
A
bunch of young chicks all cuddled up for a good night's rest. It is
funny how in the summer, we have all the poultry we want to deal with, but
as tired as we get toward the end of the growing season, we really do
miss the miracle of growing them and by the following spring, we are all
looking forward to the happy and hectic 6 months of again raising our birds on
pasture.
You
cannot have a family farm without a family and we are so thankful to have
ours. 8 boys and 1 girl is a house full, but we would not have it any
other way. A family farming enterprise is an excellent way to grow respectful, capable,
compassionate, and loving children. We give them a job to do
and let them grow into the realization of the importance of it.
Our kids know we love them, and more importantly, that we need them.
They continue to surpass our expectations of how capable they are as they
grow and mature.