Today Rich and I went to the Small Egg on a Range Setting Field day
that I mentioned a few days ago that was offered by the North Carolina Cooperative Extension office. Let me just start off by saying WOW, we were both impressed! The lectures in the morning were well thought out, lunch was great and the tour afterwards was over the top fantastic.
After a few opening remarks, introductions and a hearty welcome, our first presentation was delivered by Joe Moritz of West Virginia University about chicken diets. He reviewed a number of research projects that showed the effect of various diets and how range foraging affected the birds and their eggs. I've been trying to research about what to feed chickens but so much of what I'd found online was
unclear and I was left more confused than ever. The information that Joe presented was immensely helpful to me and as his presentation finished I felt more confident than ever that I could figure out what feed to provide.
The second presentation was by Donna Carver of North Carolina State University about
biosecurity and how to be a good neighbor. She covered the types of things to consider when raising chickens near neighbors and how to protect the birds from some of the common bacterium and viruses that they're
susceptible to. I'd previously read some about this but I had no idea how serious it really was. I came away with more great information about preventative measures to take to protect our flock once we finally get one.
Ken Anderson of North Carolina State University spoke third about selecting breeds for meat and egg production in range conditions. I've been researching this as well and I was pretty sure I knew what type of birds I wanted. I didn't realize that there's more to consider than I originally thought and I need to go back to the drawing board to figure out what birds will best fit our goals. I'm sure I'll be using the web sites that Ken recommended to do more research before I order our first batch of chicks.
Our last speaker of the morning was Kim Decker of
NCDA & CS and he spoke about how to market egg and meat products when you're a small producer. This probably affects us the least because we're primarily interested in keeping chickens for eggs for our own use but there was still tons of great information. He covered some egg laws in our state and talked about some of the business side of raising chickens.
After the speakers were finished, Joe Hampton of the Piedmont Research Station where we were currently touring told us about the lunch they'd prepared for us that day. We were having chicken! What else, right? We had chicken grown right there at the research station and it was fantastic. Here's a picture of Rich's lunch:
After lunch we had to suit up in
tyvek suits to reduce contamination to the facility. We were the first group to tour in years because of the danger of contamination. Because this facility does some really important research, it's critical that the birds be protected. The suits included plastic boots and hairnets and we wore were oh-so-stylish. It was worth it though to see the chickens. Here's Rich modeling the suits before the tour:
Now we're finally to the really awesome part of the day - the tour. Joe Hampton was our tour guide and he has this infectious enthusiasm about the chickens and the research they're doing there. He's a great speaker, very knowledgeable about the facility and was very good at explaining things in a way that even someone like me without a background in poultry science could understand. We started with a tour of the hatchery, incubation and sorting building. Here's where I wish I'd taken a cam
corder to record everything he said about the building, equipment and research because it was all fascinating. Instead, I've got a few pictures that I hope turned out well enough for you to get an idea of how cool this all was:
Joe is the guy in red talking about the incubators and hatchery:
The hatchery equipment is all computer controlled:
This is Ken showing us the trays where eggs are stored until they hatch:
Here's a picture of the processing room where the chicks are vaccinated, sorted and otherwise handled after they're hatched:
After seeing where the eggs are incubated and hatched, we moved on to the chicken house. This is where chickens are raised just like they are in commercial operations. These chickens are part of various experiments that take place at the facility. I wonder if this is how chickens were raised in the big barns on our property?
The chickens in this house were molting so they looked pretty rough. They're kept in close quarters in cages just like a commercial operation would use. They don't have much room to move around though and while chickens don't need a whole lot of space, it still seems like cramped quarters. Everything about this facility was clean and well maintained though and even though there was a bird smell in this building, it wasn't overpowering. Joe spoke a little bit about how increasing grain prices was affecting his budget because chicken feed had gone up 50% in the last year. The budget at the research station is set by the state and while they do sell some things to help cover their expenses, they have to be very careful about competing with the people they're trying to support in the industry. One woman on the tour asked how we could help the station and we were told to write to our government representative in the legislature to let them know that we want them to continue to support the research being done at this field station. I will be writing my letter this weekend!
And finally, happy chickens! Another part of the experiment was the compare the birds in the chicken house to birds raised on the range. This is a similar set up to what we want to do here on the farm, although on a much smaller scale. These looked like healthy, happy chickens. Nearby there were a couple of chicken tractors.
As if that wasn't enough, afterwards we got a tour of some of the horticulture experiments that are going on at the site. They're trying to breed strawberries that will grow during the winter here in North Carolina! How cool would that be?
I can't say enough good things about the field day at the Piedmont station. If you have a chance to attend one of these field days, it is definitely worth it!
This picture shows the side of the barn now that enough trees have been cut down to see it. All the green in front of the barn are leaves from branches that haven't been cut up or hauled away yet.
I know this picture doesn't make much sense but this is really what it looks like in person too. The trees are holding up what little wall is still in place and there's wood falling down everywhere. A few more trees and hopefully it'll all fall over and we can just pick up the pieces. Surprisingly, some of the wood is going to be salvageable. We'll need to pull out the nails and trim some of the pieces but some of this can be reused.
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