Prairie Schooner Construction Pictorial

The Prairie Schooner model for broilers is based on Timothy Shell’s similar hoop house for layers. I consulted with Tim, purchased his plans and fine-tuned the structure. Since Tim is in China and his plans seem to be unavailable – and the model is too valuable to languish – I am offering as complete instructions as I am able to here, without having the original plans in front of me.

Most of the following photos are of various stages in the 7 to 8 week life cycle of the broilers and show how the Schooner and associated electric netting fences work. It is not rocket science to build this contraption. Just study the photos well. Raft
The raft is complete. The dimensions are 15’ wide by 40’ long. Bottom members are 2” PVC, angled up and capped at the ends. Bolted above those are 20 15’ lengths of 1 ¼” PVC. Eight diagonal braces (12’) are also attached underneath to stiffen the raft.

Hoops
The hoops are 20’ sections of 1” PVC (except for the 1 ¼” end hoops) bent and shoved into holes drilled in the 2” outside PVC members. Drill the holes vertically, not at an angle. The hoops will stay in place until the tarp is pulled over and drawn down and the whole top structure is secured to the raft. You must saw off the flared ends on the hoop sections so that they will fit in the holes. The sawed off flares can be used as couplers later.

In the above photo we’ve put all but the end hoops on and we are now attaching two shoulder lines and a top line – also 1” PVC. We used stainless steel hose clamps here, perhaps we were afraid a drilled hole would weaken the hoops too much. But there is some slipping with the hose clamps so I’d recommend you use carriage bolts so that there are no edges on the heads of bolts against the tarp. Locate hoops every 4’ and take time to adjust everything true before drilling holes and fastening. ¼” carriage bolts are fine here. These shoulder and top lines run inside the hoops.

At every shoulder line/hoop junction we attached a shoulder brace member. In the above photo a few are attached and loose, hanging straight down. These protect the structure from “caving in” in high winds. Use 1” PVC members and cut to length depending on where you wish to attach them to the raft. See later photos for a better look at the braces.

Bring the shoulder and top lines into TEES in the end hoops. Carefully measure where to place the end hoop TEES to have the shoulder lines level and the top line at the top. The TEES must all be facing the same direction. (We didn’t bother to shorten the end hoops any to allow for the added length from the TEES.) Leave the shoulder and top lines a little long and then cut to length after the end hoops are in place.
The last step before adding the tarp is to run some plumbing strap diagonally over the hoops connecting the four corners. As you can see below we didn’t use the corners. I’m not sure why but apparently this arrangement stiffened the top to our satisfaction. We used plastic, not metal, plumbing strap.
The Tarp
The tarp must measure 40’ long PLUS 4” for each end hoop pocket. Make the pockets plenty big enough to insert the end hoop with the three TEES in it. Remember to leave enough shoulder and top line PVC length to push the end hoops out adequately to tighten the tarp.

The width of the tarp is twenty feet minus whatever daylight you decide to leave along the bottom edges (the hoops are 20’ minus the bell = 19 1/2’). Figure at least a foot and a half of daylight on each side (=16 1/2’) plus the material to make the side pockets (3” on each side) and you arrive at 17 feet of material before sewing the pockets.

To install the tarp, insert the two end hoops and shove the tarp up and over the schooner. The more hands the better here! Insert the end hoops into the holes in the 2” runners. Center the tarp so that the daylight is equal on both sides. (Choose a calm day for this). Cut slots in the tarp where the TEES are. Insert the shoulder and top line PVCs into the TEES on one end. I see no need for glue on these joints.

Go to the other end and pull the tarp as tight as you can by hand. Measure where to cut the shoulder and top line PVCs to stretch the tarp tight. These are your money cuts. Insert the shoulders and top line into the last end hoop TEES by rotating the end hoop. This should be a struggle if it’s going to wind up stretched tight. You don’t need glue on this last end.

To pull the tarp down on the sides, first slide light rod along the length of the side pockets. We found something with ends that inserted into each other to make a continuous 40’ length. I suppose ½” PVC would work fine. We cut a slit in the low edge of the tarp every 4’ and threaded a tie-down strap over it.

Tie-down Straps
The tie-down strap then goes under a 1 ¼” PVC cross member and inserts into a plastic buckle arrangement sewn into each end. Our tarp shop made us 20 of these adjustable tie-down straps 1” x 3’ long. Pull them tight to even up the daylight space at the bottom and stretch the tarp tight.

Side Flaps
For the brooder phase the elements must be kept at bay. The brooder space for 500 chicks will be 15’ wide by 16’ long (4 hoops). The side flaps can be 20’ or more long – any extra length over 16’ adds more protection from winds at a diagonal to the schooner. Sew Velcro onto the flap as well as the tarp. Sew a small protective flap above the Velcro on the large tarp to hang over the Velcro seam. Otherwise water will run down the schooner, through the Velcro and into the brooder. (The chicks love the drips but you really don’t want the wet bedding.)

Make the side flaps wide enough to tuck 8 or 10” under your schooner raft. If it extends 6” up the schooner side and covers 1 ½’ of daylight that makes each flap 2’10” long. The above photo is pre-rain protection flap. We’ve used duct tape to seal Velcro seam.
Brooder walls
Again, Velcro saves the day here. Velcro will be sewn in all the top edges of the semi-circular, portable walls. The bottoms are weighted with rod.

Still, as shown here, the little chicks will find a smidgen of daylight and make a jail-break. We decided this was actually great as long as they learned to seek the protection of the schooner in bad weather and at night. This we taught them in their first four days, after which they were self-shedding.

To measure the wall pattern simply bend a 20’ section of 1” PVC to a 15’ base (before you use up all your PVC) and draw the top line. Add enough material along the top curve to sew on the Velcro so that it can fold over the hoops and attach to itself – 4” will do it. You will have to make some slits where the shoulder lines attach to the hoop.
Add a pocket at the bottom to insert a rod to help hold the wall down.

A simple door is made by cutting a long slit in the wall. Sew in Velcro on one side and add 2” of material for a flap with the mating Velcro on the other. (If you don’t sew on a flap it will be impossible to seal the door – trust me.)

The brooder walls are very adjustable as you can see above. For the first 3 days we keep the bottom of the brooder and the doors tight with air holes (for propane exhaust escape) only at the top. After that, and depending on the weather, the walls are progressively opened more and more, moved out to nether hoops until you feel your chicks are hardened, and then the doors are removed altogether. Or the windward door could be left on if you like.
Brooder set up
Cover the floor of the brooder with high quality shavings as you would any brooder. Don’t make the mistake of using straw as we did once. It will be welded around your raft members at the end of 7 weeks. Brooder set up within the Schooner is no different from any other brooder set up.

I suspect Tim designed the hoop house based on the length of the poultry netting. If you put an 8 to 10’ border around the entire house it fits perfectly. A portable charger and single ground rod make this model highly adaptable. (Fencing tip #1: walk out the entire length of fence before setting barbs in the ground. Fencing tip #2: Use Kencove netting with 2 tread-in barbs– we found it much easier than single-barbed Premier fence. I’ve discussed this with Premier and they say more people prefer a single barb but I don’t know why. I’d much rather use my leg muscles than my arm muscles to plant a post.)

Water and feed are no different from any other brooder. We stored ours under the Schooner for additional hold-down weight.

Chicks arrive! Just like any other brooder they know what to do. Here you see our no-frills heat, feed and water systems. I would recommend nipple drinkers now as they stay cleaner and are easier to manage in general.
Notice the stuffed corner. And the sides and wall partitions are tucked in.

Still, they always find a way out! The chicks will pass through the netting until they are about two weeks old. This is not a problem; they’ll return home. But you must train them where to rest and spend the night.
After the gas runs out of the 20 pound propane tank fueling the hover (three days) the hover may be removed. Gradually the walls can be moved out.
At the time they can no longer pass out of the netting it’s time to make their first paddock. They will range to the borders fearlessly.
And glean a healthy diet from the land. Make sure the pasture is chick friendly. That means grass 3 to 5 inches high laced with clovers, crickets (in the fall) and diverse plant and bug life. In other words, not a chemically treated, fertilized, overgrown mono-culture.
Every five to seven days a new pasture is provided. Imagine a daisy: the schooner is the center of the flower and the pastures are the petals. Gates are made by “lifting the skirts” of the fencing. Water is provided both in the schooner and out in the pasture.

The daily chores are simple: We drag the feeders away from the Schooner into fresh pasture, shaking the old feed toward the schooner as we go. We then top up the feeder, check waterers and that’s it!
Because of the superior diet and environment and never having endured the stress of crating and shifting out of the brooder to pasture the chicks have a seamless, rapid, growth curve.
As the grass grows, it may be necessary to mow a path for paddock fences in order to keep them hot. Here we have prepared a new paddock by laying out the fence, mowing a border, and installing the new fence. Feed sacks are laid out and the raised skirt gate has been made. You can see the chicks eating at feeders at the end of the far paddock. That means it’s time for new pasture.
When we drag the feeders over to the new pasture most chicks will come too. A few bug and clover rangers will need to be ushered to the schooner and then the old gate is dropped and the three-sided “petal” fence taken up, ready to be installed ahead of the new paddock.
We usually schedule butchering at 37, 38 and 40 days of age. This means around 160 birds per butcher day which is a four to five hour morning for two people with a good set up and some experience.

Crating is a very simple matter of walking slowly among the roosting chicks at sundown, setting some crates down, and putting the largest ones in crates. Although we are not slow at this, we don’t rush either. A chicken is always held in two hands with the wings restrained. These chicks haven’t had a stressful moment in their lives yet and we’re not going to “cowboy” them by picking up four legs in each hand as we did in the pandemonium of the movable pen model.

The savings in stress and mess in crating alone justifies the Schooner model in my opinion.

After butchering and marketing we move the Schooner to the next site and begin again for the next 500 lucky Prairie Schooner Chickens.

Pre-made Prairie Schooner tarps will soon be available on our web store. Please email for details.

Prairie Schooner Chickens

When Alice and I moved into our new solar-powered home in the spring of 2000 we knew we were going to have to do something different with the chickens. Brooding with electric heat lamps saw not an option. Turning electricity into heat is very inefficient and would deplete our power reserves. What to do?

I had been smitten with Timothy Shell’s PVC hoop house for his laying flock and asked Tim if he didn’t think it could be converted for broilers. Ever the optimist, he gave me his thoughts and sent some detailed plans and photos. Adding side flaps, interior doors, and a propane-burning hover to Tim’s layer design appeared to be an easy conversion to an effective brooder and shelter for broilers.

We figured dimensions for side flaps and canvas doors and hired a tarp shop to sew all the pieces for us. Building the PVC raft and hoop house was quite easy and took about a day. Installing and tuning the tarp was pretty simple also. The moment of truth arrived with 500 little peepers.

In they went into the hoop house. Since the hoop house looks a bit like the prairie schooners the pioneers used to get to these parts and these pasture-raised chicks are about as close as it gets to the native prairie chicken, we like the name Prairie Schooner Chickens. The schooner would be their home for their entire lives.

We bedded the grass floor heavily with shavings to keep the chicks off the moist spring ground. Some grasses poked through giving the brooder a very pleasant touch of green. The chicks became familiar with the plant world from the beginning.

Within a couple of days the chicks were sneaking out the corners and seams and poking around on the pasture surrounding the schooner. In that first batch I was diligent about shooing them back in and stuffing the cracks with burlap sacks. In later batches I only worried about it if it was very cold or near nightfall. I did make sure they learned to be inside the four “walls” of the brooder at night.

The propane ran out on day three, so I figured it was time for the chicks to heat their own space. Five hundred chicks can create a lot of heat. The brooder worked beautifully the first time with one minor flaw. Rain and dew ran in through the Velcro on the sides where the side flaps attached, soaking the bedding on the edges where the chicks preferred to hang out. The chicks were very fond of drinking that water but we put an end to that for the next batch. A tight-seamed flap sewn over the Velcro strip on the hoop house now keeps the rain and dew away from the Velcro.

As the chicks got older and hardened to the weather, we opened slits in the doors, propped up the doors, moved the doors toward the ends of the schooner, and eventually removed the doors and the eastern side flaps. (Most of our sever weather comes from the west). Since the side flaps only extend over 20 of the 40 foot length of the schooner, even with a flap attached for weather protection the chicks can still go in and out on that side.

An electric netting designed for poultry surrounds the perimeter of the schooner giving a nice 8 – 10 foot border. The chicks can easily run through the 2 inch squares of the netting until they’re about 2 weeks old. That’s not a problem because it’s the things that eat chickens – which is almost everything – that we want to keep out, and the electric net is awesome at that.

After several weeks we use another netting to make a three-sided paddock extending from the schooner. The perimeter fence is lifted with fence posts to allow the chicks to pass under. Our daily chores are to drag their feed and water out onto fresh pasture until we reach the end of the paddock. It usually takes a week before it’s time to make another paddock.

Then we shoo the flock back into the schooner area, lower the perimeter fence, take up two sides of the paddock fence and make a new paddock. It’s very fast. We place their feed and water at the entrance and they’re off and running again.

Speaking of running…we were astounded to see these notoriously lazy birds gallop to and from their feed troughs. What a riot! It’s more like a speed waddle, actually, but they also flap and try to fly as they go. Usually they charge and retreat in great waves.

Another behavior we hadn’t seen before is cock-fighting with the chicks actually getting several feet off the ground.

Besides the running/flying and cock-fighting, the major differences for the chicks were:
more space to hang out in
never running out of feed or water
being on pasture at an earlier age
having a familiar place that was home for the duration of their lives
having a large paddock to graze
no extra handling and crating between brooder and outside pens
having control of their daily schedule

For us the advantages were even greater:
no need to pull eight pens through a pasture
no need to fill 5-gallon water buckets
never running out of pasture
no need to shut chickens in at night or let them out in the morning
freedom to leave the farm for 24 hours if desired
no extra handling and crating between brooder and outside pens
extremely easy crating and loading for processing

In fact, the prairie schooner model practically operates on its own. We found we could spend nights away from the farm if we wanted to. No neighbors required!
These are the questions usually asked about the prairie schooner:

“Doesn’t their feed get wet and rot?”

Yes, feed gets wet but the chicks actually prefer it to the dry mix! (Well, which would you prefer, oats or oat meal? Flour or pancakes?) After a rainy spell, we pull the feeders deeper into the paddock (as we do every day) and tilt the feeder to slide the older feed down to the "schooner" end of the feeder, topping the rest up with new. Without a rain the chicks go for the fresher feed, but after a rain they prefer the wet.

“What about overhead predators?”

Hawks and owls are best stopped with protector animals like a guard dog or guard geese! Our Amish friend, Freeman Miller, clips the wings of a couple of geese, keeps them with his chicks and has no aerial problems. I’ve heard the same with guard dogs. Another product for night protection has red lights that ward off the owls.

“What about manure build-up under the schooner?”

The schooner is a fifteen-foot wide sled that is moved between batches. Because it has no floor the manure goes directly to the ground and the shavings that cover the ground. Because we don’t want the chickens resting in their own feces nor do we want to loose the valuable nutrients in their manure, we follow the rule of adding carbonaceous material (wood chips or saw dust, not straw) whenever the bedding began to smell and we are starting to loose nitrogen. This builds up the bedding to the point we have to carefully lift the schooner out before moving it. (Do not use straw - it doesn’t absorb and makes extraction very difficult). Of course the grass underneath is killed. We simply spread the bedding over the pasture after harvest (it could easily be collected) and in two or three years – and forever after that – the former schooner site is the richest, most lush pasture on the farm.

“What about bad weather?”

Our schooner weathered better than our pens, some of which had leaky roofs and blown away lids in a storm. Both models need to be anchored to the earth in high winds and that is easier with one hoop house than five or six pens. Our schooner has withstood two winds recorded at 70 and 80 mph nearby. The west side (windward) of the schooner was stove in by the 70 mph wind and we replaced Tim’s original ¾” shoulder braces with 1”. For security, we weigh each end down with heavy rocks and railroad ties as well as anchoring it with tee posts driven in on angles at the four corners. Ice and snow build up can cause damage in the winter so we recommend either propping up the centerline from within or diligently removing the frozen moisture before it accumulates.

Besides a great pastured chicken shelter in the spring and fall, we found the schooner to be a perfect shade-mobile for our sheep flock in the heat of the summer. I’m certain a creative mind could find uses for the remaining months as well.

Alice couldn’t move some of our heavier pens and we were burning out on the chores. The schooner model kept us in the business and made it much easier and simpler. Abandoning pastured poultry was not an option because they were so important to our meat business. Our pastured poultry enterprise had twice the return (60%) as beef, lamb and pork and was our most demanded meat. Most of our beef, pork and lamb customers were poultry customers first. The importance of chicken as the front door to our farm produce cannot be overstated. The prairie schooner allowed us to continue to raise the high quality birds our customers expected.

A Daily Shifting Schooner?

Finally, some last thoughts on a portable schooner, that is one moved daily. I really like this idea but haven't solved the problem of moving chicks 80' every day. The schooner would still have to be 15 x 40 because 500 chicks pack the house when they are big.

The chicks were hard to move 12' sometimes but I've not discounted the notion. It would trade the daily moving chore for the periodic bedding chore plus keep the land in production and unscarred.

I think a slow, self-move to get to water and feed is possible but the schooner still must be moved and cannot have any chicks within it during transport. Any ideas?

Following this post will be one detailing schooner construction.

Market Day - a Journal

MARKET DAY – Saturday, January 18, 2003
By David Schafer

5:10 am. I grab the alarm clock five minutes before it’s set to go off. Can’t stand that sound and glad that market days are the only days I ever set an alarm. Alice is already up and getting ready.

6:20 am. Showered, dressed, fed pets, watered Jenny (the donkey), loaded the last minute stuff in the truck, and, by the light of a big full moon not yet set in the west, we’re off, five minutes late.

6:45 am. We pass Bing’s in Altamont where we usually stop for hot chocolates and home-made bisquits and gravy for the road. Because of the cold (it was 8 at midnight but warmed up to 14 by the time we left home) we were a little slower starting and a little slower getting to the bigger roads. To make up the time we skip Bing’s but promise ourselves hot drinks and muffins at the market after we’re already set up.

7:55 am. Roll into the market in good time. Less than 10 venders present.

8:05 am. First customer, John Elliot, arrives while we’re in the last stages of set up. We chat and give him his wife’s box of soup-bones. He doesn’t stay long. It’s chilling cold and blowing light snow. Our set up is minimal today: One six-foot table, two styrofoam display boxes, the photo book and brochures. No sign, no books, no magazines with our pictures on the cover.

8:20 am. Alice goes to the office to pay for today’s stall ($10 during the winter, $21 the rest of the year) as well as our yearly commitment to a permanent stall ($225). The latter gives us stall #139 for every Saturday we want it. This is a new stall for us and will be a switch for customers who’ve come to stall #117 for six years, but we decided to go to the north side of the isle, face south and be in the shade. Plus it’s a little closer to an electric outlet where we can plug in the two freezers on the back of our pickup.

Even though we’ve paid for the whole year, we’ll probably go to the market less than a dozen times in 2003. But when we go, we want our customers to know right where to find us. Plus we want to be sure to have a stall available as those vendors who don’t pay the big money are at the mercy of “first come, first stalled” on the really busy days (when as many as 10,000 people go through the market) and might not get a spot at all.

8:25 am. Alice returns and I head to the coffee shop for double hot chocolates, apple cinammon cake and a banana-nut muffin. I love this market!

9:00 am. Half way through and only six of the seventeen customers on today’s list have shown up. We’re not worried; this is typical.

9:10 am. A small rash of five customers come all at once, two of whom know each other. With only a two-hour window at the market and up to twenty or thirty customers coming, this makes our booth one of the most active sites of commerce in the market, but also a social event with friendly chatter and a lot of first-name recognition. Both are a magnet for other customers. On days when there are other customers, that is. It’s so cold today, most folks are staying home. As we take care of the earliest orders, pulling the boxes or bags with their names on them out of the freezers and totaling the bills, everyone has a chance to see the extra items we brought today in the display boxes.

One box has lamb chops, whole leg, boned and rolled leg and cubes in it, the other, ground beef, ground lamb, a rack and lamb shanks. That’s all we have left. The pork is sold out (except for pork sausage which I forgot to bring) and the last of the chickens plus the last turkey are being picked up today. In the happy atmosphere while they wait on us, most folks pick out something new to try along with the cuts they’ve pre-ordered.

In this way we’ve started dozens of folks on lamb who had never even tried it before. Many of them now say it’s their favorite meat. Since lamb is the highest dollar per pound of any meats we sell, and the easiest to raise, we’re happy about that.

9:30 am. Anne and Leah hang around and chat with us. They are both psychic healers. Anne has authored two books and her husband David is a noted chiropractor in town; he’s referred dozens of patients to us. We have developed a social relationship with them.

It’s warming up a little and the sun is trying to break through the clouds. Anne and Leah are ready to go and we help put their boxes in the car parked next to us (one advantage of the winter months – ordinarily they’d have to park a block or two away and come get an entry pass from us to drive through the market).

9:45 am. Divin and the others on our list show up. Divin is interesting to me because he represents a shift in our typical customer. Up until very recently we’ve attracted wealthy, healthy types. Our meat is not cheap. We’re quite used to the bargain hunters poking, prodding, asking, “How much?” and almost running away after we reply – as if just being close is going to turn their pockets inside out. A great many of our customers are referrals. When people refer us to another they do the screening for us. They don’t pass us on to someone who won’t appreciate us. It is the ideal form of marketing – free and others do the work!

Divin is all smiles and, if he weren’t younger than me, I’d call him a good ole boy. He talks about his brother’s farm and moose skin boots (warm clothing being a popular topic today). He’s got a healthy Midwestern twang. As I often do if I haven’t found out yet, I ask Divin, “Now, where did you find out about us again?” “Oh. On the internet.”

This never happened before 2002, but we probably picked up half a dozen good customers who simply searched the internet, found us and showed up on a market day! This can be traced to all the recent publicity about grass-fed benefits. As Jo Robinson said a couple years ago, “Don’t pay for advertising; it will come to you.” Since that time, we’ve been called by – and featured in – Health magazine and Mother Earth News! (Oprah, we’re waiting….)

10:00 am. All in and all done. Everybody showed and we’re packing up. But there’s more on our schedule today. Kevin, the organic produce grower who is rapidly branching out, has signed a five-year lease on permanent store space here in the market and today we fulfill something we’ve spoken to him about for a long time. Today he starts carrying our meats and making them available to market-goers daily. (The KC River Market has stalls for 300 venders under three long roofs. Ringed around this traditional market area that sees activity on Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday are permanent shops and restaurants open every day of the week.)

We pull our truck up to Kevin’s store and ask him what he wants. “I’ll take everything you have left. You know how chefs are – if it’s in stock they’ll take it.” Kevin has been supplying chefs for many years and hustles all over the city. We’re very happy to empty out our freezers entirely (always the goal). Besides the leftover ground beef and lamb are two orders from folks who told us they couldn’t make it today. We tell Kevin to take full price for them and we sell them to him at his discount. A nice way to start our relationship and we’re all very upbeat.

This isn’t our first store. It’s our seventh. We don’t actively seek stores, but we’re excited about what Kevin is starting. Of the other six, only two still carry us. And they only carry ground beef. Our other cuts usually sell out to regular customers and, frankly, we prefer the interaction with our market customers (and even our mail-order customers). Stores and restaurants are impersonal and not committed to growers. I know of one grower who was quickly pulled under when a huge restaurant account went belly up and left him holding 3000 chickens! Talk about all your eggs in one basket! What a disaster!

The best thing about having a store that carries our meat is that it’s exactly like third party certification. When we tell a new customer that they can also find our products in Wild Oats on Main or Fresh Air Fare in St. Joe, it’s as if a big stamp comes out of the sky and block-prints “APPROVED” all over us. Of course, we’d rather they do the research on us – look at our pictures, ask us questions, hear testimonials from other folks – but, like the auctioneers say, “It don’t matter where we start, it’s where we wind up that counts.”

11:15 am. We say our goodbyes and good lucks to Kevin, park the truck back in our spot and join our friends Ken and Andy who have driven to the market to join us for a brunch date. The food and atmosphere at the deli only two blocks away are pure inner city-hip and we enjoy the punk styles and “modern” food – a big change from Jamesport.

Our friendship with Ken dates back into the mid-90s when I first referred to him as my “customer from heaven.” Ken, a master chef, had cooked in some of the finest restaurants in the city, gone into catering and then into private manufacturing of gourmet pizzas. When he ordered with us he didn’t fool around: 2 whole lambs, 50 chickens, ½ beef and a whole hog. If only all our customers had their own walk-in freezer!

Like many of our market customers, we became friends with Ken and invited him up to the farm. Andy came into his life (Andrea) and the two of them helped us more than anyone in building our straw bale home – a two-year project. The four of us became great friends.

11: 40 am. Soup and sandwiches down the hatch and sharing Toblerone chocolates for desert. Ken and Andy ask if we’ll be Best Man and Maid of Honor at their wedding this fall! Of course, we say, shocked and honored. They excitedly discuss the wedding plans.

12:15 pm. We say good-byes to Andy and Ken and head for our last stop – Wild Oats.

12:25 pm. Deliver 30 lbs. of ground beef to our favorite store and do some shopping for fruits and vegetables. We’ve been in this store since 1995, saw it purchased by Wild Oats, and then watched Wild Oats become more and more “corporate.” The latest burden for small producers is UPC codes on all labels. Since Wild Oats represents a tiny fraction of our business we won’t incur the time and expense to do that if and when they force it upon us. Ah well, to everything there is a season.

12:40 pm. On our way home after a great market day. Alice does the traditional “counting of the loot.” I’m very keen that it be respectable if not impressive since I had already decided to make this day public in a journal. “$2020,” she announces. That’s respectable. We’ve done much better before, but that’s probably not far off an average market day.

I have quipped before that I make $1000 an hour selling meat and this is how. Of course, that’s just the selling of it. The preparation takes much more time...but that’s a story for another day.

Freedom and Technology: Allies or Foes?

It helps to see one’s world through another’s eyes every now and then.

Yesterday I said goodbye to Eyob and Fai, two students from my alma mater, Grinnell College, who had just spent a week with me as externs studying sustainable agriculture, sustainable living and sustainable community development.

Both first year students, Eyob was born in Sudan, the son of refugees from the war-torn Republic of Eritrea, Fai a resident of Thailand and the daughter of college professors. We spent the week visiting friends and neighbors in Jamesport, both Amish and not, engaging in stimulating conversations ranging from the physics of information to various theories of development.

The theories of development caught my interest immediately as they mirror the polarity of current agricultural thoughts. The theories fall under the broad titles of Modernization and Dependency, with differing ideas on how to solve the problems of so-called undeveloped countries, one believing in modernization through technology, the other believing that only leads to dependency.

The assumption that “undeveloped countries need bolstering” reminds me right away of Stan Parson’s famous line, “If technology is the solution, what’s the problem?” It is the inappropriate use of technology – from the plow to genetic manipulation – that wreaks the most havoc on our planet. From desertification to disease outbreak, the culprit is most often the inappropriate application of technology.

The modernists support the corporate model of development - economically driven, government supported, with corporate interests dominating individual interests and little to no regard for the impact on local cultures. The modernists see the transfer of technology on a global level as the answer to development problems. Whether economic stimulation is the goal or the result of this policy depends on one’s level of skepticism. In my opinion, only the very naïve can believe policies to force open markets are altruistic.

Dependency theorists look deeper into the social implications of technological transfer across cultures. They note the undermining of cultures (particularly AGRI-cultures) when cheap, foreign products (food, eg.) become available. Traditional ways and traditional foods are dropped in favor of the easy, cheap and new. As a result, developing countries become dependent on those supplying them, suffer from an erosion of culture and they have a whole new set of problems to deal with.

It puts me in mind of the saying, I think attributed to President Harry Truman, “If you want to make a man a cripple, give him crutches.”

To those of us flirting with, or deeply engaged in, alternative agriculture, these are familiar poles of thought. Can there be a global industry more polarized than agriculture? On one end are the front page, glitzy, scientific triumphs - gene spliced tomatoes, round-up ready soybeans, and cloned calves that accomplish what?

An inedible tomato, a soybean guaranteed to make you buy herbicides and five expensive sources of hamburger. Yes, I admit it’s cool that we can do those things. But just because we can doesn’t mean we should.

And at the other end, without fanfare, are naturalist farmers, mimicking time-tested patterns of nature, growing healthy, tasty food while building organic matter and healthy soil.

As Fai and Eyob and I toured Jamesport and spoke to Amish and “English” (non-Amish to the Amish) friends, we dove deeper into the subject of appropriate development. Our first stop was at my neighbor Joe Burkholder’s new store, Oak Ridge Furniture. Joe recently built a giant store with show room, work shop and storage areas and moved his young family to a house nearby.

Joe is twenty-five, handsome and self-assured beyond his years. He is quick to smile and disarming with stories of his blunders and near-blunders. How was it that he built this business, had so much inventory, employees (actually more like sub-contractors) and responsibility at an age barely more than a college graduate?

This was a question that I hadn’t heard Joe asked before and the answer was insightful. Joe was working outside of the home after school years like all Amish boys and spent some time working in a furniture shop. At the age of seventeen he fell in love with the furniture business and that began a dream of a business of his own.

“I believe if you have a goal and work hard you can achieve it,” Joe said.

I was mightily impressed with all three of these youngsters – all conversing in their second language. I knew I was in for a good week.

Several times later in the week we visited my good friend and right arm, Abe Kurtz. At only twenty-six, Abe has a home with wife, Susie, and three daughters on 160 of the best acres near Jamesport, a growing herd of cattle, and a large shop housing a thriving tarp business as well as our hopping plucker/scalder mini-assembly line. Abe has as much confidence and humility as you can stuff inside one young man.

There were no surprises with Abe’s answers until a later visit when I tested my budding theory tying technology and freedom together. It went something like this.

Modern folks, certainly governments and corporations, see development as primarily education and technology transfer with maximum commerce involved. It is really commerce driving it, but we can give the powers that be – politicians, bureaucrats, and CEOs - the benefit of the doubt and say that they truly have the best interests of humanity at heart. I’m sure many do.

This is the prevailing model that is meddling with countries like Eyob’s and Fai’s to help “raise their standards of living.” Well, are they really helping?

The long answer is yes and no and roughly parallels the plusses and minuses of the large corporate hog farms that moved into north Missouri recently. On the plus the hog concentration camps provide jobs and an increased tax base. On the minus they pollute and squeeze out the little producers. That is a gross simplification. And the ramifications of development on a global scale are much more complex to sort out.

There is no black and white. Development comes in shades of grey and looks different from each individual perspective. So how, then, can a person make any type of objective qualitative judgment as to whether a form of development is good or bad?

I was at a loss. Then I fell back on the premise that carried Alice and me out of the dark years of farming back in the 80s: nature is the model. I fell back on my biological training and the unassailable truths of nature. If we looked at models of development through the lens of nature’s template it is easy to see where they clash with nature. We can, therefore, sort out the appropriate from the inappropriate.

With the naturalist’s glasses on, most of the clashes are obvious and severe: Confinement, manure aggregation, concentrate feeding are all agricultural development norms that cannot be found in any natural systems. And therefore each one is a risky proposition requiring a lot of technological props. They are doomed to failure because Mother Nature always bats last.

Exporting cheap foods, machinery for automated production and western technology also flies in the face of natural development. It causes cultural upheaval and radical changes in diet and nutrition. The western world can’t seem to look outside its borders without feeling that every family ought to have two cars, three TVs and medical benefits.

After looking at biology and nature’s example of sustainable development, Fai and Eyob and I came back to looking at the Amish. How do they stack up? Of course, they fail miserably by typical western measure: sub-standard education, sub-standard income, poor access to medicine (no insurance, no phones for emergencies). By modern measures of success - cars and televisions - they aren’t even on the radar screen.

The western mind sees Amish and sees what they don’t have: vehicles, televisions, computers, fashionable clothes. Looking at them through nature’s check-list for sustainable development, however, they get an amazingly high report card.

* They require no government assistance. (And still they have to pay taxes.)

* They contribute hardly at all to air pollution and energy consumption.

* They trade locally, stimulating the local economy (unlike corporations that out-source all over the world).

* They invest locally. All their earnings stay right at home. They invest in land, more buildings, and CDs in the local bank.

* They produce most of their own food from their huge gardens and the livestock they grow. Very little of their food has been trucked from afar.

* They are better land and animal stewards. There are exceptions here, but on the whole they keep more soil on the land and take better care of their stock than their “English” counterparts.

* They use manures instead of formulated fertilizers. Again there are exceptions, but many have dairies and spread cow and horse manure on crop fields.

As significant as all those high marks are, they pale in comparison to the big realization I had about the Amish when we had our second discussion with Abe: Could they be freer because of their shunning of technology!?

Look at the western world’s approach and results: We are handing out crutches left and right and making cripples of our nation’s own poor, of developing country’s poor. We are taxing ourselves heavily and subsidizing global corporate greed – all in our quest to hand out more crutches. Look at our obese population. Look at the sky-rocketing number of non-ambulatory people. We have arrived at a fascinating and precarious stage in population growth and health through our accepted western model of development.

But look at the Amish. With eighth grade educations and a long arm’s length from the government they are producing young men like Joe and Abe - entrepreneurs who are adding value to their local economies, raising healthy, well-adjusted children of their own who will have a sense of responsibility to the family, a sense of contribution, a practical view of the world and priorities that revolve around community strength.

In front of Eyob and Fai, I asked Abe if he ever felt like he had been deprived in any way by being raised Amish. Almost bashfully Abe said, “I really feel like I had more freedom being raised Amish.”

That’s when the truck of truth hit me. Of course! It’s the community safety net, the family values, the personal freedom and responsibility that make for individual strength and security. What “English” twenty-five year olds did I know that were shouldering half the responsibility of Abe or Joe? None. I certainly wasn’t at twenty-five.

It makes sense when you see eight and ten-year old boys and girls driving a team of horses in the hay field, doing exactly the same amount of work as their older siblings and father and uncles. It makes even more sense when you understand that any money earned before the child comes of age – usually twenty-one – goes back to the family and, in turn, when the child marries or comes of age, the parents help set them up on property of their own.

Working for Mom and Dad is not at all objectionable when you know that, down the line, Mom and Dad’s economic well-being is going to have a big impact on how well you get set up when you leave the nest.

It is a system that maximizes personal responsibility. And, following that, what can be more freeing than knowing your own capabilities, having the confidence to strike out on your own, to set, and go for, your own goals!?

So many children today are coddled and sheltered and, consequently, inept when Mom decides they need to get out on their own. I rarely see Amish parents “mother henning” their kids. The kids play at games many of my friends would consider high risk. And sure, there are tears, cuts, scrapes and minor accidents.

Abe once told me a story that some Amish women noticed from inside the house a couple of very little boys climbing up the ladder of a tall silo. The women were very worried but just watched from inside as the boys went all the way up, poked around and then climbed back down. Abe said they knew if they had gone outside and called to the boys that the boys would have known their mothers and aunts were afraid for them. That in turn could have made the boys feel fearful about what they were doing. The women put their desire to have the boys growing up confident and unafraid before their maternal instincts to fear for their safety.

It takes a lot to allow children that kind of freedom and learning on their own.

Who is going to be a more functional global citizen, a child who understands through experience how the world works and where his or her limitations lay or one who is scared to go outside where he or she might get stung or scratched or dirty?

I’m convinced, despite the strict dress code, despite the horse and buggy, despite the limited travel and exposure to the world, and most of all, because of their shunning of technology and their ideas on parenting, the Amish are, as a whole, freer than the “English” and epitomize the best model of appropriate development: the empowerment of the individual.

Any reasonable plan for community development, be it within one’s own country or for export to a developing country, would do well to consider that countries are composed of communities and communities are composed of individuals. Empowered individuals are the true backbone of sustainable communities and strong countries.

It does my heart good to see, though my vantage point of poultry equipment sales, the emergence of a new breed of courageous and optimistic folks, young and old, Amish and not. Allan Nation has called them the farmers of tomorrow. I like to think of them as rural entrepreneurs, modern pioneers, risk-takers who see the bigger picture, carefully choose their technological tools, hold on to a land ethic that precludes plundering, and have at heart a basic understanding of nature’s model and scale.

These folks are more self-reliant, have old-fashioned values, are more optimistic, family oriented, nature oriented, and more spiritual in traditional and non-traditional ways.

I want to thank Fai and Eyob, fellow Grinnell Pioneers, for opening my eyes to these insights and making me thankful, once again, for my community, my values and my service.

Thanks Fai, thanks Eyob. The new world belongs to your generation. May your memories of Jamesport serve you well.

Pastured Poultry: Social Reform

Yesterday a fellow drove a 12-hour round trip to pick up his poultry processing equipment. I couldn’t meet him so I made arrangements for him to meet with Abe the twenty-five year old Amish man who does the lion’s share of our equipment assembly and knows as much about it as anybody. I dropped by Abe’s later that evening to pick up the check and see how it went.

The long list on the receipt book was pleasing to both of us but Abe had a bigger story to tell. The two spent an hour and a half together, including some time in Abe’s house where Abe showed him one of the carts we offer as work tables.

Abe first found the cart as a present for his wife, Susie. It was a multi-purpose storage cupboard, transport vehicle, serving station, counter space, and, not least of all, a sometimes play station for their three little girls, all under school age. A multi-tasking tool for a multi-tasking wife, in other words.

“He took one look at it and that was enough,” Abe said smiling.

We were both happy that Abe’s idea for a companion to the equipment we manufacture was a hit. I’m guessing something about Abe’s sincerity and deep satisfaction with life touched our new customer because he opened up to Abe.

“He told me something kind of funny,” Abe said. “He said several years ago he didn’t have a reason to live.”

Abe brought his thumb and fore-finger an inch apart. “He said he was this close to being dead.”

Three years ago, Abe thought assembling our equipment was a great supplement to his tarp shop business; it could allow him to work at home full time with his family. Since then, the allure of pastured poultry seems to have rubbed off on him and he has a greater appreciation for the business. He asked to read my Salatin books. Then we took in the thrill of a Joel Salatin talk together in Bloomfield, Iowa in a room packed with over 300 other Amish.

Abe is as quick as they come and rapidly assimilated Joel’s production, processing and marketing philosophies. In fact, he even got the “worldly view” of Joel through a television set in one of the universe’s most perfectly orchestrated, serendipitous moments.

As the meeting finished we decided on a place to grab dinner with Joel and his hosts before we drove our separate ways. About ten of us met at Joe’s Diner in Bloomfield. I wondered how, in all of Bloomfield, we had picked this little dive. Oh well, the company would make up for any shortfalls in food or atmosphere. We placed our orders at the counter and moved toward the largest table. But before we could sit down somebody said, “Look at that!”

Our eyes followed the outstretched arm and finger toward an overhead TV set that showed Michael Pollan talking on the nightly news! Michael Pollan! Author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” the best-seller that is breaking the pasture-raised farming story across the nation.

In telling that story, Pollan tells Joel’s story, of course. And Pollan is a wordsmith in a class of his own. If you are reading this, you’d love Omnivore’s Dilemma.

It was easy to guess the general topic of the news report without being able to hear the interview – food choices in America. Probably another salmonella outbreak somewhere. Then, sure enough, they cut from the Pollan interview to clips of Joel’s farm!

We whooped and dropped our jaws all at the same time. What are the odds of the split second timing? Of all the TV my Amish friends have been exposed to in their lives – probably amounting to minutes, not hours, what are the odds of them catching this?!

In shock, I asked Joel, “How many times has Polyface been on national news?”

“Only once that I know of,” he responded, equally incredulous.

Both Abe and Susie shared that magic moment and came home sprinkled with fairy dust like folks always do after a Joel talk. I was pretty sure our new customer had been sprinkled, too, and Abe agreed.

How cool is it that we are in a business to support an endeavor that is literally life-giving? Without words, Abe and I shared the satisfaction of that thought.

That has given me pause to reflect: Why is it so life-giving?

What makes the endeavor of raising our own poultry on pasture so special? It isn’t just about Joel’s charisma, is it? Certainly he has the passion of a thousand but that’s getting the cart before the horse.

Joel’s passion stems from the leading edge cause which he pioneered and of which he will always be the reigning champion (until, perhaps, his son, Daniel, accepts the title). He would be happy if more were out there championing the cause with him, but few have the eloquence, and none have the history to be another Joel.

But anyone who takes up the mantle of a pastoralist, whether it be with chickens or cattle or hogs or sheep, steps out of the conventional mold and steps into a leading edge, exciting, society-reforming vocation.

Yes, social reformation. Social activism, if you’d prefer. That action, just that decision alone - to raise the poultry or whatever in a more natural way – puts us firmly in the camp of Those who care for the land, Those who care for the animals, Those who care for pure food, Those who care for our society at large.

That’s powerful! But there’s more. That decision also tells the world, “I choose my own path.” How freeing is that? No government guide sheets to follow, no corporate sponsors. Only us, nature’s template, the canvas of our farm land, and our supportive customers.

And there’s the final, highest, and the least expected reward: Customer appreciation!

Pastured poultry raisers are champions to their urban counterparts, modern day Robin Hoods. We save their families from salmonella, bird flu, e coli, polluted lakes and streams. We liberate them from the nasty thought of supporting crowded, fecal factory farms with their ammoniated atmospheres and fecal-covered everything. We replace their vision of chicken hell with chicken heaven.

Urbanites, exposed to more media, and certainly more removed from food self-sufficiency than their rural cousins, are scared to death of their food and are desperate for healthy alternatives.

Food safety is absolutely fundamental; it trumps all other issues. This is the stirring sense one gets from hearing Joel speak. There is no higher calling. We are freedom fighters for safe food and heroes and heroines to eaters, animals, and ecosystems everywhere.

Doesn’t this role put us on the front lines of social activism? It’s like refusing to sit in the back of the bus. Reaching back further, it’s like the women’s suffrage movement, like the termination of slave holding, like the Boston Tea Party!

Yes, it is a bold act of revolt against the current food paradigm. In a food environment that is corporate-dominated, heavily subsidized, government hog-tied, ultra-processed and walled off from public scrutiny, how daring is it to be a one-man or one-family operation, totally transparent, without a subsidy “safety net,” producing food as pure as snow, selling out of our own backyard? In America today – that’s daring. And desperately needed.

It is a dignified act of revolt in the Gandhi vein, and not at all unlike the Amish shunning of modern ways. We are not getting in anyone’s face about the circus of calamaties of modern food production (like the obnoxious animal rightists are, for example). We are humbly stepping up to the task of showing the world how to do the job in a better way.

As in any leading edge movement, there are obstacles to overcome. Local authorities – the meat inspectors - have mistakenly told countless poultry producers they can’t do what they’re doing. The prepared poultry enthusiast will direct them to public law 90-492 which exempts from government inspection anyone raising up to 1000 poultry. (Inspectors may not like to be surprised with this information, so deliver it as gently as possible.)

Back in 1989 our first inspector, Louie, said, “I’m not inspecting no damn sheep!” We stared back with big lamb eyes and said, “But you have to.” And he did have to. The point is that those folks aren’t used to not calling the shots. Tread lightly around their egos; you may need their help some day.

The thing about inspectors is – they don’t have to know you exist if you stay small. They’d rather not know, believe me. As soon as they know, they are obligated to have jurisdiction over your operation and make sure you stay within the parameters of PL 90-492 (a good subject for a later entry here, no?).

I say “embrace your social activism.” Be proud to be leading a change for the better. Be proud to assume control of one small segment of the food supply. Have pride in a better product, better land and animal care. Enjoy your ride on the leading edge. After all, only the lead dog gets the view.

And, finally, knowing too well how skeptics think (being a card-carrying one myself), I would say the following to anyone who has come this far with me and decided, “Oh, he’s just trying to sell more equipment!”

We raised and sold pastured poultry for six years before we even thought about manufacturing equipment. We know the empowering feeling of doing what is right for the land, livestock and our customers, friends and family. It is that conviction that drives my passion for the Featherman equipment business, not the other way around.

The equipment sells itself because it supports a deeply freeing reason to live with passion: being a part of social reform.

The Story of the Featherman

Raising pastured poultry Salatin-style in the mid-90s put our meat business on the fast track. (If you are raising chickens you must have Pastured Poultry Profit$ by Joel Salatin.) Seven neighboring families joined together to build pens, buy chicks, compare, compete, commiserate, and, mostly, to process together. We won a Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education grant and built a mobile processing unit after a few hundred birds were processed in our shed.

The mobile processing unit being assembled

We drove 5 hours one way to pay $750 for a used stainless steel plucker that was 4 feet in diameter. We considered ourselves lucky since pluckers were rare as hen’s teeth at that time.

We soon found that four birds spinning in a plucker designed for 12 to 15 just didn’t pick well no matter how we scalded them so we re-rigged our home-made dunker to hold eight birds. (The metal cage to the left of the yellow, half-drum, scald tank held eight birds and, with a single pull of a wire rope, would release them into the plucker.)

That worked better but severely taxed our 30-gallon scald tank with electric heating elements. A bigger problem still was that our lift motor on the dunker was now under powered and needed a human assist on every raise. It was the ten power lifts per batch of birds that broke the camel’s back – in this case I was the camel!

Alice and I were processing 160 birds per day and I was crippled by the end of the second day. We limped over to the Amish butcher shop and helped Ernie Kauffman and his family clean the last of our birds.

Ernie Kauffman’s original tub plucker

We showed Ernie the video of Joel’s machinery and processing methods and he was mightily impressed. At the time Ernie could pluck a chicken in less than 30 seconds with his ancient table top plucker. After I took Ernie to see some expensive equipment up close, Ernie went right home and built a plucker with a cut down 50-gallon drum, a 2 x 4 frame and a lawn mower engine. This is the photo I submitted to Farm Show magazine in 1995 with the words, "Somebody ought to develop this."

Ernie’s machine spawned a revolution in small scale processing. It inspired the Jako line of equipment, designed by our friend Kenneth King, as well as several simple plan sheets (the first by me) and Herrick Kimball’s Anyone Can Build A Mechanical Tub Style Chicken Plucker in 2002.

As fate would have it, Alice and I stumbled upon a mini-scale of processing poultry at the Hong Kong farmer’s market.

(After communal slaughter and scald, vendors at the Hong Kong Farmer’s Market cart their chickens to their stalls to pluck. Five birds are bundled by one foot through slaughter and scald. Note also the crates filled with chickens and the large green feather barrel. These guys sell a lot of chickens every day and there were dozens of venders like this. Transparency in food preparation is normal in countries still strongly connected to the land.)

We saw the same thing in Indonesia where Alice’s parents live, and, with great anxiety, piles of red tape and translation nightmares, we imported a batch of them. We named it the Featherman Jr.

The Featherman Junior at work

It broke the $1000 price barrier (before Jako you had to spend $3600), picked beautifully, but had two drawbacks – an 18” tub diameter (leaving 12” between fingers) and a belt drive. That meant two chickens at a time, no turkeys and periodic belt adjustments. We knew we could improve on it and save on shipping fees and heart attacks.

Syl’s plucker, the first Featherman plucker

The first, full sized Featherman pluckers – with genuine 50 gallon drums as tubs! – were made by me and another Jamesport Amish neighbor, Syl Graber. They looked like Ernie’s but had metal frames, shrouded 1 horsepower motors, and 10:1 speed reducers. After two years we designed the current plastic model of the Featherman.

Whether you are using a Featherman Junior, one of Syl Graber’s originals or our current Featherman plucker, you owe a debt of gratitude (as do we) to Amish ingenuity, Asian miniaturization, and my - formerly - bad back.

The Journey to Wonderland

Our journey to this these 64-acres we call Wonderland, next door to Poosey Conservation Area and the largest Amish settlement west of the Mississippi, has taken us through overlapping periods of row crop farming, purebred cattle business, management intensive grazing and a natural meat business.

We migrated from the center of conventional agriculture to the edge of alternative agriculture. When you start as green city kids that is a long row to hoe. Fortunately, we had many amazing teachers along the way and – the real blessing of being new to it all – we kept our minds open to the many possibilities available.

It’s always more fun on the edge (and the lead dog always gets the best view!) so, in the spirit of chronicling and showing off, but also with the sincere hope of inspiring your ride on the edge, I'll share some views and activities that led us to Wonderland.

The purebred Gelbvieh herd and controlled grazing – 1980s & 90s.

With a 45-day calving period, management intensive grazing and no supplemental feeding, we developed an elite herd of females recognized by the Gelbvieh Association for outstanding reproductive performance. The Gelbvieh cattle were our bread and butter through the 80s.

Grassfed meant organic in 1995

After travelling to New Zealand, first in 1987, then '91 and finally '95, we become fervent believers in the power of proper pasture management. To that end I organized the Green Hills Farm Project grazing group in 1988 and helped Jim Gerrish and Fred Martz start the popular University of Missouri Grazing School at Linneus.

During this period, I couldn't stop preaching the gospel according to grass and contributed to the Stockman/Grassfarmer frequently as well as a smattering of other magazines like the Country Journal above.

From pasture raised to direct marketing didn't seem like a big leap. We already had a unique, healthy product that was simple to sell. We knew the world was going to discover grass fed meats when Jo Robinson discovered them and produced her fabulous little book (below) and seminal website, www.eatwild.com.

Schafer Farms steer and lambs on the cover of Pasture Perfect by Jo Robinson

Pastured pigs that come when they’re called

Bush pigs that don't

Free Ranger chick on border patrol - Prairie Schooner in background

Schooner as Shade Mobile in mid-summer between batches of chickens

To better utilize the forages, we added lambs in 1989 and began direct meat sales to consumers. Pastured chickens and pigs were added in 1993, doubling our direct marketed revenues every year for the next four years. Seeing the potential to support ourselves on our own farm, we left the 540-acre family farm and homesteaded our own 64-acres eight miles away.

Putting the straw bales in

Having lived in a drafty, old, secondary farm house for 20 years, we opted for an efficient and environmentally friendlier alternative and built our Wonderland home. 1998-2000.

Those are the highlights of two decades of agricultural adventures. For an historical perspective of the evolution of the Featherman plucker check out "The Story of the Featherman."