Pastured Poultry

[Poorbuthappy]

Daughter Amy was on R4 farming today this morning talking about her pastured layers.
Only a very short piece but thought she came over well. Proud dad moment

 

[martian]

Daughter Amy was on R4 farming today this morning talking about her pastured layers.
Only a very short piece but thought she came over well. Proud dad moment

It was very impressive, well done both of you!

 

[Poorbuthappy]

Completely new to me and does look interesting, would/could the Meal worms or Black Soldier larva be fed on the guts/waste from processing the Broilers ?

Any chance of seeing a picture of the laying setup ? The boss's small group of layers need a piece of a field apparently so an idea of something to base a very small scale setup would be interesting.

Apologies for not doing this earlier @PaulNix

 

[Rod Dumbreck]

It was very impressive, well done both of you!

+ 1 well done, interview came over very well @Poorbuthappy

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Daughter Amy was on R4 farming today this morning talking about her pastured layers.
Only a very short piece but thought she came over well. Proud dad moment

Tell her "congratulations" from me.

Next stop: speaking at Groundswell

 

[Crofter64]

Currently 100 days plus, but will probably reduce that for some to get a bit more of a spread in weights. Still a lot of people only want a small chicken.
And to pick up on @Blaithin 's point, she's right, grass certainly bounces back quicker behind the chickens.
Soy free diet.
Layers are going to be trying soy free diet soon too. Daughter says they eat about half of what the ones she used to keep scratching round an enclosed weedy courtyard.

What is the reason you chose a soy free diet? My organic feed comes pre mixed by the ton. My thinking isGMO free is better than soy free- We live in a corn and bean growing area so that’s what the feed is mostly composed of. When another organic feed mill was still operational I used to buy all the ingredients separately, including multiple small grains, and mixed it by hand .

 

[Crofter64]

Here’s another version of a movable laying house. On an old hay wagon

 

[Crofter64]

salatin broiler pen. Still in use after 10 summers.

the best improvement was making the little ‘skids’ I put in place each time the pen is moved .The pen glides so much better now.

 

[Poorbuthappy]

What is the reason you chose a soy free diet? My organic feed comes pre mixed by the ton. My thinking isGMO free is better than soy free- We live in a corn and bean growing area so that’s what the feed is mostly composed of. When another organic feed mill was still operational I used to buy all the ingredients separately, including multiple small grains, and mixed it by hand .

We were looking at doing pastured broilers, then came across a new start up online butcher looking for someone to grow them soy free chicken. Everyone told them it couldn't be done commercially. I figured if it would work it would work under pasture raised conditions due to the more varied diet.
Soy beans are very definitely not grown in this country (apart from a few unsuccessful experiments as I understand) and are seen as a cause of deforestation. There are also questions around health implications of soy beans. My butcher has customers so allergic to them they can't even eat meat from animals fed on soya.
Interestingly, I've also been told organic soya is worse still as it's often grown on virgin deforested land to enable the organic production. You can probably dispute this with your knowledge of local production? But it was feed reps that told me this so I suspect there's some truth in it.

 

[Crofter64]

We were looking at doing pastured broilers, then came across a new start up online butcher looking for someone to grow them soy free chicken. Everyone told them it couldn't be done commercially. I figured if it would work it would work under pasture raised conditions due to the more varied diet.
Soy beans are very definitely not grown in this country (apart from a few unsuccessful experiments as I understand) and are seen as a cause of deforestation. There are also questions around health implications of soy beans. My butcher has customers so allergic to them they can't even eat meat from animals fed on soya.
Interestingly, I've also been told organic soya is worse still as it's often grown on virgin deforested land to enable the organic production. You can probably dispute this with your knowledge of local production? But it was feed reps that told me this so I suspect there's some truth in it.

Your daughter also avoids soy for her layers?Where does she get the protein necessary for egg production? In the winter to diverisfy the layers’ diets and activiteis I throw scratch on the ground, give them legume hay to dig through and once a week feed them unsold liver and other organ meats from the cattle and sheep., but I doubt these feeds would be enough to get the protein levels up to 16-18%

 

[Poorbuthappy]

Your daughter also avoids soy for her layers?Where does she get the protein necessary for egg production? In the winter to diverisfy the layers’ diets and activiteis I throw scratch on the ground, give them legume hay to dig through and once a week feed them unsold liver and other organ meats from the cattle and sheep., but I doubt these feeds would be enough to get the protein levels up to 16-18%

Our feed supplier came up with a soy free ration for us. It works fine with the broilers, but Amy doesn't have enough layers yet to have their layers soy free ration as it's minimum 2T order as they don't do much of it, so need a minimum order to make a batch. Have piggy backed on someone else's order and tried some in past and it worked well.
She's steadily growing so will get there eventually.

 

[Jonny B88]

Daughter Amy was on R4 farming today this morning talking about her pastured layers.
Only a very short piece but thought she came over well. Proud dad moment

Just managed to listen to it on bbc sounds. Excellent work to Amy on a brilliant presentation. I’ve been wandering about this for a while. In a system where chickens or other poultry follow cattle. Say your cattle paddocks are 1 acre for easy counting would you put chickens on that whole acre or say half of it and rotate around one half of the cow paddocks then the next time follow the other half? In essence doubling the rest period the chickens get?

 

[Poorbuthappy]

Just managed to listen to it on bbc sounds. Excellent work to Amy on a brilliant presentation. I’ve been wandering about this for a while. In a system where chickens or other poultry follow cattle. Say your cattle paddocks are 1 acre for easy counting would you put chickens on that whole acre or say half of it and rotate around one half of the cow paddocks then the next time follow the other half? In essence doubling the rest period the chickens get?

The layers are treated differently from the broilers here.
The broilers are on a Salatin style system, with daily moves and high density. We have upgraded to polytunnels on skids (as per photos earlier in the thread), but the principle is still the same. They don't come back to the same spot for 12 months plus, which I think is soon enough in terms of nutrient loading. They don't keep up with the cattle as the cattle are moving faster than the chickens, but the way we set it out, they catch up periodically as the chickens are moving over and back the field whilst the cattle are moving up and down, if that makes sense!

The layers are lower density behind electric netting and are moved every 2-3 days, with the trailers allowing more targeted movement so they can keep up with the cattle if desired, but don't cover the field in such a methodical way.

Bit of a wordy response, but hopefully you get the drift.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Does anyone on here have experience with free-range turkeys?

I don't necessarily want them for meat or anything, just want to incorporate another layer of something (no pun intended) without extra work.

No foxes etc here to worry about, as we get more towards the tall-grass thing I'm looking to expand the empire

TIA

 

[Jonny B88]

Command and conquer

 

[Jonny B88]

The layers are treated differently from the broilers here.

The broilers are on a Salatin style system, with daily moves and high density. We have upgraded to polytunnels on skids (as per photos earlier in the thread), but the principle is still the same. They don't come back to the same spot for 12 months plus, which I think is soon enough in terms of nutrient loading. They don't keep up with the cattle as the cattle are moving faster than the chickens, but the way we set it out, they catch up periodically as the chickens are moving over and back the field whilst the cattle are moving up and down, if that makes sense!

The layers are lower density behind electric netting and are moved every 2-3 days, with the trailers allowing more targeted movement so they can keep up with the cattle if desired, but don't cover the field in such a methodical way.

Bit of a wordy response, but hopefully you get the drift.

Yes makes sense thanks. I was wondering how best to keep at with cattle….but thinking out loud. Is it better that they are a while behind cattle from a scratching through dung pats and eating parasites point of view?

 

[Poorbuthappy]

The layers are treated differently from the broilers here.

Yes makes sense thanks. I was wondering how best to keep at with cattle….but thinking out loud. Is it better that they are a while behind cattle from a scratching through dung pats and eating parasites point of view?

Amy likes to keep hers within a few days of the cattle if possible.
Salatin says 3 days is ideal. Obviously our broilers vary a lot as to how far behind they are.
If the cattle are grazing tight like Pete is advocating, the downside of being only a few days behind is they've very little grass to graze. I have mixed feelings. If you saw the pics I posted earlier in the thread, some of my broilers were going into covers of as much as 10". They graze and trample that to nothing.

 

[Crofter64]

Does anyone on here have experience with free-range turkeys?

I don't necessarily want them for meat or anything, just want to incorporate another layer of something (no pun intended) without extra work.

No foxes etc here to worry about, as we get more towards the tall-grass thing I'm looking to expand the empire

TIA

I have kept small numbers of turkeys free range.They are very docile, easy to control, house,and direct if you need them to go to a specific spot. They live behind electric netting, ususually with replacement hens/ roosters I incubate from my eggs, but I have also let them roam freely in a paddock, but penned them up at night.Any poultry left unprotected around here lasts a maximum of 2 nights.They sleep on whatever shelter I provide them with. I keep them in difficult to weed/ fertilise areas like the raspberry patch, orchard or tree plantations as they like the shade and they do a fantastic job. I keep them in the same spot longer than I would the layers or broilers ,but still move them weekly or bi-weekly.
Turkeys and young poults Flattening the goldenrod and other weeds and fertilising a little area of pasture

A few weeks later

 

[Crofter64]

I have kept small numbers of turkeys free range.They are very docile, easy to control, house,and direct if you need them to go to a specific spot. They live behind electric netting, ususually with replacement hens/ roosters I incubate from my eggs, but I have also let them roam freely in a paddock, but penned them up at night.Any poultry left unprotected around here lasts a maximum of 2 nights.They sleep on whatever shelter I provide them with. I keep them in difficult to weed/ fertilise areas like the raspberry patch, orchard or tree plantations as they like the shade and they do a fantastic job. I keep them in the same spot longer than I would the layers or broilers ,but still move them weekly or bi-weekly.
Turkeys and young poults Flattening the goldenrod and other weeds and fertilising a little area of pasture
View attachment 999158

A few weeks laterView attachment 999159

The white stuff on the ground is not dead Turkeys but old books of my Dad’s in Gothic german ( old german) which I didn’t know what to do with so I used them as mulch. The birds tore them to shreds.

 

[7610 super q]

For those on here that think they've invented the wheel.........
From Farmer & Stockbreeder 1939. Via FB.