[permaculture] critique of pastured poultry
Rich Blaha
rich at mossbackfarm.com
Fri Aug 17 13:16:34 EDT 2007
Hi Toby
I'd discovered Bill's post a while back...he has some great points, especially regarding feeding human-quality grains to chickens, but I disagree about the manure loading and the humane aspect, if the procedure is done right.
Raising pastured broilers is VERY labor intensive...if the grass in a pen shows burning from the nutrient load, you aren't moving the birds often enough. In some cases and some densities, that means moving them 2 or more times per day to spread the manure effectively. The benefit of this, besides saving the pasture, is the birds consume more green feed, helping the taste and texture of the bird, and reducing feed costs somewhat.
We stopped raising pastured broilers 2 years ago...generally, a pasture site never had birds on it more than twice a year, and usually just once. Even now, those sites are greener and lusher than adjacent sites that didn't get birds on them. Our site is very nutrient deficient, so all the nutrients either absorbed into the soil, or were lost to volatilization (hopefully not too much of the latter), since there's no 'streaks' of green running downhill from those locations.
There is a high death loss in pastured poultry, higher than industrial production. I think 5-10% death loss in the factory farms is expected, and with some predation exceptions, 10-15% was about our standard number. The standard breed is very fragile, and doesn't like hot, wet, or cold weather...this limits the seasons that they can be effectively and humanely raised.
The birds did seem content, though, as much as a breed that is bred to lay around, eat, and put on weight can be. Chasing grasshoppers, each other, and pecking at goodies in the grass are all favored pastimes, after the most favored---laying in the feedtrough.
I guess the humane quotient is an individual choice. Our loss was higher than in a factory, but the birds were happier. Is that better? I thought so, but your mileage may vary.
We stopped raising them when fuel costs got too high...since the organic feed is sourced from far away (the midwest at best, Brazil/Argentina at worst), the petroleum footprint was just to much, and the prices too high, to justify continuing. If there were local sources of organic protein grown, we may have continued. It was fun while it lasted, though.
It has spoiled me for chicken, though...I can't eat it anymore, even the so-called organic types.
Cheers
Rich
www.mossbackfarm.com/journal
> Message: 8
> Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 08:34:16 -0700
> From: Toby Hemenway <toby at patternliteracy.com>
> Subject: [permaculture] critique of pastured poultry
> To: permaculture <permaculture at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID: <46C5BFF8.2080608 at patternliteracy.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> I've always admired Joel Salatin's work with pastured poultry. But
> here's a blog post from an organic chicken farmer who tried it and
> thinks it's got some major flaws. I found it thought-provoking
>
> http://bbill.blogspot.com/2006/07/pastured-poultry-scam.html
>
> --
> Toby
> http://patternliteracy.com
>
>
>
>
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