4/18/09

An amazing farm - Polyface, Inc

I am doing a paper at school about how Factory Farms could raise their birds differently and still make money. Here is an example of a farm that is doing that. I also today went to our wonderful local farm Tendercrop and visited their bird houses, cattle barn and lettuce barn.

Pasturized Broilers
Pastured Broilers

We use 10 ft. X 12 ft. X 2 ft. high floorless, portable field shelters housing about 75 birds each to grow these 8-week meat birds. Moved daily to a fresh pasture paddock, these birds receive fresh air, exercise, sunshine, and all the genetically modified organism-free (GMO-Free) local grain they want. Integrating the cows to mow ahead of the shelters shortens the grass and encourages ingestion of tender, fresh sprouts. At Polyface, we want every animal to eat as much salad (green material) as its full genetic potential will allow.




Pastured Eggs

An Eggmobile follows the cows in their rotation. The Eggmobile is a 12 ft. X 20 ft. portable henhouse and the laying hens free range from it, eating bugs and scratching through cattle droppings to sanitize the pasture just like birds in nature that always follow herbivores as biological cleansers. The Feathernet is similar, although the birds are secured inside a large electrified netting that is moved every three days to offer additional clean pasturage. Cows mow ahead of the chickens.



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