http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/09/12/chicken-farming.aspx?x_cid=youtube Internationally renowned natural health physician and Mercola.com founder, Dr. Joseph Mercola and Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm, show how chicken lives in Polyface Farm.
Wow! What incredible top soil to have such a nutritious 'salad'/ 'grass' full of healing herbs growing there.
Those chickens are eating better than so many people addicted to processed foods.
Since 30% of farm land is for corn (GMO), this is realistic to have America convert those farms to actually healthy farms.
About 90% of all corn produced in the US is Genetically Modified now. It is much more expensive to obtain non GMO Corn.
Joel Salatin is a genius. His politics are also amazing. I saw him speak at Porcfest 2014.
"A culture that just views a pig as a pile of protoplasmic inanimate structure to be manipulated by whatever creative designed that human can foist on that critter will probably view individuals within its community and other cultures on the community of nations with the same tipe of disdain and disrespect and controlling type mentality". Joel Salatin.
This is terrific information. I enjoy learning new things that I can apply to my own project; I own 50 hens in a 1.5 acre lot. My hens free-range the entire lot and the eggs are far better than any store bought egg you can buy. I don’t sell them but I do give them away to the elderly members of our community and family also enjoys these delicious eggs. I also have some good ideas on my blog site if you’d like to visit at http://www.foodadooba.com
I will start off by saying Joel is a great guy. I have met him in person and I've been to the farm. I agree with the commenter before me, Joel is very idealistic. These practices don't scale to the demands of the system. Sure we could have many small producers to make up the demand of one large producer but right now the small producers aren't getting anywhere near the numbers needed for that to work. I mean, to have a truck go from one farm to the next, to pick up 1500 eggs a day doesn't economically work. Compared to picking up 80000 eggs in one day at one farm. Huge difference. I believe in raising animals organically and there are ways to do it but Joel's don't appear to be it. Raising hogs on pasture works, that is an exception, but it requires good management and a decent amount of knowledge of hogs. Biggest thing that always gets me with Joel is he tries to take credit for chicken tractors, when the Amish were doing it long before him. Many things his farm does, is nothing new, they take credit for it though. And certainly act like they came up with all this stuff. They didn't. The methods they use to me were a primer. A primer to what not to do for the most part. Because most, if not all of their methods, are very hard to scale. Most people say, "but I don't want to be a huge farm" thing is, in order to survive, you kind of have to be. Making a living on less than 10 acres is almost impossible. I'm not saying you need 2000 acres but 100, 200, 300, to make a living. And there's my rant.
im surprised the Gov. hasn't forced to him to shut down this operation for being too economically independent.
Here's the problem…. (First, I have full knowledge of the general Patriot movement/constitutionalists, I was involved in the Ron Paul campaign, and I really "LIKE" what Joel does but not completely). Joel seems to be an advocate/speaker/author. Farming in reality is his 2nd profession. Look at the reality (ask him in person either). Does his farm produce enough eggs to feed a moderate town of 50,000 people eggs for breakfast per day? Let's say 75,000 eggs total assuming half the people eat only one egg and the other half eat two. Watching his farm videos he has probably around 1000 max chickens (eggers not broilers in the small tractors you see in this video). These he pulls behind a HUGE tractor following the cows. Anybody that raises egg laying chickens knows that with good eggers you get about a 90% egg per day ratio (9 eggs to 10 days in peak). While his philosophy is wonderful and he is a great speaker, the reality is in peak time (with 1000 chickens) that he is not going to be able to feed even a tiny town of 1500 people eggs for breakfast in 1 day, let alone a moderate town of 50,000. See I can point you to three people I know personally that run organic free range chicken houses… I sat in amazement while they collected eggs…. They kept coming, and coming down the conveyor belt at chore time. They stacked up pallet fulls of eggs and brought them to the cooling area immediately. It was a clean, humane, and good operation…. Several went in with the same ethical company…. The difference is THEY COULD feed 50,000 people eggs for breakfast, as they unloaded 80,000 eggs a day….. Now imagine, New York City, LA, SF, Dallas/Ft.Worth, Houston, Orlando, Chicago…. AND ALL the major cities… You'd need millions and millions of eggs…. and that's just for breakfast. (consider all recipes that include eggs). The way Joel does it, I hate to say it, is ridiculous to those who know the true demand of farming. Joel's system while nice and ethical, is not practical for the masses that need food. While his approach is more beautiful and natural, the approaches I've seen are very ethical, clean, and not disgusting or anything. To truly "heal" the food industry, there is going to have to be ethical and good mass production. While I'd love to see chickens running around pecking the ground, to put food on the table for hundreds of millions of people – it is simply NOT practical.
If you are a suburbanite with a lawn and a dream who has never seen the true mass of production needed, Joel can appear a dream come true…. And in some ways he is. But I assure you despite his wonderful ethics, true natural farming, and wonderful attitude, this would not work on a mass scale. While admirable and his presentation great if you haven't seen 80,000 organic eggs produced, put into containers, and rolled into a cooler just to have a truck come 30 mintues later to take them to packaging, there is no way to know the true mass scale food needs to be produced. Running loose chickens near a free range egg system would be nearly impossible to meet the demand out there. While I do like this system, we also do need commercial and ethical organic free range facilities to produce the massive amount of food needed.
Joel seems like a great guy, but I fear it is too easy to nod, say "yeah this guy is awesome" and buy his books, before really thinking about the truckloads of food truly needed to feed the masses of people. While many types of factory farming is disgusting and could definitely use an overhaul, I belive factory types of farming is needed….. Joel's method would be great of a homesteading type of community where everybody pitches in together…. But food on a large scale – no way.
don't break the law….work to change it. too many chickens in one place would become diseased….for one problem.
This guy is the real deal with a great sense of humour but he is really just implementing european farming techniques that were pushed aside for american industrial farming…. Movable grazing pens are old news but here he is using them in a commercial setting.
I'm vegan and I totally approve:)
What a great guy! we need more farmers like him.
I guess you could say he's … outstanding in his field. lol
Sorry, I just couldn't resist.
Very informational and all americans need to know this. thanks Joel for the info keep up the good work. God Bless you in your work. :-)
Great education for quick start-up! Thank you!!!
Very interesting concept. I think you would really have to be a farmer at heart to go through that..Thank you for this video.