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* Cost: $400
* Cost: $400
* Capacity: 40 adult layers or 85 juvenile meat chickens
* Capacity: 40 adult layers or 85 juvenile meat chickens
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[[image:Chicken_tractor.jpg]]


==Comparison of Hoop House to the Chicken Tractor==
==Comparison of Hoop House to the Chicken Tractor==

Revision as of 05:45, 29 April 2007

Project page creation in process. Please see the discussion tab for comments.

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Pastured Chickens

In the fall of 2005 Sarah Brunner and I, Shail Pec-Crouse, started the first commercial pastured chicken operation in California. Our business is still in its formative stage, and our first four months of business have been spent learning from other successful models, experimenting with different equipment, suffering through trials and tribulations, getting our hands bloody and planning improvements to our system. Throughout it all we have been guided by our core values of humane husbandry and sustainability.

We began with a very small flock of 175 birds and decided to try two different models of raising them on pasture to see which model worked the best for our situation. We compared the two models by looking at efficiency, loss to predators, land impact cost, fossil fuel use and mobility which strongly effects efficiency, land impact and fossil fuel use. After working with both models for a couple of months we have come to the conclusion that the Chicken Tractor (CT) model is most appropriate for raising meat Chickens and the Hoop House (HH) model is more appropriate for raising laying hens. The CT is better for meat production because it is more cost effective and mobile and there is less predation. The CT is also important for pasturing laying hens for their first few months since there are less predator risks. The Hoop House is better for egg production because it accommodates nest boxes and roosts.

Our current goal for our business it to primarily produce meat with a bonus of eggs on the side, so it looks like we will be spending a lot of time constructing CTs in the future.

Our Models

Joel Salatin developed a pastured chicken meat production using "chicken tractors" that are 10' x 12', fully enclosed on one end and covered with netting on the other end.

How our chicken tractor differed from the model:

  • Salatin’s roofing and siding is made from aluminum. Our CT uses polycarbonate. Aluminum is much more durable and recyclable but is also extremely expensive. The price of aluminum has sky rocketed since the publication of Salatin’s book. Aluminum is also much heavier and we already find the CT a little to heavy for easy moving.
  • Salatin used plastic netting on the open end of his CTs. We used 1 inch chicken wire on the roof and quarter inch hardware cloth on the sides. Salatin recommends plastic netting because it is light weight. He also recommends a strip of hardware cloth on the bottom 6 inches of the north eastern quadrant to protect from raccoons reaching in and grabbing the birds. We decided to use the hardware cloth all the way around to be safe. We used wire instead of netting because I was unable to find appropriate netting, wire seemed more predator proof and I like to avoid non-recyclable or biodegradable materials.
  • Salatin’s design uses more cross braces to increase durability. We reduced the number of cross braces to reduce weight because the structure seemed to be sturdy enough with the bracing we installed. He also used a wire and turnbuckle to stop spreading on the bottom across the 10ft span. We used a 2x2 instead because we could attach a center support for the roof to it, it acted a perch and was less likely to trip the chickens.
  • Salatin’s design contained no roosts. We added 3 10ft roosts to give the birds a place to sleep off the ground. Chickens like to sleep on roosts and it helps keep them dry in the rainy season.

The design after which we modeled our hoop house:

  1. a free range operation in Marin County that used an identical hoop house
  2. Joel Salatin’s “Eggmobile,” which is a ramshackle coop on wheels, and the same electric fencing he uses.

How our hoop house differed from the model:

  • we combined the hoop house with the electric fencing
  • Our HH is on wheels, not skids, so that it can be moved by hand instead of by tractor. This allows it to be moved more often.

Hoop House Materials

  • 10’ x 18’ and 8' tall
  • plastic tarp roof is strapped over ribs of stainless steel pipe
  • steel frame attached to new pressure treated 6x8 frame
  • 1” square hardware cloth bottom
  • five 10’long roost poles
  • 30 nest boxes planned
  • 2 hanging bucket feeders, one hanging 7 gallon waterer
  • hoop house purchased on the internet, sold as a portable garage
  • Cost: about $500 plus $500 shipping
  • Capacity: 175 adult layers
  • electric netting
  • solar charger
  • cost: $350

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Chicken Tractor Materials

  • 10’x 12’x 2’
  • Lumber is 95% recycled, 2%SFC certified 3% new and donated
  • Hardware cloth
  • chicken wire
  • Recycled content corrugated plastic roofing
  • Miscellaneous hardware (hinges, braces, etc.)
  • Half of the tractor is enclosed in wire and the other half is enclosed in plastic roofing material to protect chickens from the weather and keep the chicken feed dry.
  • The CT is moved by sliding a dolly under one end and pulling with a handle on the other end. We are in the process of getting a custom-made 4 foot wide dolly for easier mobility. We still need to install a handle on the dolly side of the CT to make it easier to get the dolly under the CT, and to it possible to put the dolly on either side and pull the CT in either direction.
  • During our first trial with the CT we simply watered the chickens with a 4 gallon waterer that sits on the ground. However for more efficient moving we purchased a Bell Drinker which hangs from the roof, and is gravity fed from a bucket that sits on top of the CT. We still need to work on ballasting the bell drinker to have it be fully functional.
  • At first we fed the chicks in the CT with a bamboo trough, but it didn't hold enough food. We now use a bucket feeder, but we are still working on refining the feeding system and are considering larger bamboo feeders.
  • Cost: $400
  • Capacity: 40 adult layers or 85 juvenile meat chickens

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Comparison of Hoop House to the Chicken Tractor

  • Predators: We have lost at least 16 birds housed in the Hoop House to predators and none from the Chicken Tractor. We think that the culprit is a weasel finding its way through or beneath the electric fence, although one night of predation may have been due to not hooking up the electric fencing properly. During the day the lack of netting above the pastured chickens makes them vulnerable to hawks, especially when they are small. We suspect that we have lost some chickens to a hawk that has been hanging around. We also often found chickens outside of the netting when they were smaller which may have led to some losses that we are unaware of.

We expected to have more problems with predators with the Chicken Tractor because it is bottomless and predators often dig into chicken coops, but it appears that its weight, overhead protection and moving it frequently deters predators. We have not lost any birds to predators from the CT

  • Mobility: The HH is very difficult to move by hand. It is extremely heavy and takes two people pushing or a truck to move.

The CT was hard to move at first but has become much easier since I installed a better handle. A custom dolly will make it even easier to pull along the ground. It is hard to move long distances though, which is problematic if it needs to be moved to a new pasture or close to an electric outlet for repairs.

  • Land impact:

Our first HH model didn’t have a floor and despite moving the HH every few days the ground inside got too high a concentration of feces. We installed a new wire floor and tarps beneath collect the feces and now the ground underneath the HH doesn’t get too much wear. However the land just outside the entrance still receives excessive fecal deposits and grazing. The rest of the enclosure is grazed and defecated on fairly evenly and recovers (has new lush growth) within a week or two of the chickens being moved off.

The CT causes more intense grazing but the birds are moved each day, preventing overgrazing. After moving the CT the grass recovers within a week or two. Feces are spread out except for the corner where they sleep, but this accumulation is small enough that the pasture absorbs it within two to three weeks.

  • Efficiency:

The HH set up takes more time to move. The fencing must be taken down, the HH moved and the fencing put back up, but it accommodates many more birds--at least four times the number of layers and two times the number of meat birds.

The CT is much quicker to move but can’t accommodate laying hens easily because nest boxes add so much more weight to the CT.

  • Fossil fuel use:

Currently the HH requires a truck to move with one person

The CT is moved only by hand

  • Cost:

The total cost of the HH so far is $1600, or approximately $10 per layer in the first year

The total cost of the CT so far is $400, also approximately $10 per layer or $5 per meat chicken in the first year

  • Accommodations:

The HH has a much larger area protected from rain in which nest boxes and roosts can be situated. Roosts are important for keeping the birds off the cold wet ground during the rainy season.

The CT can be fitted with nest boxes and roosts but these items make it much too heavy for daily moving. Meat chickens are only raised in the summer so ground roosting is not as much of a concern.

Incorporating the Environment in Agriculture

There is a wealth of information available in books, movies and websites about the unhealthy, unsustainable and inhumane practices of industrial chicken farming. Rather than reproducing that work, we have collected below a list of ways in which a chicken tractor and a moving hoop house are a better way of rearing chickens for meat and eggs. We also believe our methods are better than those of a typical organic chicken farm.

Chicken tractors and moving hoop houses:

  • allow the chickens to be moved on to fresh pasture every day or two, which keeps the pasture from being overgraze
  • stop the build up of massive quantities of feces in the area used by chickens
  • prevent health problems created by chickens standing in their own feces, a common problem in chicken operations that are not mobile
  • spread feces out over the pasture so it is deposited in quantities that a healthy pasture can absorb and utilize. This stops burning of plant roots and nitrogen toxicity in the soil from excess feces, while fertilizing the pasture to encourage faster, lusher growth.
  • provide chickens access to fresh plant matter, which is a natural part of a poultry diet. Fresh pasture makes for healthier birds, meat and eggs. Chickens with access to vegetation produce eggs and meat that contains less cholesterol and a lower percent of saturated fat. You can see this difference when you cook a conventional bird and a pasture raised bird side by side: the conventional bird’s fat is white and hard at room temperature, indicating high saturated fat content. The pasture raised bird’s fast is yellow and soft at room temperature, indicating more unsaturated fat content.
  • reduce prepared feed consumption. Feed is primarily grains and soy beans which could be more efficiently fed to people than animals. Reducing feed also reduces fossil fuel use related to growing, harvesting, packaging and transporting feed.
  • provide more room to move around than caged birds. This eliminates excessive pecking and cannibalism so we aren’t compelled to debeak (cut off most of the upper beak and some of the lower beak) the birds.
  • prevent a reduction in invertebrate diversity due to constant pressure from foraging birds. Pasture rotation confines the birds more, relieving pressure on the invertebrate community and ensuring there is always pasture that the birds do not have access to. This allows the invertebrate populations to reproduce and remain healthy.


Other sustainable aspects of our operation

  • Use of Land Trust pasture: There are many authors on sustainability out there that have commented on the fact that if land is bought and sold as a commodity, ultimately we can not produce all of our food sustainably because good arable land near water sources is bought up and divided into ranchettes which are mainly used for lawns and an occasional pet horse.

Land Trusts are the hope of the future for sustainable agriculture. Land trusts manage land in a non-profit driven manner. They have easements on the land that essentially remove the possibility of development of the property for as long as the legal system exists. Most stop the division of the land as well and restrict use to agriculture and/or habitat. The land we lease is managed by the Jacoby Creek Land Trust which attempts to lease to farmers that farm in more a sustainable fashion. They encourage organic farming and pasture rotation. They have also fenced off the entire riparian corridor to make the creek healthier, provide habitat, stop erosion and keep the cows from polluting the water with feces. The Land Trust has also planted native vegetation along the creek.

  • Heritage breeds: Conserving diversity in plant varieties and animal breeds is important for protecting against disease and maintaining the ability to raise products that do well in a particular climate. We started with a variety of breeds to see what worked best for us under our pasture and climate conditions. Two of the breeds, Production Red and Black Star ,are industrial breeds and I believe the Black Star is a hybrid that does not breed true. The other seven breeds are all heritage breeds. They include Minorca and Brown Leghorn, both of which are strictly egg layers, Araucana, Barred Rock, Australop and New Hampshire Red, all of which are dual purpose varieties.

Some unsustainable components of our farm and possible solutions

  • Importation of grains and soy. Importing grains and soy from the Midwest for feed actually works at counter purposes with our overall goal, to grow a sustainable local protein.

- Grow grains ourselves or commission grains from a local farmer. Oats and wheat can both be grown in the Arcata climate and were at the turn of the last century. Growing grains ourselves would be a much larger investment of time and land and it would be difficult to produce without investments in machinery. Another downside is that the machinery would require fossil fuel, though we could run farm equipment on local recycled biodiesel. However, the local supply of biodiesel is limited and may not be able to support many farmers or many more residents.


If we did grow our own grains we would be able to significantly reduce production waste that is common on grain-only farms: we would turn our chickens out onto the grain field after harvest to glean.


- Grow an alternative protein source since soy does not grow well here. Lemna is the most promising protein source I have come across. Lemna, also known as duck weed, is a tiny plant that floats on water and often covers the surface of ponds and gives them a green appearance. Lemna is high in protein. It is around 25% nitrogen (protein is made up of nitrogen containing molecules) It also contains chlorophyll which reduces the saturated fat ratio in the birds.


- Use fish by-products from local fishery as an alternative protein source. This may work well but fish isn’t a natural component of the poultry diet. Bioaccumulation of heavy metals and toxins found in fish are also a source of concern.


- Feed waste soy from the tofu making process. We have a local tofu maker in Arcata. I understand that currently the okara (waste solids) are fed to hogs. We may be able to acquire some for feeding the chickens but the logistics of frequent pick up, needing small quantities compared to what is produced and the spoilability of the okara need to be researched.


  • Fossil fuel mobility. Currently the hoop house has 4 small wheels and can be pushed around with two people. However, Sarah and I are rarely out at the farm at the same time since all other chores only require one person, so the HH often ends up getting moved with a truck which uses fossil fuel or biodiesel, and the weight of the truck compacts the arable soil beneath. Sometimes my outrageously kind and generous boyfriend comes out to help move it by hand, but this takes a lot of his time and he ends up sitting around waiting a lot. Then I have to give him backrubs and make him breakfast in bed. Ultimately this is not a long term solution.

- Ideally we want the HH to be movable by one person. We need bigger wheels but are at a complete loss at how to install larger wheels and still make it turnable (castor wheels are too small). One option is to put the wheels in the middle like a teeter totter, but the wheels are more likely to rub against the floor.

- We could also get a horse to move the HH but this is not economically sustainable at such a small scale.

  • Non-renewable electricity. We used 3 200 watt bulbs for approximately 2 solid weeks for brooding our batch of 176 chicks. We may be able to get up to 300 chicks under the same number of bulbs, but we were erring on the safe side for our first flock.


We eventually plan on either getting a solar array to produce our electricity or moving to a new farm that has a barn with a solar array already installed.


  • Imported carbon material. We need to have dry, absorbent bedding for the young chicks that can be composted when the flock is put out to the fields. Wood shavings work the best because the chicks can scratch at them and essentially turn the compost in the brooder as they grow. When we began we assumed it would be easy to get local wood shavings since there is so much logging in the area. Alas we have been unable to find a source of shavings that aren’t contaminated by walnut, cherry, red wood or cedar, all of which have toxic oils in them that make them poor bedding. The mills here tend to send all their shavings to the pulp mill and the furniture makers use unsuitable wood types.

- We are going to continue looking for a local source of non-toxic wood shavings.

  • Imported chicks. Our chicks were hatched in a hatchery in Iowa. All hatcheries are out of state.

- Our goal is to eventually have a breeding flock to produce our own chicks. We need to research if this is economically viable since it requires that we either have hens that raise chicks for us or invest in an incubator. Mother hens are more appealing since they tend to reduce chick losses and make for happy chicks, but mother hens do not produce eggs for sale and while continuing to eat expensive feed.


The hens would also probably need their own enclosure in which to raise chicks. If we use an incubator then the hens that produce the fertile eggs will continue laying eggs for the market. Fertile eggs also require roosters which eat feed and don’t produce eggs, but they may help protect the flock from predators and increase the egg output of the hens.

  • Farming away from home. Not living on the farm requires transportation to the farm which can be done by bike, but is often done with fossil fuel because of time constraints and hauling. The gas gets expensive but land lease is cheap. Not having the flock at home also increases mortality because we cant just run out the back door to check and see how high the creek is when it is raining or check to make sure the chicks are content with no drafts .

- Eventually we want to move our operation to a new farm in the Arcata bottoms which will be managed by the neighboring cohousing community. I hope to become a resident at the cohousing community so I can live close to my livelihood and enjoy the community of intentional neighbors. Sarah hopes to eventually buy a piece of land as well, at which point we may dissolve our partnership and form a co-op.

Trials and Tribulations

What a long and steep learning curve it had been. We did extremely well in the first few weeks of raising the chicks: our mortality was low (about 6%), the chicks were cute as could be, and we were well prepared to take care of the little fluff balls. From there it only got more difficult.

Our beloved, malformed, deceased chick "Gonzo"


Everything takes longer than expected: The hoop house and the chicken tractor were both ready for occupancy later than we hoped. We had hoped to get the chicks on pasture by the third week but didn’t finish the HH until the 5th week. When we first tried the fencing out the chicks just walked right through the netting which is specifically sold for poultry. The manufacturer failed to mention that it was only appropriate for birds that were nearly full grown.

The CT wasn’t finished until around the 9th week. I had expected to gather the materials over the course of two weeks and then build the whole thing in 2-3 days. This was extreme misjudgment: just finding materials required hours on the phone. I called all over the nation looking for aluminum roofing since that was recommended, and in the end had to settle on plastic. The aluminum was about 5 times more expensive and no one sold it locally. I found one source of 100% post-consumer recycled plastic roofing but it was also prohibitively expensive and not guaranteed to last any longer than the cheaper plastic roofing. It also needed to be shipped further than the local source of plastic roofing.

Building the CT was the first large carpentry project I have ever undertaken. In the beginning I was surprised at how light the structure was and pleased with how easy it was going to be to move. However, as the structure evolved more and more lumber was added and the thing became depressingly heavy. In the process I learned a lot about building and definitely will make changes to the next CT. Construction took about 4 weeks.


Our Primary Challenges:

  • Our whole production model is based on mobility to keep the animals and land healthy. However, providing shelter and while keeping predators out makes it difficult to keep the weight of the structures manageable. When we are unable to move the shelter for a day or two due to lack of human or truck power, our pasture becomes overgrazed.
  • Feed costs are high because we believe so strongly in organic farming. Chickens tend to waste a lot of feed by scratching and flinging food out of the feeders. We haven’t figured out how to stop this when they’re chicks, but we did redesign our bucket feeders to have a deeper tray with a shallower depth of food, which has reduced food waste by 90%.
  • Predators are a huge concern because a lot of money goes into each bird before she begins to lay eggs and money starts to come back. Chickens don’t start laying until they are about 6 months old and only lay prolifically for about 2 years. This means we must feed them for a long time before we get a return. If we lose a layer after the first few months we lose a lot more than if we lose a meat bird which only costs money for about 2-3 months before butchering. We have lost at least 16 birds to predators. We think both hawks and weasels have been the culprits.
  • Our land is on a flood plain. This is wonderful for summer pasture because the water table is so high that the pasture stays green all summer without irrigation. However, this also means that numerous times during the winter the lower pastures flood. We were well aware that this would eventually happen so we kept a close eye on the creek. One evening we checked the creek level before a night of expected rain and it was at least 3 feet below the bank. The next morning we got a call from a neighbor that the creek was flooding and our chickens were in trouble. We rushed out and the 2’ tall CT was under water with all 13 chickens drowned. The HH had a creek running under it, making us very thankful for the new wire floor which kept the birds safely out of the water. The world was different over night.

We tried moving the HH to higher ground but lost a wheel and only managed to get onto a small knoll above the flood waters. The HH is safe from high water now but the small area is insufficient for the months of winter. If we stay on the knoll for that long we will make a disgusting mess of it. If it were even possible to move our HH through the soft lands to an elevated pasture in the back of the property we would have a new set of problems transporting the food such a long distance from the brooder where it stays dry. As of December 10th, we have moved the hoop house to the back pasture and are trying to keep them at least through the winter. Room for improvement


Changes/ Improvements we will make in the future

  • No roosts in the chicken tractors. Roosts add too much weight and make the grass below the roosts harder to access. We will probably only have birds in the chicken tractors during the dry season to avoid forcing them to stand in puddles or keeping them close to ground if it floods.
  • Putting only two doors on the CT. Four doors adds too much weight.
  • Cheaper plastic roofing on the next CTs to reduce costs. I chose the more expensive roofing because it is supposed to be more UV resistant and last 10 or more years. At the time the sales rep told me the people tend to replace the cheap roofing every year or two. However, since then I have noticed the cheap roofing on many out buildings that are considerably older than 1 year and it doesn’t appear that the roofing has been replaced recently.
  • Bigger wheels on the Hoop House * A subfloor that moves with the HH for catching feces
  • Small doors (1-3) on each side of the HH so that when we move the fencing for a new pasture enclosure, we can keep the HH in one place while opening a new entrance each day. This way the chickens will have a new entrance each day rather then every few days and will reduce the wear on the ground immediately outside the door.
  • Young birds and meat chickens will be in CTs only, while egg layers will be in the HH. Young birds are too small to be corralled by the electric fencing and they are too vulnerable to hawks. CTs will be used to start egg layers and for the entire pasturing of meat birds. Due to the extra space and weight of nest boxes we will only use the HH, which is on wheels, for egg production.
  • Try Cornish cross, Cornish roaster, standard Cornish and Barred Rock varieties side by side to compare viability of each for meat production. We also want to try turkeys and geese. Geese can be raised on a diet that has a much higher percent grass(80-90%) making them a more sustainable meat product for our region. The challenge will be in creating a market for goose meat.
  • Make HH predator proof so fencing doesn’t have to go around it, which will give the chickens more forage area.


Bios

Sarah Brunner

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A vegetarian from the age of 12, now turned chicken shepherd and butcher.

Sarah grew up in the suburbs of Marin County, north of San Francisco. In high school she grew disillusioned with the materialism and short-sightedness of the popular culture and applied to Humboldt State University in hopes of finding an antidote. At HSU she became an active volunteer and then highly valued employee (this is written by her former boss) of the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology, a demonstration home for sustainable living. After graduating she worked at Solutions, a retail outlet for all things "green," and while she stocked shirts and collected cash for shoes, she dreamed each day of starting her own business.

In the fall of 2004 Sarah was invited to join a farm advisory committee established by a local developer who sought guidance on planning a farm that was to adjoin a new housing development. It was in those meetings that the vision of a pastured chicken business took form. In the summer of 2005 she invited Shail to join her in developing a chicken farm business.

According to Shail, Sarah "is an extremely organized and enthusiastic partner."

Shail Pec-Crouse

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I became a vegetarian at the age of 13 and vegan at the age of 19. My reasons for having a more restricted diet were mainly because of the environmental impacts of animal farming and the atrocious conditions that most food animals are raised in today.

As my understanding of the environmental impacts of an American diet became more sophisticated, I took a closer look at my diet and my reasons for not eating various foods. I started to buy only organic, then as much local food as possible. Eventually I came to the realization that that soy protein shipped from across the country probably had more of an environmental impact than grass fed animal protein grown locally; so I began eating local grass fed beef which doesn’t get fed imported grains that could otherwise be used for human consumption. I have high hopes for creating a local market for pastured goose meat--geese can be raised on a 90% grass diet, while chickens can only eat 20% grass.

Last fall my friend Sarah was tossing around the idea of a chicken farm, and I told her I would be interested in joining her as I have a passion for raising animals and was exited about growing my own food. I still am skeptical about the sustainability and appropriateness of raising chickens in this region because we have no local source of feed. However, I am really exited to be providing pastured poultry products to people who would otherwise buy imported eggs and meat that is grown mainly in warehouses with small dirt or cement outdoor enclosures. Organic standards require access to the outdoors when weather permits, but the area is usually bare and small and in many areas the birds are not allowed out for 4 or 5 months of the year because it is so cold. I have also felt like it is important for me to have more of a connection with my food. If I eat it I feel I should be able to kill it.

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