The Beginnings of a Better Broiler

By Chris Walker

I'm warm and toasty as I write this, with rain falling softly on a tin roof, and it occurs to me that here in the Polyface brooder is the natural way to begin a barnyard blog about baby birds!

Have Yolk, Will Travel

I hope you're reading this over breakfast with some of those lovely, pastured eggs we talked about; I want you to consider the magic of egg yolk. As a chick develops inside a fertile egg, that beautiful yellow yolk becomes all the nourishment the little one needs for three days. That's right - a baby chick is born with a full stomach. Unlike mammals who nurse their young with milk, a chick has to wait patiently for its nestmates to hatch so they can all venture out to find food together.

Anyone who has started a backyard flock via a mail-order hatchery has got to appreciate this incredible ability - it allows us to send day-old chicks across the country IN THE MAIL. Now that we have grown to ordering THOUSANDS of broiler chicks at a time, we don't use the USPS. We get a special delivery van straight from the hatchery full of (surprisingly noisy) little peepers.

Going Broody

A healthy start is crucial for healthy meat birds, and preparations begin long before the first chick pips (makes the first crack in its shell). We nurture these birds in a chicken-appropriate environment: dry, warm, comfortable, and biologically active like a natural nest... But the nests we make have to hold 1,000 chicks!

Without a mother hen to keep the fuzzy things warm and dry, we have to take over. Before their true feathers grow in, the chicks need a room that's over 90 degrees! Temperature and airflow are constantly regulated with supplemental heat and large windows.

We have relationships with local woodworkers to recycle fresh fine wood shavings, and these become not just comfortable, absorbent bedding, but also the base of a deep-litter composting bedding pack that helps create our feathered friends' fledgling immune systems.

Pasture Prep

Careful consideration continues in the pasture. In a few weeks, our broilers are ready to move out to pasture. We catch each one by hand. Using special chick crates, we deliver them to field where our signature fleet of shelters is aligned with every detail in mind. Bins of feed await at just the right intervals to be close enough to hand-feed each shelter. Water routed from our mountain pond system is refreshed each chore-time with automatic float valves. Shelters are staggered diagonally to create maximum airflow and to prevent water runoff from shelter to shelter. The supremely light-sensitive birds always move east, into the rising sun.

Of course, this choreography includes the cows - it's especially fun to be out moving shelters in the morning when the cows come though! Every so often their paddock rotation brings them in front of the broilers to mow the grass to just the right height. The birds move best though shorter grass, but they also love eating the tender shoots that begin to regrow in the first few days after a cow-clipping.

First Moves

When we pull the shelter, and the little guys make their first journey into new territory, it's fun to see them rush ahead into grass as high as their heads looking for little morsels. Shelter after shelter we make sure each group gets a fresh start every morning.

It's more than a little awe-inspiring to watch our current armada of over 50 little chicken ships make their way - 12 feet further ever day - across the pastures gleaning grass, bugs and fresh air. We're growing a better, cleaner meat bird while direct-applying fantastic natural fertilizer at hundreds of pounds-per-acre.

All of this attention to detail is management intensive. It takes experienced eyes and hands to make it all go smoothly, and it takes more farmers to raise real food the right way - and thats a good thing. Good farmers need a solid start too, and while our chicks are making their first moves out in the pasture, we're learning to manage all the moving parts. There's a lot we need to consider, to pay respect to the beautifully complex natural system we rely on for our sustenance. The little chicks take their first steps into the grass. Our team of summer interns, our "Stewards," pull their first row of shelters. My Apprentice colleagues and I make our first foray into farm leadership. 

We're all excited to make some first moves.