If you received our "chicken letter", we included a sheet that provided much of the below information about our operation here at Sojourn Farms. Please feel free to contact us with additional questions. We look forward to hearing from you.
Are these chickens organic?
Yes. From the first day the chicks arrive from the hatchery, they are supplied exclusively with certified organic feed. We use a combination of locally produced Rogue poultry mix, and whole grain wheat. The birds also graze on our 100 acres of clean pasture. While the pasture is not certified organic, Sojourn Farms' fields have been both herbicide and pesticide free for the nearly 20 years the farm has been the in the family.
What is pastured poultry?
Simply put, “pastured poultry” describes birds that spend their life out on pasture. Pastured chickens typically consume 20% of their diet in fresh grass, legumes, and bugs, all of which satisfy their natural appetite. They can scratch around, pull worms… in short, be real chickens.
Is this “free range”?
Yes. The government standard for “free range” only requires that the birds have access to a small yard area for the last two weeks of life. There is no requirement that the birds actually ever see the light of day or touch a blade of grass, and in fact many never do. Our methods go beyond this standard by raising them on the range within 48 hours of arriving from the hatchery.
How does our product compare to store-bought chicken?
Most poultry that you buy in the supermarket has been chilled in a water bath causing the skin and meat to absorb up to 12% water. In contrast, our birds are air chilled, giving you more meat for your money. Proportionally, our chicken will have same large breasts and thighs you have come to expect. The meat is similarly white, but typically moister and firmer due to better muscle tone and less water. Our broilers are delivered chilled in a shrink-wrap bag ready for the freezer or cooking.
Why is our price higher?
Raising a chicken on quality organic feed and whole grains costs more than one raised on pellets. Moving them daily to fresh pasture takes more effort than shutting them in a stationary pen. We also allow our birds over 50% more time to physically develop, avoiding many of the health problems that plague mainstream practices. In order to cut costs, commercial animals are fed an unnaturally rich diet, causing them to attain slaughter weight within the first 6 weeks of life. This pattern of growth is so unhealthy for the bird, that often, had the bird not been slaughtered young, it would have soon died on its own. Our method is more labor intensive and costs more, but we feel it is best for the animal, the environment, and our customers.
Do you use antibiotics or arsenic (trade name Roxarsone)?
No. Both of these additives (antibiotics for disease control and arsenic for rapid growth) are answers to problems that do not exist in our method of husbandry. Instead, we rely on nature’s recipe for good health. We provide our animals a diet rich in fresh greens and whole grain. Their bedding is changed daily; they have plenty of room to exercise and time to relax in the Oregon summer sunshine.
How are the animals processed?
Butchering takes place on the farm where the chickens were raised. This is most humane for the animal, and eliminates the off taste that transportation stress can cause in the meat. At the time of slaughter, the bird is humanely knocked unconscious with a specially developed electric pulse. Once dressed, they are quickly cooled using modern sanitary equipment.
Friday, March 26, 2010
The Final Hours Before The Chicks' Arrival
With 100 little peeping chicks scheduled to arrive on Wednesday, March 24th, we were scrambling to have all our ducks in a row. Milan's day started at 7am with a teleconference call for the W3C. From there, it was on to a typically-full Nuance Tuesday. At 5pm, he dashed out the door, barely allowing the frozen burrito he grabbed on the way out enough time to thaw, let alone cook in the microwave. Devon arrived a half hour later, his rumbly, black, diesel Dodge announcing his arrival. He didn't stop at the house, but went straight to the shop. That's where the action was.
The two of them spent the evening and most of the night welding the 1" x 1/2" wire on to the sides of the chickens' 12' x 10' run. Here you see them hard at work, with Devon's little Jack-dog looking on.
I took dinner down around 8pm, and cookies and coffee around 11pm, knowing it would be a late night. I went to bed around 2:30am. I heard Devon's rig leave around 4:30am. The next thing I knew, it was 7:30am, Jack was making his typical, I'm-getting-up-soon squeaks, and still no Milan. Yup - he pulled an all-nighter. He finally showed up here at the house around 8:30, wild-eyed and energetic, excited to be "so close" to being done.
Around 10am, our good friend John Harding and his assistant, Kelly, came to mow the lawn (well, the "front yard", that is) and work on the landscaping. Before getting started, we all marched on down to the shop to see this magnum opus chicken run.
It is quite a structure. Talk about being prepared -- Milan spent weeks researching and designing our runs. He made several, major design changes to what you would think is a typical, pastured poultry run. First, it's constructed of steel, not wood, making it much lighter to move. Since it will be moved daily, this is a huge consideration. Secondly, it has a peaked roof, which provides the chickens a sunny "porch", but significantly complicates the design. Here you see the first page of design sketches and calculations. Remember all that math you learned in high school, wondering the whole time who the heck ever uses this stuff? Well, Milan did! Arc tangents, cosines, sines, right triangles... all of it. Wow. I certainly never thought I would ever see these formulas again!
But back to our day.... After admiring Milan's creation, John and Kelly headed off to do the mowing. I returned to my duties as a wife and mom, part of which included preparing lunch for three hungry men, not to mention myself and Jack.
It wasn't until sometime after 2pm that I began to think the Cave Junction post office only gets so many trucks a day; surely they would know what time ours would pull in with chicks on board. I called, and sure enough: had they been coming on schedule, they would have arrived at 8am.
In addition to being completely anticlimactic, the news was disquieting: were our little chicks en route somewhere, only to be stuck there until the next truck left for Cave Junction (which we found out only gets one truck a day -- at 8am)? This whole business of mailing chicks baffled me right from the beginning. I've heard stories about how only the most robust chicks survive to arrive at their destination, and that if they are en route for more than two days, expect to lose 10% of them! It seems rather a cruel and callous way to be initiated into the world. They're only a few hours old when they're shipped.
Thankfully, I called the hatchery and learned our chicks had not yet been shipped. They were scheduled now to go out in the 4pm mailing from Hubbard, Oregon. I then called the postal distribution center in Medford to find out what time they could be expected there. They didn't know for sure, but estimated about 1pm on Thursday, March 25th.
So, one more day to go! It gave us a reprieve in finishing the run and the brooder/hover. After 34 hours straight without sleep, Milan finally crashed at 5pm. I did the evening chores (horses, egg chickens, dog, cat), gave Jack a bath and put him to bed, cleaned the kitchen and headed for bed at nine o'clock.
We were ready... or so we thought.
The two of them spent the evening and most of the night welding the 1" x 1/2" wire on to the sides of the chickens' 12' x 10' run. Here you see them hard at work, with Devon's little Jack-dog looking on.
I took dinner down around 8pm, and cookies and coffee around 11pm, knowing it would be a late night. I went to bed around 2:30am. I heard Devon's rig leave around 4:30am. The next thing I knew, it was 7:30am, Jack was making his typical, I'm-getting-up-soon squeaks, and still no Milan. Yup - he pulled an all-nighter. He finally showed up here at the house around 8:30, wild-eyed and energetic, excited to be "so close" to being done.
Around 10am, our good friend John Harding and his assistant, Kelly, came to mow the lawn (well, the "front yard", that is) and work on the landscaping. Before getting started, we all marched on down to the shop to see this magnum opus chicken run.
It is quite a structure. Talk about being prepared -- Milan spent weeks researching and designing our runs. He made several, major design changes to what you would think is a typical, pastured poultry run. First, it's constructed of steel, not wood, making it much lighter to move. Since it will be moved daily, this is a huge consideration. Secondly, it has a peaked roof, which provides the chickens a sunny "porch", but significantly complicates the design. Here you see the first page of design sketches and calculations. Remember all that math you learned in high school, wondering the whole time who the heck ever uses this stuff? Well, Milan did! Arc tangents, cosines, sines, right triangles... all of it. Wow. I certainly never thought I would ever see these formulas again!
But back to our day.... After admiring Milan's creation, John and Kelly headed off to do the mowing. I returned to my duties as a wife and mom, part of which included preparing lunch for three hungry men, not to mention myself and Jack.
It wasn't until sometime after 2pm that I began to think the Cave Junction post office only gets so many trucks a day; surely they would know what time ours would pull in with chicks on board. I called, and sure enough: had they been coming on schedule, they would have arrived at 8am.
In addition to being completely anticlimactic, the news was disquieting: were our little chicks en route somewhere, only to be stuck there until the next truck left for Cave Junction (which we found out only gets one truck a day -- at 8am)? This whole business of mailing chicks baffled me right from the beginning. I've heard stories about how only the most robust chicks survive to arrive at their destination, and that if they are en route for more than two days, expect to lose 10% of them! It seems rather a cruel and callous way to be initiated into the world. They're only a few hours old when they're shipped.
Thankfully, I called the hatchery and learned our chicks had not yet been shipped. They were scheduled now to go out in the 4pm mailing from Hubbard, Oregon. I then called the postal distribution center in Medford to find out what time they could be expected there. They didn't know for sure, but estimated about 1pm on Thursday, March 25th.
So, one more day to go! It gave us a reprieve in finishing the run and the brooder/hover. After 34 hours straight without sleep, Milan finally crashed at 5pm. I did the evening chores (horses, egg chickens, dog, cat), gave Jack a bath and put him to bed, cleaned the kitchen and headed for bed at nine o'clock.
We were ready... or so we thought.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Becoming "Real" Farmers
Why in the world do we want to become real farmers anyway? I say "real", because there are lots of folks these days that live on some property, have a horse or some livestock, maybe some chickens and a garden, and call their little place a farm. I guess the term generally applied in such a situation is "hobby farmer". But it's different to truly be a farmer. To me, a "real" farmer earns a good portion of his living by farming (kind of a "duh", I know).
Currently, Milan is a software engineer and works from home. I'm a stay-at-home wife and mom who is blessed to have the opportunity to keep one foot in the career world by doing a little marketing consulting, also from home. So, "inside", we have this one life going. It's a good life, too! Very comfortable, especially for me. I have to say that, on paper, it's about perfect.
For Milan, however, software is not fulfilling. Sure, there are days when it's exciting and invigorating within its own little bubble. Even then, Milan has a hard time finding any real, lasting value in what he does for 8 hours a day. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that software engineers aren't doing good things. I'm summarizing Milan's perspective. To him, being a certain kind of farmer has more lasting value than whether United's voice-prompt reservation system is fool proof.
That certain kind of farmer is conscientious, honest, hard-working and humble. He sees to the welfare of his animals, ensuring them the best quality of life he can give them. Even if they are going to be steak or chicken cordon bleu, he wants them to be able to be "real" cows or "real" chickens while they're alive. He values greatly his environment and works very hard to balance the ability to make a living with earth-friendly, sustainable agricultural practices, and if he can't viably raise something without compromising core values, he doesn't do it. He (or she!) believes in maintaining the land so that it will still be rich and fertile for generations beyond his own (Ever wonder why the "Fertile Crescent" is now a desert? Hundreds of years of unsustainable farming techniques).
In addition to seeing farming as an inviting way of life, we believe it's important to know where your food comes from. Locally grown food, whether strawberries from the farm stand or whole milk in glass bottles from a dairy in the next county is usually healthier and more sustainably produced than what you routinely get off the grocery store shelves. What's more, being in touch, on a local level, with how and where your food is produced and with the farmer that produces it, makes you more appreciative of the food and all the inputs that went into raising it. As a nation, we have completely lost touch with the fact that those chicken nuggets came from a living bird, or that those potato chips were spuds from a farmer's field. I could go off on multiple rabbit trails, at this point, about how knowing where your food comes from could be fundamental to lowering obesity statistics, heart disease, adult onset diabetes... I'll leave that for another blog, another day.
Lastly, why chickens? Why not beef, which seems easier and, in my mind, at least, is so much more glamorous? For that matter, why not anything else? Hops and bison were two other crops we seriously considered.
It came across in Milan's reading and research that any mono-crop farm is fundamentally not sustainable. This is hard to swallow, as specialization is what generally leads to greater profit. But to have a truly sustainable, eco-friendly farm, you have to be diverse. The model we're essentially mimicking is that of Joel Salatin's Polyface Farms, located in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. For us, that means starting small. We don't intend to be "chicken farmers"; we're just starting our farm business with chickens. We hope to offer eggs, beef and possibly pork in the future, and who knows what else: apples? pears? raspberries? They're all here already, in some form or another.
For us, being this certain kind of farmer pulls together our values and moral ideals about life and how it should be lived. I guess it does sound romantic. In reality, it's going to be a lot of long days of dirty, tiring and even gut-wrenching (butchering?! Hello!) work. But, we look forward even to that: good, hard, character-building work!
That's why we're doing this. Or at least, it's a start!
Currently, Milan is a software engineer and works from home. I'm a stay-at-home wife and mom who is blessed to have the opportunity to keep one foot in the career world by doing a little marketing consulting, also from home. So, "inside", we have this one life going. It's a good life, too! Very comfortable, especially for me. I have to say that, on paper, it's about perfect.
For Milan, however, software is not fulfilling. Sure, there are days when it's exciting and invigorating within its own little bubble. Even then, Milan has a hard time finding any real, lasting value in what he does for 8 hours a day. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that software engineers aren't doing good things. I'm summarizing Milan's perspective. To him, being a certain kind of farmer has more lasting value than whether United's voice-prompt reservation system is fool proof.
That certain kind of farmer is conscientious, honest, hard-working and humble. He sees to the welfare of his animals, ensuring them the best quality of life he can give them. Even if they are going to be steak or chicken cordon bleu, he wants them to be able to be "real" cows or "real" chickens while they're alive. He values greatly his environment and works very hard to balance the ability to make a living with earth-friendly, sustainable agricultural practices, and if he can't viably raise something without compromising core values, he doesn't do it. He (or she!) believes in maintaining the land so that it will still be rich and fertile for generations beyond his own (Ever wonder why the "Fertile Crescent" is now a desert? Hundreds of years of unsustainable farming techniques).
In addition to seeing farming as an inviting way of life, we believe it's important to know where your food comes from. Locally grown food, whether strawberries from the farm stand or whole milk in glass bottles from a dairy in the next county is usually healthier and more sustainably produced than what you routinely get off the grocery store shelves. What's more, being in touch, on a local level, with how and where your food is produced and with the farmer that produces it, makes you more appreciative of the food and all the inputs that went into raising it. As a nation, we have completely lost touch with the fact that those chicken nuggets came from a living bird, or that those potato chips were spuds from a farmer's field. I could go off on multiple rabbit trails, at this point, about how knowing where your food comes from could be fundamental to lowering obesity statistics, heart disease, adult onset diabetes... I'll leave that for another blog, another day.
Lastly, why chickens? Why not beef, which seems easier and, in my mind, at least, is so much more glamorous? For that matter, why not anything else? Hops and bison were two other crops we seriously considered.
It came across in Milan's reading and research that any mono-crop farm is fundamentally not sustainable. This is hard to swallow, as specialization is what generally leads to greater profit. But to have a truly sustainable, eco-friendly farm, you have to be diverse. The model we're essentially mimicking is that of Joel Salatin's Polyface Farms, located in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. For us, that means starting small. We don't intend to be "chicken farmers"; we're just starting our farm business with chickens. We hope to offer eggs, beef and possibly pork in the future, and who knows what else: apples? pears? raspberries? They're all here already, in some form or another.
For us, being this certain kind of farmer pulls together our values and moral ideals about life and how it should be lived. I guess it does sound romantic. In reality, it's going to be a lot of long days of dirty, tiring and even gut-wrenching (butchering?! Hello!) work. But, we look forward even to that: good, hard, character-building work!
That's why we're doing this. Or at least, it's a start!
Friday, March 19, 2010
From Our Wedding To The First 100 Chicks
It's amazing all that happens in three and-a-half years. Since before we got married, Milan and I have been working toward having a "real" farm here at the 100 acres on Caves Highway.
We started with basic clean up in January of 2007, five months before we said, "I do". We both love our big (48' x 72'), old (circa 1900), dairy barn and were sure it would be a snap to clean it out and make it reception-ready. A new east-side foundation, a new roof, about a dozen new footings beneath the floor, umpteen boxes of miscellaneous junk from probably the last five property owners, a good 40 yards of decades-old animal dung, who knows how many no-longer-baled bales of hay, a zillion "minor" hammer-and-nail repair jobs, not to mention just the general dirt and dust of the ages... well, that was just the beginning. We took out the stalls on the west side aisle, leveled the hard-packed, pitted ground and laid 1" rubber mats. We removed the wood shop and another small room, the purpose for which I still can't figure out (small, dark, low, hard to access?). And then, we decorated.
It turned out amazing, and our wedding reception will always be an incredible coup of an event for so many reasons. Both Milan and I remember having the best day of our lives that day, trumped now only recently by the birth of our son, Jack.
The frenzy of preparing for the reception kicked off a slew of farm improvement projects that just kept snowballing into bigger and grander plans. We bought a tractor, a tiller, and a ripper. Fence wire, fence chargers. Another tractor, a horse trailer (okay, so not exactly farm related), a 24' flatbed, a 16' mower. The plan was to renovate the long-neglected pastureland. Milan planted several strips of test cover crops, which we watched grow and bloom last Spring, right around when Jack was born.
Enter Jack on the scene, and the pace of renovations slowed considerably. Actual dirt moving and fence-building turned into Milan spending a lot of time reading and researching how to proceed with a truly viable farming operation. Sometime last Fall, it all came together: we would raise chickens! Meat chickens, for now, with egg layers a possibility in the future.
From there, the path became a little more direct. We've learned more than we thought we would ever know about chickens -- the animals themselves, conventional raising and processing (wow, scary!), and how to raise them organically and on pasture. Our first batch of 100 little chicks arrives next Wednesday, and we'll be ready! Milan's down in the shop right now, welding and building their brooder, which will be placed out on pasture from the moment we pick them up from the post office.
If you had told me when I first picked up a shovel in January 2007 (to start moving out those 40+ yards of dung) that in three years I would be a mom and expecting 100 little chicks next week, I would have looked at you wide-eyed and dumbfounded. I'm sure I would have laughed nervously and maybe even secretly wished you to be wrong (I still don't think of chickens as glamorous, and I do miss what I sometimes wistfully remember as a more "glamorous" life not as a farmer's wife). But now, I wouldn't change a thing. I'm excited to see how this goes -- our first, real business venture together! We look forward to sharing it with you.
We started with basic clean up in January of 2007, five months before we said, "I do". We both love our big (48' x 72'), old (circa 1900), dairy barn and were sure it would be a snap to clean it out and make it reception-ready. A new east-side foundation, a new roof, about a dozen new footings beneath the floor, umpteen boxes of miscellaneous junk from probably the last five property owners, a good 40 yards of decades-old animal dung, who knows how many no-longer-baled bales of hay, a zillion "minor" hammer-and-nail repair jobs, not to mention just the general dirt and dust of the ages... well, that was just the beginning. We took out the stalls on the west side aisle, leveled the hard-packed, pitted ground and laid 1" rubber mats. We removed the wood shop and another small room, the purpose for which I still can't figure out (small, dark, low, hard to access?). And then, we decorated.
It turned out amazing, and our wedding reception will always be an incredible coup of an event for so many reasons. Both Milan and I remember having the best day of our lives that day, trumped now only recently by the birth of our son, Jack.
The frenzy of preparing for the reception kicked off a slew of farm improvement projects that just kept snowballing into bigger and grander plans. We bought a tractor, a tiller, and a ripper. Fence wire, fence chargers. Another tractor, a horse trailer (okay, so not exactly farm related), a 24' flatbed, a 16' mower. The plan was to renovate the long-neglected pastureland. Milan planted several strips of test cover crops, which we watched grow and bloom last Spring, right around when Jack was born.
Enter Jack on the scene, and the pace of renovations slowed considerably. Actual dirt moving and fence-building turned into Milan spending a lot of time reading and researching how to proceed with a truly viable farming operation. Sometime last Fall, it all came together: we would raise chickens! Meat chickens, for now, with egg layers a possibility in the future.
From there, the path became a little more direct. We've learned more than we thought we would ever know about chickens -- the animals themselves, conventional raising and processing (wow, scary!), and how to raise them organically and on pasture. Our first batch of 100 little chicks arrives next Wednesday, and we'll be ready! Milan's down in the shop right now, welding and building their brooder, which will be placed out on pasture from the moment we pick them up from the post office.
If you had told me when I first picked up a shovel in January 2007 (to start moving out those 40+ yards of dung) that in three years I would be a mom and expecting 100 little chicks next week, I would have looked at you wide-eyed and dumbfounded. I'm sure I would have laughed nervously and maybe even secretly wished you to be wrong (I still don't think of chickens as glamorous, and I do miss what I sometimes wistfully remember as a more "glamorous" life not as a farmer's wife). But now, I wouldn't change a thing. I'm excited to see how this goes -- our first, real business venture together! We look forward to sharing it with you.
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