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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Blessed Chicken
  • Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 16:04:58 -0700

Blessed Chicken
http://208.56.29.15/modules/news/article.php?storyid=360

It’s a holistic, earth-friendly farming operation which uses its chickens to
help manage more than 30 acres of farmland with no toxic chemicals and keeps
in mind the health of the land, chickens and consumers.

SOCORRO — When you eat Pollo Real, you’re eating kosher chicken. They’re
blessed before they die.

Tom Delehanty scoops his young son, Griffin, off the ground, giving him a
piggy-back ride across the pasture.

With his daughter, Shayna, tagging along close behind, Delehanty has just
finished touring a gaggle of rebar yurts — round, stumpy mobile shelters
where he raises Pollo Real — Royal Chicken — his brand of certified-organic,
pastured, “earth sustainable” chicken.

It’s a holistic, earth-friendly farming operation which uses its chickens to
help manage more than 30 acres of farmland with no toxic chemicals and keeps
in mind the health of the land, chickens and consumers.

A business born of the Rio Grande Valley, Delehanty’s employees are from
here, much of his chicken is sold here, and the money he makes stays in New
Mexico.

In a Santa Fe Albertson’s grocery store, Pollo Real is the only locally-grown
pastured poultry available and often sells for more than $3 a pound.

It’s healthier, too. Delehanty said his chickens have 60 percent less fat
than non-pastured chickens and are completely devoid of chemicals and
antibiotics.

Delehanty’s farm is a place that immediately appears anti-technological—
operating on only $15,000 of equipment, the trucks are old, the tractor dates
from just after World War II, and the chickens mulch the fields. You won’t
find any pesticides, chemicals or antibiotics used here, Delehanty said.

“I like this operation,” said Delehanty, a sixth-generation farmer from
Wisconsin who moved to Socorro in 1994. “It’s really primitive. There’s
something about resourcefulness.”

Working here, he said, is like going back to the dirt, where managing a farm
is hard work, but very simple.

Raising chickens doesn’t require an elaborate operation, he said.

The chickens are delivered by mail, and then placed into the yurts, where
they feed off the grass.

Workers move the yurts daily so the chickens move up and down the field,
feeding on fresh pasture.

Pasturing his chickens allows them to mulch his fields, part of what makes
this an entirely sustainable operation, he said.

“We’re building up organic matter — the best soil in New Mexico,” he said.

The chickens eat the bugs, the bug larva and weed seed, he said. Because the
chickens do such a good job, his crops and his chickens contract no diseases
or parasites.

He said he grazes the chicken for their health, using grass instead of
antibiotics.

Of corporate factory chicken farms, Delehanty said, “They’re using drugs and
growth enhancers. We build a bird that’s healthy, with its own immunity.
Viruses are kicked out at the liver.”

Delehanty said he considers factory chicken farms unethical because they pump
the birds full of chemicals, de-beak them and don’t allow them to move. Those
chickens often cannibalize each other.

But with Pollo Real, Delehanty has taken the idea of “free range” chicken to
a different level, allowing them to roam and feed on the open pasture.

In the only licensed chicken processing building in the state, he processes
more than 900 chickens a week and delivers them to stores twice weekly.

With his sustainable method of agriculture, Delehanty said that over his
eight years in Socorro, he’s developed a drought-resistant farm.

With a plan to grow sweet corn, garlic and potatoes over the next several
years, he said he only waters once a year and the soil “churns like butter.”

He wants to spread the word about his methods, he said.

“No secrets to hard work,” he said. “This only scares people who are afraid.
It’s about the successes.”

It’s also about community building, he said.

“We feed our communities first and foremost,” he said. “Big meat growers come
in and create regulations to keep you out of your business.”

New Mexico is absent of big meat growers — and regulations.

“We’ve created a product the industry can never create,” and is very popular
all around the state.

Pollo Real is sold for top dollar at four-star restaurants and posh grocery
stores in Santa Fe, Taos and Albuquerque. But in Socorro, Delehanty said
Supermart sells his chicken for less than $2 a pound.

Delehanty is one of five members of the Tierra Amarilla-based New Mexico
Organic Livestock Co-op, a network of family-owned livestock producers that
focus on holistic, humane and sustainable production, and share their
expertise with the public.

You can also find Delehanty at the local farmer’s market, where he sells 20
percent of his chicken.

For more information about pastured poultry, log onto www.eatwild.com.






  • [Livingontheland] Blessed Chicken, Tradingpost, 01/15/2003

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