This post will explain why we've chosen to raise pastured poultry, and to have our birds processed by hand.
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Joel Salatin's book, PASTURED POULTRY PROFITS, does a great job of illustrating not only the practical steps to take when raising your own poultry, but also the health benefits and reasons for chosing a process that breaks the mold of bigger, faster, cheaper. He outlines a farming practice that models respect for the animal, respect for the Earth God has created, and quite frankly, a lot of good common sense.
LIVING ENVIRONMENT:We built portable pens, like the one pictured below, according to the design that Salatin describes in his book. These 10' x 12' x 2' floorless structures are framed with lumber, enclosed with chicken wire and metal sheeting to allow for both sunshine and protection/shade, with an access door that flips open on top. Pete and my uncle fashioned a customized dolly to allow one person to move the cage, whereas before it took two people because of its weight and size. Some people use tractors , but because we raise our birds on our Amish neighbor's farm, a dolly was necessary.
Moved daily to a fresh section of pasture, these birds receive fresh air, exercise, sunshine, and all the genetically modified organism-free (GMO-Free) grain they want. We also want our birds to eat as much salad (green material) as their full genetic potential will allow. And knowing that chickens won't venture far for food if they don't have to, we ensure they have a nice saladbar at their
fingertips, er, feet 24/7.
How is pastured poultry different from free range chickens? Well, chicken labeled "free range" means that they had
some access to the outdoors during their life. That sounds kinder and gentler, but it only means that the animal had the option of going outside--there's no guarantee that it actually did. A chicken could still be raised in a confinement house with around 10,ooo others, with one door open to the outside that it may or may not use, and still be labeled "free range".
Even smaller chicken houses that provide greater access to the pasture aren't as effective as portable pens, because, if the structure is stationary, the birds eat/scratch up the area around it and venture no further. Eventually, their supplemental grain is closer and laziness wins the day.
A portable pen also provides a growing environment with the least amount of fecal contamination possible. The birds are not sitting in their own mess day after day (which burns their skin), they don't have to continually breathe in the fecal dust generated in a confinement house setting with even the best fans and bedding set-up, AND the light, even spread of droppings over the pasture actually fertilizes and promotes it's health.
The industry says Cornish Cross broilers cannot be raised without artificial vitamin packs and antibiotics. They are right, if the birds are raised in a confinement house setting. Disease is much harder to contain, therefore the entire house receives preventative antibiotics. We do not give our chickens any medication in their feed or otherwise. The sick ones are naturally eliminated.
HOW THEY ARE PROCESSED:When it comes to processing meat birds, the traditional mass production method is done by machines. Even with the best technology, this approach breaks open the intestines and pours fecal material all over the carcass, inside the body cavity, thereby contaminating the birds. This is why mass processed birds receive as many as 40 chlorine baths.
Processing is an inherently filthy thing, but the larger, faster, and more automatic the system, the more filthy it is.Our birds are killed and processed individually by hand at a local butcher shop. Our butcher says you can tell alot about the quality of an animal's life when you are processing it, and he has been very affirming of our practices. To which we turned around and quickly thanked him for still providing the service he does!
THEIR DIET:We all know that green material (salad) is high in vitamins and minerals, but low in energy. It is good for us because of the chlorophyll, the vitamins, the minerals, and the fiber, but it doesn’t fill us up for long. In comparison, grains and especially corn, are high in energy but low in vitamins and minerals. When animals are fed a high energy, low vitamin/mineral diet, they tend to have more saturated fat (cholesterol) in their meat, milk or eggs. When these same animals consume a large percentage of green material, the saturated fat of their animal proteins diminishes.
If you have a cholesterol problem, your doctor will tell you to decrease your intake of animal proteins, exercise to metabolize excess calories, eat more “salad”, and reduce stress in your life. Current mainline livestock agriculture ensures the very elements that encourage saturated fat: high calorie/low vitamin-mineral rations, sedentary lifestyle, physical and emotional stress. Whereas, the yellow fat found in pastured poultry (and grass-fed beef), and extremely orange egg yolks in pastured layer hens, reflect high levels of chlorophyll in the diet and low levels of saturated fat. And that means good things for our bodies as well!
There really is truth in the saying that, "you are what you eat."The food in this country is shipped hundreds of miles (if not more) until it reaches our grocery store shelves, where it then sits for another week or so until it goes on sale to make room for the next truckload of stock. For us, there is just something great about eating a flavorful, juicy piece of chicken that you know is so fresh it was running around the pasture that morning!
So far, the kids enjoy the same kind of thing, so decorating a cake was pretty easy.
