Healthy Poultry Takes Patience and Deep Observation and Learning

Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on July 23, 2009

We just had two days of perfectly timed downpours that restored the moisture on the top soil around our area. As you know, a healthy poultry system depends on regular rain just like other crops. One would think that because the chickens have plenty of water they will be fine without rain, WRONG. They are just like cows or other animals, you can put poultry in a building and feed and give them water, we all know that, it is the way much or all of the poultry meat in the market is raised, including organic but raised in confinement. But those of us who are in this for the long haul know that there is an abysmal difference between birds raised in cages or confinement and the new systems we have launched. Luckily it seems like thousands of people are making the switch to healthier poultry and learning that the real price of good food is not cheap.

In short, cage and confinement systems are no different than putting someone in jail with a thousand other prisoners, they will live, but miserably, unhealthy and all of their natural behavior would need to be suppressed artificially, and deceases that enter their area will get them all rapidly given their depressed immunological systems.

Some things to remember. First, we grow birds with plenty of space, not with "access the outside", but OUTSIDE, period. Second, the outside does not look monotonous either, some areas they clean up quickly and are left without much vegetation but there is always plenty of ground cover, mounds of stuff here and there, especially if it is composting material. Third, shade and protection from predators and the sun is key. Fear of predators and inability to detect them if the sun is bright affects their behavior heavily.

An optimal habitat for free range chickens is not a forest or an open pasture, but a combination of a lot of conditions. In our production system for Pollo de Campo, or as Thousand Hills Cattle Company decided to call it "Home on The Range", we observe everything, we take pictures or videos, write it down, discuss what we learned with the other farmers, and then, we incorporate what we learned into the system so that we continually improve the ability of the birds to use natural conditions to their maximum potential. This is where deep observation and learning comes handy. This process of learning and re-learning results in an efficient and sustainable utilization of natural resources to grow the birds, maximum "happiness" if you wish to give their state of mind a name, and a healthy environment where they can be just "chickens".

Things that most of us can observe in a healthy flock for example small birds will follow bigger ones or their mothers around. What we observe is that the larger birds can dig deeper, but they also want the larger stuff. The little one on the other hand scratches the loosen dirt and get the smaller stuff that is just fine for them. After recent rains, many of the seeds that we had spread of different small grains swelled, so the birds go back and forth digging them back up, in the process they get more water and minerals into their system. This process also uncovers warms that are just below the surface. I once watched one of the little white birds jump close to three feet and grabbed a fly "on the fly".

The group in this picture found a high spot with full sun, moisture in the air makes them want to pluck their feathers, dry and dusty makes them want to take a dust bath. This small observation is now fully incorporated into the landscaping for our free range chickens. As we do this, we observe improved behavior (less fighting among them which equals less stress), the more we learn, the more we understand that this is a whole different science altogether and we are happy to share the final product with you.

Growing a healthy pasture takes water as well, rains are key as they also bring down atmospheric nitrogen, again, we could irrigate this patch, but it isn’t the same. This new pasture is growing under a thick cover of hay, a whole colony of warms, insects and microbes is having a good time in preparation of digging themselves into the ground when the birds come out looking for them as they are let loose on this paddock.

 

We have watched how much birds are attracted to all of the hazelnut we planted in this other paddock. If we had not put the chicken wire around, they would have eaten them down by now. I had learned some years ago that hazelnuts have evolved for thousands of years to attract wild birds to sit around them and fertilize their roots, this may explain that we find them in Minnesota’s oak savanna openings and other similar areas, they absorb most of their nutrients from the top 6 inches or so of soil but penetrate the soil down to 12 feet deep according to Phill Ruther at Badgersert Farm in SE MN. 

These plants are a miracle for sustainability purposes. According to Phil, they compete in production with soybeans, but need no tilling, cultivation, or irrigation. The depth and expanse of their roots also captures nutrients and bring them up, create soil porosity introducing air into areas where new biological colonies can then get established, and on and on we could go. They sequestrate carbon, release none, their stems can be used as bio-fuels, and on top of this, the oil of hazels have the same DNA as olive oil. Their root systems would literally hold a hill from washing away in a flood. I guess we will be able to compete in bio-mass production with the neighbors’ soybean field, while producing a healthy crop of over 9,000 birds per acre. Quite a deal for the consumer, the environment, the farmer, the community and the economy I would say. If you agree, don’t just sit there, go to Thousand Hills Cattle Company and ask them how you can get our chickens.