Transition

written by

Joel Salatin

posted on

April 1, 2024

The winter-to-summer transition is my favorite sprint of the year.

Here at Polyface, we have several spring times. They could be classified like this:

Spring Transition

Hay Season

Fall Transition

Here’s the spring transition:

1. Take laying hens out of hoop houses to either Millenium Feathernets or Eggmobiles

2. Start broiler chickens in the brooder house.

3. Get pullets out of the brooder house and into pasture shelters

4. Move cows off hay and onto pasture

5. Move pigs from winter quarters into the hay shed to do pigaearate compost

6. Prune fruit trees and grape vines

7. Move rabbits from hoop houses to summer quarters

8. Clean out hoop house bedding in order to plant vegetables or host seminars

9. Survey all fences and repair them for the season

10. Start the gravity water system feeding to all the fields

11. Open farm store on weekdays

12. Prep and begin planting the garden

It’s a crazy busy time but the hectic pace also brings amazing moments of gratitude, provision, and beauty.

Here is a list of those:

1. We had 10 calves born in 30 hours

2. This morning I saw nightcrawlers copulating—new worms in the making

3. Apple blossoms swelling

4. In the last week, we spread countless loads of compost and got nice rains immediately

5. Patrons and guests visiting the farm and store all week

6. Pigaerating making hundreds of tons of compost

7. All ponds are full, ready for the season

8. Green grass

9. Robins

10. Chicks

11. New farm truck

12. New sawmill engine

I don’t know how you view the seasons and how you mark transitions, but I think we benefit when we consciously recognize life’s cycles and articulate thankfulness. With that in mind, thank you for going through this journey with us.

And if you need to wiggle your toes in some new spring grass, caress a chick, or sit on the edge of a field to watch calves cavort, please know you’re always welcome at Polyface. We’re here for you, eager to embrace another season, and excited to serve you again. Thank you and come on out. We'd love to help you find inspiration in this fertile season.

Joel

cows

chicken

pigs

compost

eggmobile

garden

pigs

spring

Short of Turkeys and Beef

For the first time in many years, we’ll be short of turkeys for Thanksgiving. Consistent with our policy of full transparency, here is why. And we’ve been short of beef now for some time. The underlying theme of this explanation is to inform you completely about why and what we’re doing about it. Unlike many businesses, we don’t call up other outfits to supplement ours when we’re short. We figure out how to produce more and until then, simply run behind. Because of that, when we explore new markets, we can’t adjust our inventory instantaneously.We’ve had a couple of incredibly exciting market developments this year. We’ve always tried to experiment with new opportunities when markets request product. You never know which ones will be long term, short term, positive, or negative. Over the years, we’ve given away turkeys when we overproduced due to assuming a certain market opportunity would come through; that’s not financially viable. As a result, we’re pretty careful about expansion. Three years ago, a large corporation in Virginia asked us to supply turkeys and Christmas hams to their 300 employees. We had no idea they would hang with us this long, but here they are, happy and showing unbelievable loyalty. We’ve been reluctant to count on them simply because these kinds of things normally don’t last. But isn’t it exciting and even exhilarating that a big company is buying our kind of turkeys and hams for their employees? The other thing that developed—and these things develop slowly—was Azure Standard asked us to supply them with 1,000 turkeys as a trial to see if their customer base would like them. By the time that deal was formalized, we were too late to order more turkeys and did not have the full number for them, but we we did the best we could. Some of you who are Azure Standard customers will no doubt see our turkeys pop up on their sales platform. When an engine going somewhere wants to hook to us, we always try to at least collaborate in an experiment. That’s where we are; if all are happy, this could be an extremely positive strategic client for us in the future. In the same way, we’ve been contacted by a new internet marketing outfit wanting some of our beef. We’ve agreed to let them have five in 2027. We’re hoping ongoing discussions will lead them to carry our poultry and pork as well—right now they’re only beef. None of this is about building an empire. It is about collaborating with the cutting edge of authentic food and circumventing Big Food, Big Ag, and Big Pharma. Innovation comes in many ways. Polyface perhaps leads the world in the production element. But processing, marketing, and distribution are also undergoing innovation and staying relevant is a daily objective. That some of the most creative significant players in the integrity food movement are asking us to play with them is wonderful. They could just handle industrial organic meat poultry, which doesn’t see pasture and doesn’t enjoy the happiness context of Polyface livestock. But they’re talking to us, and that’s awesome. All innovation carries a ragged edge as it develops, refines, and hopefully becomes efficient over time. Thank you for indulging us the freedom to explore these new venues and to collaborate with some of the best players in the good food movement. As you can imagine, growing and experimenting create their own sore muscles. Being short is not fun for either of us, but be assured it’s not because our animals are sick or we’re getting tired of being farmers. You can laugh at that. It’s because, true to our history, we are committed to putting food worth eating on plates held by friends. We count you as friends; that’s why we’re taking you on this little explanation behind the curtain. Hang in there and thank you, thank you for your loyalty and patronage.

Transition

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