I first met Joel (the farmer I work for) on a sunny morning in June 2010. I was accompanied by a fella I work with, who set up the meeting and has known Joel for many years.
Farmer Joel was waiting for us out front when we pulled up to the farm. Joel I'm guessing is in his late forties, he is average height with a white beard. About five minutes after meeting Joel I knew I had made the right decision. He gave me quite an education just in the first 30 minutes of walking around the farm. He talked about diversified farming, soil structure and biological farming most of which just flew way over my head. This guy seemed different than any farmer I had met before. Normally when I talk to farmers they just do what their fathers did. This guy understood farming on a molecular level!
The most important lesson came on our first stop on the tour when we visited the chicken house. This chicken house is a hoop structure with dirt floors covered in hay with two sides separated by a plastic mesh wall in the middle. One side is Golden comets (egg layers that lay brown eggs) and the other side is meat birds and pullets (barred rock and some araucana). It probably houses a couple hundred chickens.
It was immediately apparent to me that something was wrong when Joel looked at the massive hoop house and quickly started heading that way. Apparently, the egg layers (breed: Golden comets) had found a way through the barrier that separates them from the meat birds (birds just raised for their meat value often called broilers) and young pullets (young egg layers). Of course to me I just saw a bunch of different colored-different sized chickens walking around.
We entered the house through the meat bird side and it was obvious why Joe was so worried. About 20-25 small meat birds and pullets laid dead on the ground as a result of being smothered by the older egg layers. First lesson in farming: Establish good fences!
What happens, I'm told, is that the egg layers want the resources on the other side of the house and so they try to find a way to get them. Once they are in as a consequence(maybe out of fear?) the younger birds huddle together in the corners unaware (meat birds are pretty stupid anyways and young pullets are..well..young) that their behavior is going to cause mass carnage. Kind of like a stampede at a rock concert, I guess. I witnessed how- when theses young birds are in the corner -the older egg layers walk over in groups and just smother the young ones...pretty gruesome to see, but definitely part of farming and a great lesson to learn on my first day.
Of course while I am "learning" Joel is thinking about the couple hundred dollars he just lost...
We immediately started grabbing egg layers and putting them back on their side of the house. This, to be honest with you, was the first time I had ever held a full grown chicken. A couple of times as a young child I held the little yellow chicks- so this was quite a treat! At first I was a little apprehensive about grabbing them because I didn't know how chickens took to being grabbed. I was afraid they would scratch at me or try to gouge my eyes out..of course to you reading this who are familiar with chickens probably think that is ridiculous but, I told you I know nothing about farming.
After all of the egg layers had been put back on their side we stepped outside and Joel lifted his hat a little,put both hands on his hips and pointed to the hoop house. "I'm glad you got to see this" he said turning to me. "This is the reality of farming. If your going to farm you need to be able to deal with heartache" he said. "Farming is heartache."......
It was immediately apparent to me that something was wrong when Joel looked at the massive hoop house and quickly started heading that way. Apparently, the egg layers (breed: Golden comets) had found a way through the barrier that separates them from the meat birds (birds just raised for their meat value often called broilers) and young pullets (young egg layers). Of course to me I just saw a bunch of different colored-different sized chickens walking around.
We entered the house through the meat bird side and it was obvious why Joe was so worried. About 20-25 small meat birds and pullets laid dead on the ground as a result of being smothered by the older egg layers. First lesson in farming: Establish good fences!
What happens, I'm told, is that the egg layers want the resources on the other side of the house and so they try to find a way to get them. Once they are in as a consequence(maybe out of fear?) the younger birds huddle together in the corners unaware (meat birds are pretty stupid anyways and young pullets are..well..young) that their behavior is going to cause mass carnage. Kind of like a stampede at a rock concert, I guess. I witnessed how- when theses young birds are in the corner -the older egg layers walk over in groups and just smother the young ones...pretty gruesome to see, but definitely part of farming and a great lesson to learn on my first day.
Of course while I am "learning" Joel is thinking about the couple hundred dollars he just lost...
We immediately started grabbing egg layers and putting them back on their side of the house. This, to be honest with you, was the first time I had ever held a full grown chicken. A couple of times as a young child I held the little yellow chicks- so this was quite a treat! At first I was a little apprehensive about grabbing them because I didn't know how chickens took to being grabbed. I was afraid they would scratch at me or try to gouge my eyes out..of course to you reading this who are familiar with chickens probably think that is ridiculous but, I told you I know nothing about farming.
After all of the egg layers had been put back on their side we stepped outside and Joel lifted his hat a little,put both hands on his hips and pointed to the hoop house. "I'm glad you got to see this" he said turning to me. "This is the reality of farming. If your going to farm you need to be able to deal with heartache" he said. "Farming is heartache."......
