Farms & Animal rights activists

In my area I seem to have a larger-than-normal number of fairly militant animal rights proponents.  For me, that means that I get contacted by the snohomish county animal control about once a month about some darned thing.

They actually get a lot more calls than that, but resolve them by coming to the farm gate and looking at whatever the complaint is.   Here's some of the most recent complaints: 
  pigs don't have water (I have installed two types of automatic waterers.  Here's one, and here's the other)
  Sheep are standing in the rain. 
  Pigs are standing in the rain. 
  Pigs are in mud
  Dogs are unlicensed (my three farm dogs, that is)
  Dogs are in the stock trailer
  Sheep can't reach the water (water is popular, see above)

I don't fault snohomish county animal control at all - they're required by law to respond to every complaint,and they do actually check out whatever it is.  When they can't see what they need to from my fenceline I will take them over and let them look at whatever it is, but this takes time out of the day.  They're nice enough about it, but it's annoying. 
 
  In addition I get a variety of notes left on the farm gate.  Most of the folks are looking to buy something, but I get the occasional angry note from someone about something. 

I'm not the only one.  Michelle, over at the collie farm blog, has had various issues with people about her livestock guardian dogs.  Here's one example, and another, and another. 

This has reached a new height in this area.  A local woman had her dog stolen from her fenced yard a few days ago, and the police have made an arrest in the case.   surprise, surprise:  A dog rescue group is apparently involved. 

What's been surprising about this latest case is that people are saying things in the comments of various articles that dog kennels are inhumane and electric fences are inhumane, which should come as a surprise to anyone who raises animals on pasture.   I had no idea.

Rebecca and the big bad meat company

[Disclosure:  I don't think that Rebecca Thistlewaite over at honestmeat.com  likes me one little bit.  In fact, I'm pretty sure she hates me.  But I sure do love her.  ]

I read Rebeccas blog from time to time because she talks about stuff that I'm interested in.  She has a completely different point of view from mine on many subjects. 

So I'm reading her most recent entry, about a new farm operation that is starting in northern California, by the name of belcampo meats.   

So the basic facts about Belcampo: 

They're claiming to have purchased 10,000 acres of farmland
They're showing up in farmers markets and gatherings
They claim to be building their own processing plant (which they also say will be available to other farmers to process their product)
 And they plan on doing a variety of products, beef, pork, chicken, lamb.  

Rebbecca goes on a rant about the evils of rich people, and how the sky will fall if...  well, go read it for yourself.  But here's my take: 

One of the biggest barriers to entry for a farmer is finding the land to farm on.  you've got to have land to farm, and there's no way around that.  And land, particularly land near population centers, is going to cost a lot. 

So this company purchased 10,000 acres, and looks to be getting into business producing food.   Someone sold them those acres, presumably at market prices.  That's a nice exit strategy for folks who own land - I'm sure they were happy to sell. 

But the point is that belcampo now has to come up with a business model and plan to make money after paying retail prices for land, and here's how that helps small farmers: 

If they can make a profit after paying retail for the land, so can any other entity -- corporation, family or individual.    If they can do that using good practices, even better. 

I think that the "multigenerational farms" that rebecca quoted are one of the things that make farming particularly hard to enter.  If they're using land that they own outright it's a HUGE competitive advantage over someone who has a mortgage.   And often that translates into production that is actually below the true cost.  And those lower prices in turn mean that folks with mortgages have an even harder time. 

Rebeccas own experience on leased land shows that land ownership is one of the key elements that makes a farm stable.  Don't know why she's pitching a fit about someone who's going the other way -- buying the land first. 

UPDATE:   Rebecca is claiming that farmers are losing "thousands of dollars of sales" to belcampo -- but they're apparently not.  See the comments in this thread.   

The spring chickens

New Hampshire rooster

I spent part of today ordering the chickens that we'll be selling next spring as started laying hens.  We try to raise a small quantity -- 500 or so -- laying hens each year, and a similar quantity of roosters.    

Part of my farming is to do my best to guess what consumption will be next year, and to buy and raise an appropriate number of animals to meet that demand.  I have to think about how many I can carry, what the feed costs are likely to be, where I'll house them (because in the winter, baby chicks are especially hard to care for) and basically work through the logistics. 

For retail purposes I have to make some guesses as to what people will be interested in buying.   The market here for laying hens is driven by the city folks -- many of the cities around my farm allow people to keep small numbers of chickens in their yards, and people tend to like a colorful, varied flock.  So when they come to the farm to pick out their chicken, it's nice to have a variety of colors to choose from. 

Why raise chickens in the winter? 

Raising chicks in the fall and winter is harder than it is in the spring and summer.  But the retail customers around here don't think too far ahead -- which is good for me.  In March and April, when the chicks arrive in the feed stores, these chickens will be at point of lay.  So my basic pitch to the backyard chicken folks, is yes, you buy chicks now, and in 4 to 5 months you'll get your first egg...  or you can buy one of these hens, and start enjoying the eggs right away.  People will pay for convenience, and this is pretty darn easy.   So the reason is to have the birds ready to go during the high season for chicken sales. 

My favorite breed of hens:

My favorite chickens aren't the barred rock.  Barred rock are my 2nd favorite.  They have long been a favorite of the American barnyard, and for good reason.  Properly cared for, a barred rock hen will produce more than 200 eggs for at least 2 years, and then provide a meaty carcass for the table afterwards.  The roosters are larger, and eaten young (3lbs live weight) provide excellent table fare.  They lay a large brown egg. 

Barred rock rooster

My favorites are actually the White leghorn chicken.  This is the breed that produces the quantities of white eggs you see in the stores, and they really do quite well on pasture.  They are active, intelligent, flighty birds.  I like them because I like an animal that approaches life with gusto, and these birds do that.  They are also the smartest chicken in your flock.  If there is some trouble that chickens can get into , you can be sure that the white leghorns will be right there.  Leghorns lay more eggs than any other breed of chicken, hands down.  That's why industry has focused on them. 

  The one drawback to leghorns is that their carcass is very small framed, and there's not much meat on them.   

I round out my hen order with some buff orpingtons.  They're very calm, and very pretty, and people seem to like them.  They also work well as  dual-purpose bird. 

Hen order: 

  150 barred rock hen chicks

  150  buff orpington hen chicks

  50 white leghorn chicks

The meat birds 

I have a special market in this area, and I was sure glad to find it.   I'm able to sell live chickens at the farm gate for $20 each.  No processing, not slaughtering, and in fact, not any trouble at all.  The people who buy these are usually recent immigrants, and they're after the taste and texture of a bird that's been running around and doing chicken things. 

To match this demand we raise a few hundred roosters.  We generally let the chickens roam around, and they do a very good job of sucking up any spillage from feeders or fruits or vegetables that get dropped as we move it around, and people start buying them at 3lbs live weight, which we'll hit around march, and all through the summer. 

Yummy!

 As far as roosters go, I prefer to have the roosters be a different breed than the laying hens, and this year we'll be raising rhode island red roosters.  We've raised quantities of Black Australorps in the past, and they're perfectly satisfactory as a table bird, but we're going to over-winter some  black austarlorp  hens this year to collect and hatch their eggs.  Having the roosters be a different color than the hens means that when we're looking for a rooster they're easy to spot. 

Rooster order: 
400 rhode island red rooster chicks
40 cornish cross straight-run (my personal 1 year chicken supply)

Cornish Cross
Most of the people who are doing pastured birds commercially, and most of the chickens that you see in the grocery store are a breed of chicken commonly referred to as cornish cross.  I've written about their growth pattern, and measured by conversion of grain into chicken, they cannot be beat.  They are hands-down the fastest growing chicken you can buy. 

I do raise a small number of cornish cross chickens, but for my own personal consumption.  The folks that we sell our chickens to will not buy a white chicken from us.  I just like the efficiency, but as with every other meat in my freezer, I prefer to have an active part in its production. 

And our feed situation is pretty novel.  More than half what the chickens eat is the produce that we also feed to the pigs, or forage that they turn up themselves, including grass and bugs and everything else that a chicken finds tasty.   (Chickens are not vegetarians by choice).   Given that, I don't have to worry about the cost of feed during the longer grow-out of a heritage rooster, and the hatcheries sell heritage roosters at about half or less the cost of the meat birds -- which means that my outlay of cash to purchase them is smaller than if I purchased cornish cross birds. 

Supplementing this chicken order is our own production of eggs and chicks.  We'll hatch 100 or so chicks a month of each breed, starting in November, to provide continuing supply of maturing chickens throughout the rest of the year.  We stop hatching eggs in June -- the market for chickens starts to dwindle in October -- I like to sell out of all of the adult birds that we're not going to over-winter by the 2nd week in october.