Poly Face Farm

On our stop in VA we visted Poly Face Farm! It was a really cool experience. We also happened to run into Joel Salatin while we were browsing their little store! Ben was so happy, we forgot to get a picture with him until it was too late! Oh well. (For those of you who have no idea who I am talking about, well, you are out of the loop! LOL check out their website http://www.polyfacefarms.com and check out his books also ) No, he has written many books and has pretty much been the founding of the grass-fed, healthy eating, buying local movement. He has had to fight many battles with the government to get where he is today. He is big on producer to consumer, you come out and see how I raise my animals and decide for yourself if you want it to eat. We should have the choice to eat what food you want, not just what the government thinks is right. He has a large farm in the shenendoah valley in VA. He raises and sells pasture raised, eggs, chickens, turkeys, pork, beef and rabbits. They are raised in the sunshine and see fresh green grass every day, not injected with any hormones or GMO food, raised the way God made them to be. You know what is in these guys. Bet you can't say that about the food you eat?
We liked getting ideas and seeing it in person what we had read and watched. It was really down to earth, nothing too fancy and we walked away going, "We can do this" For all my friends out there who are jealous, I have posted the pics just for you! I hope you enjoy!

The baby chicks in the warmer house
under gas heaters

The row of chickens. The broilers are set diagonal all across the field, corner to corner, so none are right next to each other, and moved up one spot each day to new ground.

These guys, or rather I should say girls are moved every couple days and free range in the field with the broilers. They follow the cows, who are moved every other day (I believe) to the next strip of grass across the field. The chickens clean up behind the cows, eating any bugs, and leaving no cow patties unturned. It is a very neat system. With rotational grazing, your cows eat down your pasture with out wasting part of it as well

The turkeys, set up the same way as the chickens

Cute little bunnies

Their hoop-houses they use to keep the birds over winter, with rabbits above, and use them as their green house with rich manure come spring!

Their chicken plucker, a pretty cool invention. They process their own chickens on site. By VA law they are allowed to process and sell no more than 20,000 birds a year per farm. So some poly face interns who have their own farms and follow the same principles also bring their 20,000 chickens and sell under poly-face. There is ways to get around the government!

The other way of doing chickens when they are closer to buildings, roads etc, electric net fencing, still in a movable building, moved every couple days along with the fence.

We enjoyed our visit and came away with many ideas.