4-H PROJECT INFORMATION - PANEL DISCUSSES OPTIONS FOR PASTURING POULTRY

A panel of poultry producers presented different methods of raising chickens on grass to an attentive audience at the Wisconsin Grassworks Conference on February 25-27.

Mike Braunel of Merrill uses the Joel Salatin method, which utilizes movable, bottomless pens holding up to 100 chickens each. Mr. Braunel and his wife, Jill, have raised about 1,000 chickens per year since 1997 with help from their two children, Tom and Elizabeth.

"We're getting more orders than we want, " Mr. Braunel said. "We'd like to get more people to do it," to take the pressure off of their operation.

Mr. Braunel said the chickens cost about 65 cents per pound to produce, and were sold for $1.50 per pound.

The Braunel's raise six different groups of Cornish-cross chickens during the growing season each year, with about 160 in each batch. The brooders, housed in an old trailer home are warmed up, provided with feed and water, and bedded with sawdust before the day-old chicks arrive.

At 3 weeks of age, depending on the weather, the chicks are moved to the Salatin pens, one of several types of movable pens being used by pasture poultry producers in the United States.

Joel Salatin of Swoope, VA developed the 10- by 12-foot pens and has popularized them through his book, "Pastured Poultry Profits." The pens are 2 feet high and flat-topped. Hinged doors in the top provide access to feeders, waterers, and chickens, and half or more of the roof is covered with aluminum or other solid material. Half of the sides and all of the back are typically covered also.

Mr. Braunel estimated that materials for the pens, which were built from treated lumber, bolts, chicken wire, and salvaged aluminum sheets, cost about $125.

Predators, rain, and cool weather have not been a problem. Mr. Braunel said, "but 98 degrees is."

The Braunels, who also run a 40-cow seasonal dairy, graze their heifers ahead of the chicken pens. The pens are moved twice daily to fresh grass, using a custom-made, hand-powered dolly.

Mr. Braunel puts 80 chickens in each pen. That number, he said, seems to maximize grazing and minimize crowding. The chickens are also fed as much as they want of a custom grain mix.

The Braunels send out a newsletter each spring to their customers that lists chicken pick-up dates and includes an order form and explains any change they have had, and any new products. Chicks are then ordered based on customer orders.

The Braunels always butcher on Saturdays, Mr. Braunel said, and customers also pick up on those days. Birds are butchered at 8 and one-half weeks, dress out at about 5 and one-half pounds. Mr. Braunel said he pays his children for their work in raising and processing the chickens, and the end of a pick-up day, they'll have made $7 or $8 in tips.

Tom and Susan Wrochta of Poygan us a different method of pasturing poultry, on that better fits their situation of no additional on-farm labor and having the additional responsibilities of raising and direct marketing Galloway beef and running a market garden for share-holding customers, commonly referred to as CSA, for community supported agriculture.

Mr. Wrochta raises 100 chickens at a time in an 8 by 16 foot chicken coop on skids with a peaked roof that is high enough for a human to enter through the doors on either end. The birds are let out during the day and shut in the coop at night.

Mr. Wrochta uses 150 feet of electrified poultry netting fencing to control where the chickens graze, though other producers do not. He said. The coop is moved using a tractor, ever two days to a week, depending how fast the grazing is used up.

Water for the chickens is provided by hooking old turkey waterers into the water lines already in place for rational grazing of cattle, Mr. Wrochta said.

Jim Quick of Berlin uses a similar system, he said, with a movable coop built out of white oak that he moves with a small tractor. He noted that the coop must be moved after dark, and the chickens had to spend the night at the new location before he let out in the morning, or they would not be able to find their way home.

Although the chickens range up to 300 feet from the coop, Mr. Quick has not had any predator problems during the daytime. As long as the birds are locked in at night, even coyotes aren't a problem.

Diane Kauffman pasture poultry producer and President of the American Pastured Poultry Association form rural Chippewa Falls, said "It's neat to see the range of pens. What we're seeing now in APPA is there's more than one way to raise a bird."

"What the pens look like depends on what material are available, how big a producer want them to be, what is available for moving the pen, and what topography the pen will have to move over," Mrs. Kauffman said.

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