Alright, hello everybody and good morning! Welcome
to Heifer USA's Great American Farm Tour! Today, we are coming to you from Roanoke, Indiana at Seven
Sons Farm. I'm so excited to be here I hope you are, too! I'm joined by my tour guide, Blake Hitsfield today. Welcome to the Farm! Awesome, we're so glad that you're here. There's going to be so much to
see in this video. You're not going to want to miss a single minute of it, and stay tuned until the
end because we have literally - just some amazing enterprises, amazing scales of production, that are
going on here. Really, really excited to be here with you all today, so if you've got any questions,
type them in the live chat. If you're watching the recorded version of this video, just type them down
in the comments below, and we'll answer as many of those as we can along the way. But we're going to
jump right into it and get started with the tour today, because there's just so much to see - I mean,
they're doing massive enterprises at scale here: awesome production facilities, raising pastured
poultry, grass-fed finished sheep, cattle, layer hens, pastured pork - They're doing it through the
winter, even! Just some really amazing stuff that you're not going to want to miss, so stick around
with us! Ask your questions, and I hope you enjoy the tour today! Blake, how're you doing man? Doing
good, doing good. Awesome! Well, thank you again so much for taking us along on the
journey today. Glad you're here, and I want to thank everybody for tuning in - whether watching
live or later - we just love to share what's going on in our farm. We're very passionate about what
we do when it comes to raising healthy food, and taking care of our land, and taking care of the
people that make up the team here at Seven Sons. that's awesome yeah you guys have a big team
here don't you yeah it's grown over the years and that's what makes it uh even more exciting
to come to work is you can you know it's fun to be passionate about something but when you can
share that passion with with other people it's just that compounding effect happens so we've had
a great team here and you're going to see some of them today as we drive around and see things and
tour the farm and uh yeah cool well I can't answer any questions I can't wait to get started let
me ask you just at the top here real quick tell me just a little bit about the history of seven
sons Farm yeah so the history of seven sons Farm we started the brand in 2000 prior to that this
was a conventional Farm we raised uh 1500 Acres row crop we had pharaoh to finish confinement we
sold the ibp that got bought out by Tyson later and we got to the point where uh one the farm
we started losing acreage to just commercial development residential development so the farm
was not becoming profitable because you know you need about 1500 Acres of the conventional to
just get enough off the farm for one income so we're losing acreage there and at the same
time we had a Health crisis in the family and when you combine those two things together
it got us thinking outside the box what can we do unconventionally medicine wise to help our
family members had been my mom and then also when you're back up against the wall and you're not
profitable you either get out or you figure out something different to do to try to make a change
to be profitable on your farm and so that kind of started the journey in the 90s and like say in
2000 we formed the seven sons brand and that was at the point where we thought it was hard farming
conventionally making a profit and when you start a new a new business you think well you start
in at Ground Zero and then you learn and grow and actually you start here and then you go down
because you don't know what you don't know so the next 10 years were really hard for us but thanks
to my parents and just the great team and family we have here we were able to work through those
challenges we learned a lot of things wrong I feel like we're still learning them but that learning
pace is slowed a little bit to where we can actually do profitable and make make a business
out of it yeah so yeah so our farm went from 500 Acres down to about 500 acres and the neat
thing is is we went from 1500 Acres that was barely enough to be profitable for one family and
now we have a team of about 20 full-time people the team's up to about 40 all together with some
part-time so we're providing income for and and careers for all those people as well off of the
550 Acres then we have partnering Farms that are helping out as well on the production side for
the uh for the cattle and for the Hogs so it's really that's like a ecosystem here that we've
been able to partner with just local farms and just the community around us and the people that
work here hey that's super cool well I can't wait to go check it out and see all of the progress
that you guys have made so where do you want to go to first uh we will start with uh where we're
washing eggs because we're washing eggs right now and they're only watching for a little while so
let's go in here and we'll take a look at them we are very specific when we look at our
production Enterprises we'll talk a little bit later about that but um hopefully you can
see the line needs more stuff over here yeah so this is an automatic egg washer and grater
we've got the uh the conveyor on this side where we're loading the eggs we're washing eggs
about three times a week three or four times a week depends on the schedule and what's going
out so we've got an automatic loader the vacuum system of course I'm gonna close them off the
trays over there we'll pull them off the trays load them onto here and then they go through
uh the Candler right here and we've got this tarp around here that kind of just darkens the
uh darkens the light so that you can actually see a little better in there oh I see yeah see
the eggs they kind of they kind of illuminate a little bit oh that's amazing yeah and uh Rebecca
what are you looking for hairline fractures air bubbles anything that's kind of abnormal
maybe a blood spot anything like that that you can pick out when dark eggs brown eggs is harder
to see some of those but we still can do a pretty good job of getting gets graded and making sure
that we can pull out any of the uh abnormalities that's awesome yeah and then they're going through
yeah yeah so then we've got a washing so there's a tube in here that uh well you can see it here so
this tube here has just warm water going through it you can see it it's falling out here and just
dribbles on the eggs as they go through there's no other solution it's just it's just water yeah
and uh the brushes run and the eggs kind of rotate as they're on that conveyor so the first chamber
is just wash and the next three chambers here are all the dry so there's no more water hitting
the eggs it's just the brushes and the and the fans to try to get a lot of that moisture
off before they go to the the greatest station so then the uh the eggs come through here we've
got uh an eye here that is weighing the egg and sizes it so then these kickers here will kick them
off according to the however we're shorting the eggs so and then they come down and then we're
able to uh use the vacuum system as well to be able to pack the egg so these things here kind
of vibrate you can see I'm moving back and forth and get some down in place and make sure
they're facing the right direction already you'll have to do that so this is kind of
a new addition that we've added in the last year we used to just do this all by uh by hand
and that was a lot of work so yeah we are uh yeah is a lot easier wow that's incredible you
like the system better yes I bet you do that's super cool yeah got your labels got your boxes
and uh are you guys shipping this stuff all over the country so yeah we're shipping as well as
uh we're in um I think uh multiple Whole Food stores I'm not quite sure how many inside of
the Whole Food stores across the country so um yeah so they either go out there or they
go through our farm store um and we're gonna see where these are being laid out on pasture
later right we are we are we're going to get out there we're going to see and actually be able to
probably depending on the time of day we might be able to see how we're gather them as well so cool
I see it I see a familiar looking logo over here so you got boxes for Joe's Farm yeah they believe
you guys are just there visiting we were great American farm tour number one was at Joe coopson's
farm so if you saw that video guys this is a part of the eggs came from for his farm yeah so we work
with John we're excited to do that we're a USDA trading station so that allows us to be able
to custom grade or wash other people's eggs so well that's super cool well let's
head back out I think the Signal's getting a little weak so we'll
head back out over here absolutely so we'll gather anywhere from 10 to 12
000 eggs a day wow and and I just want to show folks all these eggs this is like one
day's worth yeah probably not even no not quite even yeah yeah probably about three
pallets two and a half pallets a day so wow man that is an incredible operation people are
flipping out online uh all over the world Slovakia Australia I want to say hey to Rick Merrick um
Leo and aspers from the Philippines organic gal in Maryland thank you guys so much I hope you
guys are enjoying this tour if you thought the eggs were cool stick around we got a lot more
to show you uh really great content just like that that's amazing yeah and you don't have to
start there we were able to you know we we went from washing eggs and putting them in cartons you
know just in the kitchen sink to as it grows it makes sense to make those Investments this unit
here is anywhere from 50 to 70 000 with the the loading system the unloading system the watch and
the grading so it can take time to get to enough scale to make it work but we're not even running
it at half capacity so we're only washing eggs you know the total cost for the infrastructure there
you said I think about 70 000 if you bought it all new gotcha I could be be wrong a little bit
yeah no that's good information though for our viewers I think we got it from National poultry so
it's a model 20 uh washer from natural poultry is the company oh National gotcha I believe so and uh
we we we're not able to show you guys inside here um but this is where they're doing all of your
distribution so this uh this building here would be our basically our distribution center so
all the product that uh that we raise and get processed it goes up to Michigan gets processed
and it comes back down Frozen from our processor and then we utilize we've got on-site uh Cold
Storage here as well as uh we're just 10 miles from Fort Wayne as well and they've got a nice
cold storage facility there oh no you can utilize both so it makes it really uh really nice it's
kind of an unfair advantage to be that close to um Cold Storage so yeah yeah so probably comes
back here and then we ship we ship out via UPS and we also utilize some other local couriers
which we which is really neat because as Logistics continue to grow in the United States there's
there's more opportunities for other companies to get in the logistics business so maybe there's
more options than just FedEx UPS DHL things like that so if you can find which we've been able
to find local couriers that either service a big city or you know a certain amount of
zip codes or the whole state they usually can get you a little better service a little
better deliverability and hopefully some cost savings so we utilize that as well there's two
other companies that we use outside of UPS so cool awesome well if you guys have any questions
let us know guys we're going to hop in the side by side and take a little drive right we are all
right gonna jump in you open here thank you sir got beautiful weather here yeah it's gorgeous
out here you got some nice Fall Foliage um beautiful weather I mean it's going to be
like 60s and 70s today um let's see we got a question coming in from organic gal she says
do you wash the eggs because you're required to do that or why do you wash them so we're not
required to wash the eggs but we are required grade them they have to be graded they have
to go through some form of grading so we are so we're just yeah we're just adding the water
to it customers probably like a cleaner product yeah it depends on who you're who you're
selling to some you know some people like a pasture packed egg and um and uh there's some
things you got to work through legality wise for that but you can still run it through your
grader without so they still have the balloon bottom which is a lot of customers want that
corrected with the blue lot they don't have to don't have to be refrigerated gotcha only in
the United States we refrigerate eggs yeah I know I know it's crazy yeah that was probably
I think organic Gala said she was from Maryland but I wouldn't be surprised with a lot of our
International viewers are like why are they watching them I don't know if you can convince
me a great reason why we have to watch series um and refrigerate them so because once
you once you grade or wash it yeah man it is just beautiful out here I'm just going
to show Pan the camera around just to show you guys a little bit so you can see just how
gorgeous this place is and get to some more of your questions while we're driving over to
check out the pasture Hawks where we're going first right we're going to get to see one of
the groups of the pigs that we have out here for those we're very uh we're very specific
with our with our production models um in in our industry it's very easy to over
complicate and get a lot of things going on and it's it's hard to uh it's hard to have the
bandwidth to keep them uh focused and profitable at the same time so we did something years ago
where we just really tried to simplify them yeah scale them and then when we need to fill in the
gaps we have partners for that so for instance we don't do any Fairwind on our farm right we
just focused on the finishing side of it yeah that's what we do too yeah it's uh it really
streamlines it so then we're able to scale that same time because we're not spread so thin
trying to do every you know it's easy to look at at Hogs as one Enterprise but really
it's multiple Enterprises going on same time between fairly in the gestation and then you know
uh the finishing so this here what we just passed is our our portable feed wagon okay so we're
able to uh we're able to mix our own feed here on the farm yep we've got a Mill and then we can
grind into it so whether we're taking [Applause] demo feed out to the pogs for the chickens this
can it's all set up on a tractor so you can get out to the where the feeders are where the
animals are maybe when the weather's not as bright as you would like it to be anyways I know
that's the game changer right there it is it is it helps so much I mean we do something similar
but not quite to that scale I mean to have your own you know looks like you've got your own
um Hopper on there and yeah it's a nine ton um nine-time Hopper and that auger will swing
out and we're able to hit the feeders like I think Joseph just fed the Hogs this morning oh
good perfect timing Phil defeater there now you can see him in action hey sorry if you look
at that down for us all right thank you sir hey here they are I told him I closed
the gate but I got to remember to do that I hope I'll help remind you there we go
there's somebody in the audience you guys if we don't close that gate on our way up
yeah we're gonna have to quit and go well let us know in the comments you'll
be watching us chase pigs maybe now foreign over there and get that gate for the
door for you I think I got it got it thank you all right awesome so this would be a group of
of hogs we've had out on pasture uh for the past um I think they came in in May but uh so we like
I mentioned we don't do any of our own fairling we have uh two three other Farms that meet our
production standards and they do the frailing they just focus on that part of it and they do a
fantastic job they don't have to worry about once the pigs are weaned they just get them to that
60 to 80 pound range then we take them from there so they come already trained to hotwire oh that's
good yes yeah so that's what the first thing we do is train them train them yeah and you do want
to make sure they are trained before you just stick them into two wire uh poly wire like this
and really the two wires are are more for when they're younger and for me the security for me
knowing that they're not gonna get out but as long as you have really one good hot wire that
they can visually see and they've respected at a young age we found that one wire can work
just as well with uh Hogs the size right here awesome and then how many uh y'all finished
in a year roughly so we'll finish about 600 a year on our farm and uh there'll be a couple
other Farms will finish another 600 so we'll sell a little over a thousand Hogs a year that's
amazing that's that's really incredible I mean I think we're doing about four or 500 and I know
how much effort goes into just doing that so yeah and Hogs are destructive by Nature they're so
disruptive and that's and it's it's I keep telling our team it's like it's our job that's okay
it's our job now to just utilize that and manage for what we want get a little closer
and show folks your Hogs they're looking good yeah and how do you manage that tell me a little
bit about how pastured pork works in your guys's regenerative Ag Systems so Hogs need shade so
we always try to build their their pens so that they have access to shade but we're going to
use them in areas where we feel like we need a little more disturbance so this field that
we're in here is uh pretty high in Fescue not a lot of diversity so we find where we can take
the hogs in and create a little bit of an element of disturbance in the soil that latent seed bank
will come back very strong the seeds are there it's just a matter of giving the opportunity for
them to express themselves and so that's how we're going to use the Hogs and more of our pasture open
pasture area when we get more into the woods you know we're looking just to open up a little bit a
lot more sunlight down through and when we drive through we had the Hogs over there earlier in the
part of the year and you can kind of see how it's opened up in the woods we'll show when we drive
by but we really don't want any more than than 50 disturbance like that's our goal if we get over
that then um you know it's we've not done our job properly in my opinion uh here for our land and
what we're trying to achieve here and how often are you kind of moving them from Paddock to panic
so that's where the whole adaptive management comes in whatever your eyeball says and whatever
the eyeball says based upon the density City how big of an area they had and then a lot depends
on the weather when they're when it's nice and dry you can get by with leave them in one spot
for maybe a week or 10 days because they're not as aggressive and and they're this age right here
they're not nearly as aggressive as when they're 80 to 120 pounds yeah at that age they are so
aggressive and they're always out trying to root something up but at this at this size they're more
interested in eating sleeping and and repeat yeah yeah that they've they've gotten all that out
of out of their system that rambunctious stage and then I see you got your big uh Grant your
big feeder over here the feeder Hopper there so we just moved that uh when we move the pig so
when we set up a new wire all we are going to do is just so they're moving to uh to this side
over here we'll set up a pen and we'll just move the feeder across we'll lift the wire up and the
Hogs are trained they'll just go right underneath the wire gotcha so there's no gate or anything in
here let's just lift the wire so if we lifted the wire here they think that there would be a new
PIN over here and they would just go right under it so when you move them I'm sorry you said you
just lift the wire up yeah so we'll have another wire on this side which will represent the new pen
and then we'll just lift four wires up basically put a post in the middle of it nice in 20 minutes
at this stage they're trained really well they'll come running right through when we first get them
uh we'll just have to throw a bucket of feed kind of in a teeth across form so running out over the
wire fire and then this way and then they learn to come right up to it and they trust going under the
wire when they see that post up like that and they just they pigs are smart they catch on they are
they are really they actually know when the fence is off too yeah yeah no that's super cool uh just
real quick want to say to some of our audience thanks to Sham and Texas for watching uh mad Acre
Farms appreciate you guys Karen Gallegos sham says seven sons is one of the best farms in the
midwest organic gal says this is a this live is so interesting so everybody's enjoying the content
thank you guys so much again this is this is super cool yeah yep and and it doesn't have to be
complicated it only takes us about 20 minutes to set up a new pen every time we come out here and
do it if you have the right tools and equipment and the skill set it just doesn't take long it
doesn't have to be this you know drawn-out deal now when you're working through the woods you may
be you know working through some Briars and some some so I don't I don't see your solar charger how
you guys make making this fence hot yeah so we are running it off of our main charger so we have a
100 Joule charger is our main charger and it runs basically a mile and a half down there down this
whole Road this whole Lane here we'll go through that whole Lane on the tour and it just speeds off
of that so all of our packs will feed off of it and so this will get heated from that so if we're
running a netting then we will run a solar charger okay because they just draw so much yeah so much
uh current from the main charger so but yeah this is running about 8 000. yeah yeah it's good that's
good Good and Plenty they look like they know they know one thing uh that can be challenging is
watering Hogs yeah yeah so um we've tried a lot of different scenarios with with an outside water
this has been the most effective so you can have the the bigger tubs where they're like a 75 gallon
but they're harder to move yeah and um and then they when they get mud in they're harder to clean
because pigs will always come to a water with something in his mouth and then drop it in the
water so this here is just a 10 gallon actually I think it's seven gallon a little trough here
and what we do is just run a hot wire a steel hot wire around the front of it onto this pole okay
it Loops it around and that keeps the pigs from then getting inside of it get inside of it and
flopping it because they would just take it and dip pip it over so they create a muddle yeah pigs
like mud oh yeah and they can make seems like they can make mud out of a heavy do but and you kind
of got it like halfway under the hot wire here too is that intentional yeah halfway under the hot
wire that way we can reach it from this side they don't get into the float in the hose right here so
then they just reach over and they drink out of it but they don't disturb it so if we need to um you
know if we need to dump it out you just like this clean it until it back under nice just like that
that's pretty simple yeah so if it rains uh two inches overnight and this area right here where
they're standing to drink is just really muddy and you don't want that much disturbance you just
take this slide it on down so it only takes a couple minutes it doesn't take a lot of work uh to
move it nice nice and then what kind of uh valve is this right here yeah it's just a regular float
I don't know okay cheap yeah you need your tractor supply stores or something like that awesome
thank you for that demonstration that's awesome I've tried a lot of different water scenarios
so so so have we we I think we're using we're using something really similar to this um our
tote's a little bit bigger maybe double the size of yours right here we got a video on our
channel for anybody that wants to watch it about how we make ours but we do basically the same
thing yeah you know using a small toe like this um easily clean the bowl can dump it out running
a hot water you know either running a hot wire around it or halfway underneath your your actual
poly wire to keep them from getting in there and that's just you know running a hose out to it
and that's just what works best for us too yep and keeping it simple sometimes the sometimes the
hardest thing to do yeah it's easy to complicate something cool awesome well thank you so much
for showing us this this is really amazing if you guys have any questions about their pastured
pork operation get them in the chat while we're heading over to the next place um here in just a
second we'll answer some more of your questions take a quick close-up look at your grain feeder
over here and I'm curious about the the grain you guys use yeah so it's awesome it's all uh pretty
much raised locally here so it's non-GMO corn uh soybeans we're not soy free um so it's an onion
corn soybeans oats and then just a mineral mix that you would put in gotcha so Kennedy Reynolds
asked um do you set up wallows for your pigs um if I feel like they need them yeah I will yep
yep so I'll just let the hose run where I want it to run and let them let them have that and is
there going to be like just weather dependent weather dependent yeah and I mean that's
how pigs stay clean because they need that they need that uh that mud on their skin and it
dries up is this the typical size feeder you guys use or it is yeah a one ton or ton and a half size
feeder is what we'll end up using nice and uh is it mounted to that pallet or is it I don't think
this one's mounted so usually do you usually or not um we'll Mount them but if not then we'll just
let them sit on them and then we'll just use the a skid loader or tractor to scoop underneath
them they need to be on something to get them up a little bit that's what I was wondering
yep so we try to keep a pal under them but not necessarily always mounted cool so awesome
we'll wear to next uh we will transition over to well we'll see if we see any cattle as
we're heading heading towards the Sheep so one thing I will say loading pigs out on patch
I don't know how you guys do it but we have a hydraulic trailer that we're able to come out
here and with poly wire we can just cut the PO put Post in step in post cut the pie wire right
where the trailer back into the trailer is and just open the gate throw some feed in and then
they just all run in the trailer they just close the gate behind them and then you've got your
pigs and stored off any ones you don't want and uh really stress-free where does the with the
hydraulic come into play what is that part I'm not familiar with that so basically it's a it's a 16
foot trailer that hydraulically goes up and down gotcha so it hooks onto a tractor we can just back
right up here so it's right at the ground level so they're not stepping much on to something if my
colleague Christine is watching this or whenever you're watching this Christine raised pigs
without a hydraulic trailer I wouldn't we do in the ramp and uh we know I think we do a ramp and
sometimes we'll we'll sort we'll run them through the Corral just to make it easier you know yeah
and that works okay but uh I can see I can see a hydraulic trailer being the next yeah because
all we have to do is just take an attractor and remove the feeder the night before we want to load
and then just have the the hydraulic trailer here with feed in it yeah and throw a bucket in and
the next morning they're they're there for you they're in there you just close it they don't
even know what happened that's super cool so all right you guys enjoying these um
the the side by side right here let us know if you're enjoying the ride as much as we are um okay I'll take some of you guys
questions now while we're driving okay he just Lumen asked a great question um about how long is the rest for your pastures
on average and your stocking rate shows for pigs so for the Hogs we only want to hit one one
time a year yeah because they're just that destructive yeah I wouldn't say destructive hard
on the land if you're leaving too much [Music] we're gonna [Music] [Music] I'm sorry there was a second part of that
question I think oh um thanks Karen for reminding us about the gate all right our squad's
got our back they got our back um so rest for pigs as you know you do you said you just run
them through a place one time a year yeah and then the second question was kind of your your
stocking ratios okay yeah so usually run about um 50 to 75 in a group per acre yeah and then
just move them accordingly however often we need to move them gotcha there's usually what
our group size would look like in our pin size gotcha gotcha you can see here the pigs were
out in the woods yeah they cleared the year they cleared the floor quite nicely yeah you
can see exactly where the fence was it wasn't we generally don't receive anything we
just we'll just come back is there yeah rain overnight over not to rain and they worked the
ground up quite a bit we'll go ahead and throw some seed on it just to get
some ground cover uh coming quickly this is like mostly oak trees back here
a lot of Walnut a lot of Walnut okay in our area yeah and uh are they like these
black walnuts that kind of thing got you do the do the pigs like those they do and
it sounds painful to listen to them you eat them because it's like rock candy it sounds
like it they don't know to you know suck on them or something they just are a little kid
chewing on it real hard hey sometimes I see our pigs just chew on rocks just for the fun
of it so you know they can probably handle a black walnut no problem yep I'll show you guys
what we're talking about here in a little bit um okay got another question um so sham kadari
asked how do you take care of pigs in the winter and actually we're going to show that later
on yeah we're gonna go there after we look at the Sheep so yeah keep keep watching Sean but
we're going to show you how they're raising pigs in the winter they got a really awesome
unique setup that I'm super excited to see um thanks Rick for reminding us about the gate
and we got another great question from Lang Yang he said do you run anything behind the pig for
like rotational grazing or are you intentionally following the attics in any way with behind the
pigs um not really after the pink we're going to let it go through a pretty good rest period so
probably you know 60 to 100 day rest period to let the pastor really come back and then it's
going to be a room in the animal whether it's sheep cattle okay like that gotcha okay got a
little bit of cattle here speaking of cattle so we will generally have um a couple hundred head
of finishers on the farm at once we usually get those in Spring and we bring them in as um about
800 900 Pounders so we buy from farms more in the South where they can have an earlier calving
season so that we can have calves that will finish by Fall our goal is to not overwinter more than
you know a third of what we buy or a quarter what we buy in the spring so we want them out before
the cost of that maintaining that animal or cost of gain goes up with stored forages that we've
had to make gotcha so we like to bring them in at that eight to nine hundred pound range and the
end of April they'll spend the summer here grazing and rotating here on the farm eating grass and
whatever else we have in our forages and then by the um by this time of the Year we're
harvesting out of that group by December January most of them will be gone gotcha I got
you I ever take a little closer look just real quick absolutely so this is is actually a a small
cow herd that we that we ended up having too many from a timing standpoint too many fat cattle
last year so I I read some of these about 30 of them and I let them calve out and we
don't intend to keep them we don't raise any we don't have a cow calf herd basically
so even though we do have them this year it's not in the long-term plan okay gotcha and then
um I guess uh how many cattle you guys usually finishing on the farm so we're usually finishing
150 to 200. a year okay yeah that's awesome cool well they're a little shot this morning so
we'll let them get back to breakfast yeah so we just we just uh scanned our cattle yesterday our finishing herd to uh kind
of identify the ones that are um that are maybe the ones that are close to finish
yeah so we're looking for some stress I think you guys have done done that yeah you said you guys
worked with Clay Nash right yeah he was here yesterday yeah yeah we got a video on our Channel
if you guys are curious to learn more about how um how you can scan a cow a cow basically to do
exactly what Blake's talking about you know see see what the marbling is looking like see how
the muscle development is going and yeah you guys can see all about how that process works so
you can check out that other video on our Channel I really like it because it allows us to be
able to identify which animals are either really forming well and which animals maybe are not
performing as well maybe some are stressed and you'll see that in there and the tenderness in
the top Little League will be shown through that process so you may be thinking about um you know
cutting that animal up differently maybe going to a different uh customer you know for us when you
have maybe some meat shops or some butcher shops that you're working with we always tend to want
to give everybody our best animal and when it comes to working with a meat shop you want to best
animal but sometimes by doing that if you can't consistently give them that same quality you're
setting yourself up for this point right because um you know if you sell that first one to two and
it's amazing that's the expectation they have all the time yeah so what I can do is go through
the data after we scan them and I can just say all right I know what our average is going to be
and I can consistently get this type of quality carcass to this customer then that expectation
I can meet that expectation every time you got to go for a little ride going for a little
dip here a little dip crossing the river here well it's just a beautiful property out here
really amazing yeah I really enjoy being outside before a living yeah yeah absolutely when we
do our customer tours we do a wagon ride we actually bring them down here oh yeah
yeah for the highlights that's awesome off to the distance here you can see the
Sheep we have this is a new Enterprise for us we had our first use last February uh-huh and
they started lambing pretty much immediately and they lambd all the way through May
so our goal is to get everything lambing in the May time frame but we wanted to buy
about 600 views and I put a bigger emphasis on them coming from one one location one Farm
versus the timing because I didn't want to mix a bunch of flocks together to get the amount of
use that I wanted so we kind of compromised with the with the the lambing season because I can
correct that in one in one year hope you guys can see them but they are back there they're
probably little white spots on your screen um but what breeds are you guys running so these
are uh it's a Dorper gotcha cool door for flock and uh so why should why sheep what made you guys
want to start sheep so I've always liked sheep I feel like they've had a place on our on our farm
and the fact that we can kind of run them uh with the cattle as well they complement each other
and then we also have a solar project that's developing just a couple miles from here it's
about a thousand acres and we've been in uh talks with them about you know the likelihood of being
able to keep agriculture a part of that yeah and it's it's something that is happening all across
the country in the world really yeah we've been discussing it too at our place because there's
a good symbiosis there with using the Sheep to manage the forage around the solar panels
right yeah there is so so that's kind of our kind of our long-term goal with them and you know
learning to Grace under solar panels is going to be challenging enough and then we've never raised
sheep before I don't want to try to learn cheap and grazing solar panels all the same year so
solar panels could be you know three to five years out but I want to get our flock here and get them
established and just learn make those mistakes here on our farm that initially you will make with
a new yeah the new species yeah we've been running them for a long time out at our place and you've
got some good people on staff and we're actually in the process right now of making an online
course all about how we run our sheep operations start to finish and nice really like going super
in depth it's going to take us probably a year to make the course of course we're putting that
much effort into it wow that's fantastic we need material out there like that because like I'm
excited I'm ready to sign up yeah that's what we notice is that there's just a gap of stuff like
that there's a lot of videos people can find but you know to have everything all in one place
and to go as in-depth as we're going into this thing I mean it's going to be a master class all
about production and so yep but yeah it's a great Enterprise we really enjoy raising them yeah and
they're and they're safe so you can bring in new team members and they can start working with the
Sheep a lot quicker than they could working with the cattle you've got a you know the flight zones
are different with with cattle and and uh and just the the physical size of them can make them
kind of more dangerous than to work with sheep so awesome um so we're excited we're excited about
the Sheep I think they have a future we don't sell a lot of sheep so a lot of lamb that we sell
online um we'll have to either up that site those sales somehow or sell on the commercial market
so let me ask you about that one you want to keep keep driving I think the sheep have abandoned us
but yeah they have I actually we had a question earlier um let me see if I can find it somebody
asked about um it said from a fall it was mad Acre Farms they said from a small farm perspective how
did you grow your customer base wow so it's kind of related to what you're talking about about
acquiring customers for a new Enterprise so from your perspective you know what are one or
two things that that could really help yeah well I think one is identifying like who is your ideal
customer and once you've got that figured out then position your farm to be found so whether that's
you know you can have a website but you still have to Market your website you still have to let
people know that your website exists so whether that's through social media whether it's through
farmers markets it can be an Avenue of multiple different things but at the end you need to keep
pointing them to the direction you want them so if it's a farmer's market that's your first point of
contact maybe the second point would be hey join our newsletter email sign up follow us somehow get
them part of your ecosystem and then if there's anything you can do to just make that experience
of buying from you unbelievably enjoyable buying from a farm is can be very inconvenient it
because Farms are just located not where the customers are that's just the nature of it
so how can you make buying from you convenient and fun so whether that's through home delivery
whether you're doing it personally the deliveries um you know the conventional way of selling
quarters and halves can be cumbersome so can you think about ways of like just making
bundles taking away the the hanging weight because most people know what hanging weight
is so things like that to make that process um you know as less friction as possible yeah
no that's great advice I think that's awesome you know and just uh being comfortable with uh
showing people your farm putting it on social media talking about it going live you know
going live unedited yeah that's how you know this is the real deal you guys I mean this
this video is as as live as it gets and they literally are not filtering anything they're
showing me everything that they possibly can there's complete transparency here at their
Farm no shame whatsoever and I think you can see why pretty clearly they're really proud
of what they're doing and with good reason so where are we headed to next no
we are headed to see the the winter uh setup for the Hawks okay cool
perfect we're just getting ready to we actually have a group of pigs
uh in one of the buildings already and we'll be slowly migrating all the other birds
to the building same way with the chickens we're in that time period where once the weather starts
getting cold enough where your water lines start freezing outside yeah yeah because you guys
get freezing temperatures quite a bit through the winter I imagine oh yeah oh yeah so we're
supposed to get uh we're supposed to be down to 32 in the I think three or four nights from
now so gotcha that makes it challenging [Music] and with chickens laying hens uh the access to water all the time is super
important to the lay rate so we're very particular about when we start moving
them in we don't want to move them in too late flowers it's like that's like a Dairy Farmer they can making salt at their management the
next day or that same day in the milk tank raising grass-fed beef or craftsman lamb or
something like that or even Hogs you don't see that result the next day the animal still made
have the effect from it but you don't see it so Darien and laying hands it's a lot easier
to uh to know where you need to need to focus because you see that the positive
or negative to your management really fast we're just getting here to the winter hog setup
I've got three paddocks that are basically 10 to 12 acres in each Paddock and this first one
here just kind of has the kind of Steel Huts you see I've got that one flipped over there
yeah they work they work generally pretty well yeah they keep the Hogs warm but it still can be a
challenge to get out to bed them all the time and plus the Hogs will come into feeders the
alternators out in the elements so it makes it a little challenging so we built these basically
they're greenhouses station greenhouses and the Hogs will spend four months out of the year in
these buildings access these buildings and we just rotate the Hogs through the 12 acres that each
building has assigned to it each building has the what so they so we got the 12 acres is encompasses
one building so we'll just do a wagon wheel with poly wire around each one of the buildings
okay so wait you're moving these or continue to move them yeah you move these buildings not
the buildings I'm sorry the wire so the Hogs into the buildings let's go take a look so you got some Guardian dogs Yep
this one enjoys being with the pigs is that akbash akbash sure it is
a uh hey great nice nice Pyrenees but you can see so they're just deep bedded
with we use hay like a good hay not a great hay but like a first cutting hay or straw and we
have the uh it's a dark tarp it's not doesn't let any light in it's not white because that can be a
little bit too much sunlight in and the buildings will actually get pretty warm so even like in
December and January if it gets to uh maybe a 40 degree day 50 degree day and the sun's out it'll
get 70 80 in there so we'll use the blackout tarp um just so that we can monitor the temperature
better gotcha and these have we have roll up doors on each end so we got airflow going through
we have a um a energy free water in the center where the Hogs can get uh access to water and it
usually it never freezes because we've got the the building over it and then we have a an auger
system as well so we can run in the winter time about 150 these buildings are 30 by 200 so we can
run about 150 to 200 uh Hogs per building at one time and then we have this auger system it's a two
inch flex auger that anything um a uh a commercial building would have something very similar to this
so anyway we can take some efficiencies and add them to our model we're going to do that as much
as possible so this allows us to get feeders all the way down the 200 foot building and still be
able to utilize it or else we would have to have either way to drive through it or access holes
in the top which is how we do our um some of our our movable buildings for the chickens we'll see
later today we fill them from the top okay and this just runs off of a generator so we just fill
this Bend full feed and then we have a generator here that we run probably two times a week for
three four hours a day so the generators yeah snow yeah something something simple because we
don't have power out here yeah if I had more time which I still want to do is get a solar setup yeah
for this yeah and uh so for folks who might not know that's a little pig hut it's a little bit hot
compared to this massive pickup and this works as oh that's super cool but yeah so then we can
just the pigs will have access all winter out here and we can just put pie wire just like
we did in the summer time we just rotate them around they'll usually make about two trips
uh through the winter hey Max hey buddy you hi you want some of this huh yeah so they'll make
two trips through it and then in the springtime we'll go in with like oats of peas something like
that get something growing really quickly and then come through with the sheep and cattle during
the summer months and graze that off and try to cycle those nutrients as quick as possible nice
awesome yeah so they got the got their big Hood got access to the nice pasture pretty good deal
so it's woven wire all the way around with a hot wire about eight inches to a foot off the ground
that way it's just good and secure for the for the winter months if we get heavy snow we have
to worry about the wire the hot wire Smash down we've got the wolf and wire behind it that's
going to keep the pigs in no matter what cool yeah good good solid Back Fence there we can we
can walk inside this one real quick if you want to see yeah we'd love to this one's you guys
want to go inside this one's empty it's got uh let's get inside up for uh
for the next batch of hogs so we lined the building with a three-quarter
plywood just to keep the the Hogs off of it because they would tear the plastic
yeah and then we just run a hot wire um alongside of the the plywood yeah because the
pigs are just any any crack they get they'll just start peeling away that plywood yeah and
you're replacing that so we just keep hot wire all the way through it and just raise it as
the bedding raises throughout the winter in here and then about every 15 feet we have a downspout
for feed to drop so we can kind of decide if we want to split it up into two three sections
we can do that and then turn on and off um the downspouts to fill the feeders okay so
you can you can turn each one on or off yeah just pull these strings um supposed to be a red
or green ball attached to these yeah you can just pull them and then turns them on and off cool
uh yeah we've got our water our water down here but uh you know do you have a water and you have
a water line running like a permanent Line running in here we do we have a permanent Line running
in here going to the other building and uh we've got about 10 miles of buried water line yeah on
the farm and yeah you never want access to uh to water to determine how you're going to graze yeah
because it's either water or fencing determines how you manage your livestock and if you're
struggling with either one of those you're not going to be able to manage the land how you want
to manage the land so the access to water that's generally never excuse for how we you know didn't
get to manage to land the way we wanted to if we ran out of stepping post or poly wire there's
just no excuse for that you should always have enough to be able to manage um manage land the
way you want to and then tell me a little bit about this water here yeah so this is energy free
so basically it gets us heat from the ground so there's a big sets on a big hole that goes down
about four feet and it's nice and wide we put a concrete pad on top of it this this water then
sits on top we've got an on off valve in there so we can turn on or off if we need to if we got
to work on it and you don't have any problems with it freezing no problems at all especially in the
building staying in here it's never froze this is all be our fourth winner using these and
it hasn't hasn't froze yet I've had a couple freeze outside if you don't have enough hogs
on them to keep the water flowing but these I haven't had any problems inside awesome that's
pretty cool this pretty awesome setup here I like this a lot it's simple it's simple and the
thing is I think we had about 30 000 between the two buildings so they're this was four years ago
so I know material has gone up since then total cost for the two buildings here including the
um feed orders the feed auger yeah we had the we had the uh the the feeder bends outside there
already on the farm so we just relocated them here so overall cost for the amount of hogs
you can run through them it pays for itself lets you keep going all winter long and if
you're not in an extreme winter environment you don't need you don't need something like
this like we're in Arkansas and folks can see on our Channel how we raise pigs in the winter we
did a live streaming go check out that video It's called raising pigs in the winter and uh you
know we don't quite have to go to this extent because we don't have the same level of freezing
temperatures you guys have and we can get away with using the big huts and hay bedding and you
know just de-betting those those big Huts out yeah but that's where location the context matters yeah
yeah absolutely so you want to be able to have uh we want to be able to have uh product year round
to our customers and that's another reason how you can keep customers as long as you have product you
know don't give them a reason to go somewhere else to to have to purchase it but if you run out
there's a great reason why that customer now has to buy from somebody else yeah yeah no this is
unique I've never seen anything like this it lets you still still do your operation with Integrity
access to pasture you know doing all those things that make the product uh as the quality that that
you guys are delivering so that's really cool and then what's the what's the trough here just oh
we had some sheep when the Sheep were in here oh yeah there's some Benadryl in here yeah it's nice
which would you put them in here for again when they were grazing the uh the uh the pasture are
on the outside this summer oh okay so I gotcha yep um so we've seen some dogs on the property
um an organic gal asked you know or she said she loves the livestock Guardian dogs
and some folks were curious about your um dogs just how many you guys have what you use
them for what your experience has been with your livestock dog so we have uh I'm not sure how
many dogs we have somewhere probably around 10 um guard dogs so we've got some with
uh some with the Hogs a bunch with the um with with the the laying hens we try
and incorporate them into the Sheep but uh didn't have a great great year this
year with with the sheep and the dogs um but they're they're solely here to protect
the the animals that they're with so and the main ones are the latest so we have uh we have
them with them year round we'll see them in a little bit the German Shepherd Max running around
here he's just the uh he's the the farm favorite and he gets to run around wherever he wants
nice awesome all right where to next we will uh drive down the road here a little ways to see
the pastured laying hens okay and uh we're gonna our brother Bruce is gonna join us okay let me
switch one thing real quick okay guys change my all right yep all right pastored laying hands and um said uh
you got a unique winter set up for them too right we do something something similar to this only
it's obviously set up for for the laying hands but it realizes it's trying to utilize the same uh
same material for the buildings that way yeah we can repurpose it the neat thing about
these buildings is you can if you wanted to take them down you can take them down yeah
no and then you guys are keeping the hay bales out here for just the betting mode keep warm
you find that they're consuming much of it um I think they consume 10 to 15 of the hay yeah
and I use I like to use hay because they do get a little roughage that way with it let's
go awesome hey Wilson Gomez from West Palm Beach thanks for watching uh ajk appreciate you
watching we set up here in these mountain dogs were brought to the USA by Lafayette awesome
thank you so thanks for sharing that info Rick Delian asked if you have any type
of composting system for any of the waste you guys have out here so we do compost
any of the manure that we'll gather up with a lot of effort we usually just turn
it a couple times a year and then and then we'll spread it in the bottle in here yeah
awesome thanks for the great question Rick yeah we're gonna go so glad you're enjoying
the tour keep watching we're going to go ahead and check out those chickens right now
I believe and Joe Ashley so glad that you are able to join us live all the way from Horse
Cave Kentucky appreciate you guys watching you're just joining us this is the
Great American farm tour number five are live in Roanoke Indiana at seven sons
Farm hanging out with Blake today and I'm pretty fortunate have you guys here today oh man
we're so glad to be here like this this is just a thing this is where I live I'm fortunate enough
to live on the farm awesome we're on the far west end of our property we started this morning
on the far East Side so very cool does most the family live on or around the farm uh we live
fairly close within uh I think everybody's pretty much within four or five miles okay so for those
who don't know the farm is called seven sons farm and yes there are seven suns correct and
our son there are seven so I've got six six younger brothers yeah [Applause] awesome
focus in on different areas yeah very cool hey Hail Mary in Starkville
Mississippi so glad you're watching hope you're enjoying the tour today hang tight guys we're just headed over
to check out their Lane in operations if you guys think you won't want
to miss this there it's going to be a pretty incredible I've
seen some pictures and videos pretty pretty amazing operation I
mean if you saw the beginning of the live stream you saw where
they were washing and packing there how many x 15 000 a day what'd you say yeah
we gather anywhere from uh I think 10 to 10 to 12 000 eggs that we gather a day in the 12 000x so
if you missed this if you're just joining us or came in halfway through go back and watch the
beginning of this live stream and you can see where they were washing all the eggs
and now we're gonna go check out were all laying so I got a question um let's see let's see if I
can answer this one holy cadiro asked how big is the farm and I think you said it's 500 Acres right
500 Acres yeah managing 500 Acres on the farm uh Ling Yang asks as far as water are
you using a pressurized well to feed the limes or is it public utility wall
pressurized Wells I think there's uh four different Wells that we need utilize
on the property it has worked out pretty well there's a couple a couple ponds
that we're able to strategically pull most part it's all all pressure as well awesome and what are we looking at how that dispatchers
neighbors property or you guys mentioning this I'm sorry what'd you say now what are we looking
at uh over here soybeans soybeans yeah so that would be the conventional Farm yeah so this
is the neighbor's property property rotation so that that's the alternative
that's the difference I mean manage one thing like this or you can manage five
or six different things like you guys are on your property and um you guys said you're you're using
some soil in your product is that do you know where that's where the different feed sources come
from yeah so the soy comes from a couple farms in Michigan we're close enough to Michigan yeah um as
across the border right across the line there so extruder up there that corn comes from actually our area one London one actually works for us
part-time in carbs some real crops for delivery on his farm so we buy the non-gumo horn and awesome
works out great we can support him as well yeah that's fantastic I don't know if you've seen one
of these with drive over gates no oh you need one let me let me uh make sure I get this
demonstration here so this is the chicken farm uh-huh it's like 90 acres and we're in and out of
here constantly I'm gonna show people why you do it if you don't mind it's probably going to catch
and grip something off today we'll have the memory to last forever yeah we will if you hit it on an
angle with a smaller vehicle it works pretty good it should just roll back up like that's handy
that's handy that's nice you got to be careful certain Vehicles if there's something on there
we'll snag on here I think that we can make this a little better so it doesn't catch we've already
flipped that angle iron over that's pretty cool sometimes when you're not here four
five six times a day it's hard to be motivated to close the gates every
single time you still need to yeah this is amazing that's where we're going guys there are
a ton of birds out there my goodness we'll meet up with my brother Bruce
he uh he runs our late hand operation so we'll see where we're gonna hey Bruce where
we want to go which building sharp here good so as these buildings rotate we will hit
the most of the uh the land twice yeah so um two times in a year yeah is is okay
three times seems a bit much yeah and we we're running about 100 pins per acre 100 in per
acre yeah you can feel this feels a little rough as we drive through it and it's just because the
chickens they create those dust Pockets everywhere for the adjust bait yeah and uh it makes the
land a little roughly consistently have chickens but I mean the the bass yourself looks great
you know yeah and we figure that we're getting about four ton to the acre of chicken litter
just by having them out here rotating yeah uh rotating through the through the field oh my
gosh hope you guys are still with us because this is pretty cool we'll make sure Bruce got the
fence off this is a Next Level layer operation fences off all right okay cool
thanks sir hey Pokey all right um do you want to switch mics or how do you
want to do that um yeah let's just go and switch because I think Bruce you're going to be able
to answer some of these questions you can also um here let me do this we'll try this Kennedy
let me know if this works out um you guys can just pass this back and forth if you want to just
kind of hold it yep should be okay we'll see how the wind does but uh you guys let us know if the
audio sounds all right um I'm gonna get on this side here real quick so introduce yourself to our
audience here and tell me what's going on today my name is Bruce hitsfield I'm the sixth son here
uh since it's been about seven years now I got into the lane Enterprise been doing it ever since
my brother and I Bryce we're doing it earlier on since then we've had a few things come up he
he grew a sister company called hang gear and I kind of took over with the production side
so yeah we've been growing every year really when I started in I think we had 6 000 hens I
believe four or maybe it was five yeah we're now running between 13 to 16 000 depending upon
the transitional clocks wow that's awesome and what the what breeds are you guys gotta have up
here mostly just two it's a high line or Lowman Brown Ellen brown or Roman Brown we choose those
they're obviously a hybrid we choose The High Line specifically because they're known for uh their
versatility and pasture-based systems some of the other breeds just won't hold up as well um
some of the just harsher environments with the winter and they're just just fight Fringe
it's not as smart of a bird when it comes to versatility so cool let's check it out what
do you want to show us well we can we can walk right into these buildings show that show the
housing environment for these hands absolutely so basically we cut the tractor and we're moving
these buildings basically every day throughout the summer time just we're hooking up to this
cable here on the ground yep we're just gonna pull these buildings like the next move would
be 50 feet this way not a whole lot of room here but then we're gonna come around and go back
towards the winter building yeah [Applause] everything in here they got they got everything
they need we got the the nesters along the wall s along the wall they got feet in here yeah down
the center water lines underneath these nesters so where's the water line right underneath
okay here yep underneath down there yep gotcha inside and outside yep those both walls going
all the way down let me show folks that just so they can see it real quick um so you got your
water on your nipple waterers is that what that is yeah that's a horizontal nipple okay and it's
right there on the edge so when you raise up your your sides there they can easily still get to the
water that's really clever I like that yeah right now the Wall's down a little we have some cold
nights just trying to keep me on that one lined with nesting boxes yep yeah these are these are
nesting boxes that so I talked about Bryce who fired up that sister company called hang gear we
started designing these nest boxes uh what was that four or so years ago yeah all the messy boxes
here is boxes that we designed rollout design so basically we'll come in here uh one o'clock each
day is our start time for Gathering clear the hems out and basically just open up this tray we got
the eggs in here we're just coming through with a basket and flats Gathering through this let's
build them so you're hand Gathering them all can gather okay nice these are these are timers
programmed to uh basically release this mechanism the next morning at 5am that way we don't have to
come out every day and it wasn't what's the point of doing that exactly to keep those hands out of
there keep those Nest pads clean okay that makes sense sleep in there at night gotcha awesome how's
the audio guys let us know I'm just gonna ask let us know if it's loud in here if you guys can hear
us okay the chickens want to be heard they do they do this is their moment in the sun yeah here's why
don't you talk about the solar lighting in here and how important that is yep yeah so right here
is our battery Bank in there we got lights going down here we're just trying to keep 16 hours of
light for the hens need the light stimulation the same within their uh get their egg production
hands in the wintertime oftentimes they'll go into a molt it's just because there's shorter
days in the winter so yeah we're just trying to sustain that 16 hours I'm using solar out here
we're obviously not on the grid so basically just a few hours in the morning a few hours
in the evening gotcha gotcha yeah because in the winter time especially you guys have a lot
less daylight yeah and then and then these are your those that's the food system it's basically
just a gravity fed system we'll come we'll come in here with our brain part yeah we saw it earlier
yeah okay yeah we'll just auger it on down there's there's openings at the top which is all going
on down these six feeters are 300 pounds each um that'll last a week so we feed once a week
in here wow I think it was to step out here just real quick yep folks said the chickens are loud
they can hear us all right the chickens are loud look at this that's incredible yeah we're in their peak hour of late so they're
noisier at this time oh okay so they're they're hard to work yeah yeah and do you find that
they stick mostly to those nesting boxes are they doing their jobs where they're supposed to or
do you have any issues speaking um that's that is a management if you have if you have a lot of
ground Edge that's a management issue for the most part we're obviously just trying to mitigate
things that would make them wildly on the ground you know hinge one feels safe and comfortable when
they're laying their Edge so we're trying to keep everything lifted no no cozy Corners dark spots
on the ground sometimes the passion can really grow and that that can cause issues but that's
why we got cattle here and we'll try to keep it raise down that's specifically a problem right
when the hands go into lay around 20 weeks so let's have a satchel around that timeline
to train them into those missing boxes gotcha that's a that's something that keeps us on
our toes every year with every new thought yeah you think you get it figured out and then there's
another new variable yeah yeah that's okay and uh let me show I'm gonna show kind of the uh the
the top of your Schooners here just real quick um because that's kind of unique and
tell me how you're loading those up yeah so we're just gonna basically
just drive right into here with the grain cart auger comes out we're gonna
hit those hit those openings up there down on in it's just a gravity fed system so
a lot of people use the auger line setup I've looked into that multiple times I tried to reprice
and recoil it over and over and every single time it really just doesn't it doesn't work not
very well for us with what we have here yeah um to be honest the issue is that these buildings
aren't long enough to justify the electronics motor for each building yeah it'll pay off of
what we're able to do with this system awesome let me just check in here and
see am I miss anything Blake not much uh so we got a question here from
Jeff Dixon he's watching in Cambodia today and he wanted to know how much feed you guys
use for this operation here well let's let's see Blake people pull out your calculator really
quick there you go uh we're about 20 .6 a day a thousand hands [Applause] how much per
bird a day you said point point two six pounds yeah 0.26 okay right now I guess
no the average is probably probably about 0.28 because the winter time is going
to go up cooler months they're going to consume more feed oh yes let's figure for
a pasture-based system 0.28 pounds per bird uh times 14 000 times 365. that's one million four
hundred thirty thousand pounds a year good yes sir yeah we're glad we're not uh bucketing that by
hand so we were yeah like one of the same trucks that we saw earlier with the pigs coming through
here yeah the same truck will will come here and fill these okay gotcha another question
from Rick thielen here said uh how long do your hands usually lay before you kind of
rotate them out yeah we're on a one year and one year out cycle okay so give or take um
it can be like 11 to 13 months on the farm um that'll mostly depend upon this winter our
sales cycle is like you know for heavier on eggs I might get rid of that flock a little bit sooner
it just kind of depends on timing with transition of flocks when I'm able to get a new flocking
yeah but it's generally a year okay and uh can you kind of just point out and show me where all your
different Schooners are just so people can see the total size of just because it's not just these
two that we're standing in between right here there's 11 11 Schooners or we call them mobile
coops okay for four here we've got 40 4 600 hens in this flock so basically about a thousand
hens per building and then we got another flock over there okay yeah over there you got
to set with seven more well yeah it was two different flocks there's three buildings this is
another flock and then those four buildings is keep all of our flock separate we don't combine
any any different ages oh yeah that makes sense gotcha and then uh what what do you do when when
they're done laying so when they're done laying um basically they just get sold to backyarders
and um anyone that wants to have them as like a stew meat in the past we've sold them on our
website um that's Stu stewing head yes Stu bird yep nice awesome and how do you how do you get
the do I guess do people just know that they can contact seven sons if they want some layer hands
yep got you yep yeah I have I have a contact list gotcha yeah it must be a mile longer
at least we got some good people on it that's pretty cool so if you guys are in the area
if you're watching and uh you're looking for some good laying hands uh some second year seven
sons Birds probably do the trick for you talk a little bit about the importance of keeping the
clock separate and how you track the light rate things like that yeah so I guess starting with
that records are important you got to know a lot about your birds um the age delay rates even body
weight all these things are very important you're not going to be able to know what to do with your
feed um what what their performance should look like if you don't know these factors so you got
to be gotta be tracking all these things we found that to be one of the most helpful things for us
to really make this a viable operations no know what we're doing out here with the records
we got Daily records each flock record the egg count if there's any mortality they're
keeping track of between a flock number just so yeah if you have if you have mixed ages you
can have a host of different issues for one you can't have your one year and when you're out cycle
because you're going to get rid of some birds too soon so I'm not you know soon enough so yeah big
big issue there yeah the different ages of birds you don't you don't want to have a you know a year
and a half old bird mixing with just a year old right you're gonna behave quite a bit differently
you can say issues there just every flock has a pecking order so you don't you don't want to you
don't want to make that worse by mixing ages yeah so so there's one bird out here that is the queen
of them all that's what you're saying yeah that's awesome Yep there is so and uh yeah so I mean
how are you guys keeping those records are you just writing it down manually you're running a
spreadsheet or phone yeah yeah no that's awesome yep sure share with the whole team everybody has
access to it where did they make the record right on the spot yeah so yeah if you guys are watching
um and you're looking for some access to Pastor poultry record keeping templates we got some of
those on our YouTube channel and our website where you can download them for free and uh and start
keeping records because if you're not just like Bruce said um it's it's incredibly important yeah
be a nightmare trying to figure out what's going on with 14 000 hands out here absolutely yeah
for a lot of farms the it seems like for a lot of farms the uh the pasture laying in operation
is sometimes the least profitable but for us it's the most profitable production and price per liter
that we can do did that happen at a certain scale or has it always been that way for you guys so I
think it's it's scale and its lay rate lay rate yeah that's why you're doing the birds one year
at a time these are the biggest factors and uh she might be able to add more to this but um you
know going from 65 or 70 average lay rate for the year up to an 80 or 75 to 80. that's huge on the
profitability yeah of that that model that's a make or break it's a make or break yeah no that
that that's what lay rate is break even for us that's a great question I think it's all the
way down to like 40 40 50 somewhere down in there what is that uh 40 to 50 late cycle now
lay rate is our break even number explain that for me what do you mean exactly what you say
that's an interesting question you just so you're staying on just the direct inputs yeah
I guess I can't answer that off the top of my head but it's somewhere down in there um yeah our
average lay rate for all the flocks historically a lot of these flocks when they come in they
can peek at high 80s and sustain that for free maybe six months and so that that 73 to 80 of
the whole flock is laying once a day or how how does that calculate would you word that if
you have uh 73 of the lane each day okay yeah I just kind of trying to clarify that it's
close enough okay awesome uh got a couple of questions let me ask you real quick um Dean
L asked about uh Predator issues aerial land um what kind of Predator issues do you guys
deal with out here yep so you're always gonna have predators in the area um things we do to
mitigate that is obviously it's electrified netting you see here yeah we're not letting the
birds roam through we don't want to let them roam free um for the Predators and also we don't want
the flocks to mix yeah we also have our guard dogs I don't know if we saw any pulling in here we've
seen a couple on the property hanging out I think there's like eight here now I said 10 earlier well
there's as of yesterday there's 13 new puppies so there's there's gonna be a lot here um the guard
dogs are a great tool to mitigate that the worst thing you can have is you know coyotes or wild
dogs get it and they just you know Massacre yeah yeah what about Ariel you guys have any of those
issues I think we get those every now and then you can mitigate that by just the size of pasture
space you give them so like if these hens had you know 10 acres of access at once just flocked it
you're gonna have some hands roaming way out there and that dog's not gonna be able to protect that
corner and that corner at the same time okay so yeah you can have a chicken hawk get that every
now and then but to be honest I I have not seen in the last year since we got like 10 dogs here
I don't see a whole lot of evidence of predation and generally the chicken hawk is looking for
the that one that too far away right yeah as long as you can keep it it's like a density it's
kind of just here together yeah we'll have them we'll have chicken hawks just kind of rest on
the power lines or something close and just want to jump down into massive amount
of birds here gotcha it's intimidating um we took a poll to see what people call call
these structures uh I'm interested to know this so 38 would call it a mobile Coop um 33 says chicken
tractor and I'm in the minority at 27 with chicken Schooner thank you guys for participating
in that poll I hope good good feedback there um mobile coupon's the winner mobile Coupe and
so this is they're keeping it simple I like that um so let's see Lang Yang asked about the water
lines how are you feeding the water line so I guess from your your well lines out to here how
are you feeding them just with hoses well Blake and I have had a lot of fun putting a lot of
water line system throughout all of our acreage yeah how many miles did you say you have oh it's
well over ten yeah gotcha so this this 90 acre field alone has what we got like a thousand feet
times six six thousand feet here under underground trenched every 600 feet so basically you can
see these posts going out here that's a line some White Post Yeah you got a whole water
line out there and then along that corner line there there's another one there
over here there's gonna be another one going down the field so can we walk over
and just kind of show that one right here [Music] yeah we were we were talking earlier just about
how important having access to water is and how you don't want to you don't want it to dictate
what you do what you're doing so so we try to keep these Stakes up so we know know where our
water lines are but we have cattle and such out here a lot of times they can get knocked
over anyways down here blaming my cattle take a peek in there yeah we can we can pull
this out oh that's good we can see all right yep so yeah basically it's just uh just plug
into that um garden hoses from there and then there's a splitter hooking up to all
four buildings so when we go to move the buildings we'll just undo the garden hoses at
the splitter and then just pull the buildings so right now you got another one of these down
over there yeah and you got a splitter hooked up to it and garden hoses run into each line here
right yep nice nice hey that's a great question Lang thanks so much for asking that yeah I
don't know they saw in the building on the other end is a water tank it's like a 30 gallon
tank it's just gravity fed from there okay yeah um another quick question East Coast 24 asks
where do you buy those Hangar nest boxes he loves them hangar.com hangar.com
simple as that simple as that cool as well okay the deal fabricate those on site
like they come in pieces or yeah they're going to come on a skids 12 foot skid delivered to their
property and they'll have to manufacture about to build it up from there okay cool yep awesome
guys this has been incredible man I've never seen anything quite like it and I just can't thank
you enough for showing us around uh your farm today this is just so cool yeah I know thanks
for coming out so it's fun to share absolutely um there's one of the Guardian dogs hey guy yep
doing his job that one I believe is Pete Pete yep super cool um let me see if there's any
last-minute questions from the audience um if you guys got them get them in now
um we could probably just hang out with these chickens all day you see the winter
set up at all yeah absolutely absolutely oh yeah that's right because this this isn't
your this isn't your winter setup yeah somersets actually this flock and the one over there going
over to these winter structures and we're going to transition them here in about two weeks Okay so
a little bunker down there for the winter season um and what what kind of temperatures is
it when you start hitting those freezing nights when you start to move them it's
really about it and is it mainly just because you don't your water line issue
or what is it waterline is the biggest issue obviously just overall health of the
clock out here when it's getting down to that temperature tonight okay so we're
gonna take a ride take a ride all right and is that is that them over there is
that what they are those are easier [Music] yeah check that out how big are the
buildings Bruce they're they're 30 by 400 feet okay and how many birds about
do they fit say again how many birds uh I'd recommend about four thousand
okay three square foot for bird so yeah somebody just actually asked that
about the size of the mobile coops back there did you mention the size of
those how big are those those are 20 by 48 okay 20 feet wide and 48 feet long gotcha that's yeah basically it's our Energizer uh
on Wheels so we've got solar panels charging those batteries in that uh got a container
there yeah that's pretty massive but you guys are running a lot of electric netting
yeah and those bigger Nets take quite a bit right yeah that's an 18 Joule Energizer
in there anything less won't won't keep up for the size of areas that we're
setting up that's a nice setup three yeah earlier this spring we had 100 mile an
hour winds come through and took this building down oh yeah sometimes
rebuilding it that's been on the yeah that's been on the to-do list uh we're just
just now finishing it up the uh the skeleton of the uh previous building's still laying out there
but we got a rebuilt knocked down about 130 feet turn 30 feet got that replaced to recharge yeah
is it typical you guys normally get that strong of wind up here is that wind very typical no
honestly don't get that from the land yeah yeah all right hands in the winter time foreign wow so yeah this is uh one of the
three winter buildings that we have it sounds like music in here yeah
there for a minute it sounded like they were singing I don't know
if I'm just losing my mind but they're much quieter and calmer in here yeah these
birds uh I think there's two reasons for that um the age and the light so these
these girls are just 23 weeks old they're just now coming into production um
generally speaking the birds are going to be more laid back when it comes to the noise Factor
that's it because at this time of day if they're all laying they're all going to be squawking proud
of their egg be just late because that's what was going on over there right okay so yeah they're
a little quieter um this is the first year that we've used black tarp underneath it's basically
it's a bunker cover or a silage cover tart so um concept is just to um you know birds are
kind of a jungle fowl they don't want to be in the intense sunlight at all times so we're trying
out this darker tarp and the mobile coops mobile buildings uh we use shade cloth which works fine
we can't do that here because as soon as it snows it'll bring down the building because snow does
not Escape because the shade cloth is like mesh almost right this is a lot smoother so it can melt
off and slide off so can't use shade cloths we're gonna try trying this out yeah and this structure
will hold the snow on top of it no problem with it like that yeah can we walk down just a little
bit I want to show it because this is massive yeah it's pretty awesome man what kind of bedding
are you using this is just wood chips they chip them and bring them in so pull the chips in
it's they got four or five inches of bedding to burrow through you call this the dry side of
the building yeah yeah so this is specifically set up to help mitigate you know some of the winter
moisture problems that you have trying to get birds to the winter communities one of the bigger
problems that you'll have I have on this side it's basically just their dust bathing area and
their nest boxes over here we got the roost going on down yeah and then the feeders and then the
water lines on that wall okay so basically that's the heavy impact side the north side of this
building is heavy impact gotcha Sun's on the southern hemisphere we get more drying on this
side although we got a black tarp on now so let's see yeah yeah but uh yeah so it's designed
that way so that they still have you know half this building space to burrow through
Dustbin every day so and then this side is kind of more the cake area where it's kind of a
winter chore we'll come in here we'll spread chips over onto this side of the building and just
kind of keep that covered keep the smell down um the old deal keep the sides down in the winter
that's something that we're we're watching depends on weather patterns every day every day that
changes so I'm generally speaking though the walls have to stay up at certain areas we sell
Whole Foods and these things need outdoor access and you learn them yeah that makes sense um but
we also have to mitigate from a cold negative 20 windshield coming from the west or Northwest and
yeah um that so speaking of that that can lead to some problems with freezing water lines so
basically we mitigate that with the walls we've got water line going down this building 400 feet
and it's trenched on the way back it's basically geothermal watering system so in this in this
water room over here we got a reservoir over there in there yeah we can go in there in a bit if you
want okay but uh we're basically just circulating the water and you know half of it's down on the
ground at 48 yeah it's like 48 degrees I got you I can't I can't take credit for that idea that
came from uh Dan Dan McLean at copia farms so I have to give him a shot so using that thermal
energy to keep it nice we did have a question um from Kennedy Reynolds she wanted to know about
the lights in the side here and um if they're if they're automatic and and how you're using those
yep so basically all her power's in that water room um they're on a timer so they're just going
to run the 16 hours a day I think they turn on uh well right now um so when you get a new flock
um you want to bring them into their 16 hours depending upon their age their body weight or
they're just some finer details to help out with their performance but when they're full maturity
you want about 16 hours of light so we're gonna be running 16 hours in here keep that going it's all
a lot of time gotcha okay nice because when you bring these in you want to know what light pattern
they were on yes and then you match that right yeah so so like we get all the birds at 16 weeks
and at 16 weeks I believe they're at um 12 hours of light I'd have to look at this sheet again yeah
but uh and different Growers do slightly different patterns but uh yeah when they come in we want to
do our best to match that although because we're a passion based system you know they're out in
the sun those mobile coops if we get them in June we're gonna have 16 hours of light so we can't we
can't regulate that down yeah you know 12 hours yeah it's not it's not a make or break scenario
in a sense but uh you want to show show me that box real quick and then I want to ask you guys a
question actually about your your labor here but um so you access this from the outside or how do
you get into this oh right in here oh okay yeah so this is kind of your control room here super fancy got a nice and insulated yeah yeah
dug into the ground down there yeah so the pipe comes out of the ground right behind this tank
here um it's going into the tank and there's a pump in here okay and it's sending it out the
top line here and I don't know if you can see it but here's here's the water line going down
into that and it's pumping it through all the way down to the end it goes down into the ground
comes back it's just it's just constantly cool so really the trick is just to make sure the
pump's always running make sure no breaker yeah flips or something like that awesome
good stay fixed up there yep Energizer all right box it's all here so it's cool awesome
thanks for showing me in there step back out I wish you want to show them the scale how you
want bird weights yeah oh wow yeah so this guy I would definitely recommend but at the same
time I'm kind of behind I'm getting on board just got it this year um it's two thousand
dollars I believe I got it off Farm farmboy.com um basically it's it's pre-programmed to be
able to track your your entire flock to the body weights keep it recorded into that computer
it's gonna It's Gonna Know Your flock I haven't to be honest I haven't fully worked into this brain
of this computer to utilize so is the idea that you know it measures them without you having to do
it basically just as it as it detects one bird on the platform or however many it just wasn't here
we'd have to come out way on by hand walk it down and be a huge labor yeah that's I mean that's what
we're doing with our turkeys and our chickens just doing you know we're doing sample sizes weighing
them manually but we're not at this scale but if you are then having this scale uh makes a lot of
sense yep and to be honest you really only need one even if you have multiple flocks because in
my opinion my opinion you want to know their bird weight from age like 16 to like 30 weeks after
that they should be fully matured and they should stay with that that body weight yeah you want
to watch them during that time period make sure they're making those daily gains if they're not
you may have issues versus overall healthy flaw lay rate you're just you're going to have a lot
of Knowledge from that so that's really cool yeah and show people this box it's got daily gains on
it um you just get the readout every day yeah the target is 3.8 pounds right now um the last Wade
bird was 3.846 right on target yep uh looks like 3.87 is the average for the flock and it tells you
how many it weighed 267. today was 267. we have 91 uniformity that's pretty important basically that
means that just all the birds are within a certain weight range yeah and you do want that because
if you have a lower uniformity that means you have a basically it's a it's a higher pecking oil
there's a lot more variance in your flock which means you'll have different performance issues out
of hands so yeah uniformity is pretty important that's really cool thank you
for showing me that yep love it um and then what we've got a question from
Luis the Sailor uh you want to step out and get to this one here he just asked
you know what you're feeding your birds yeah that's a that's a non-GMO uh corn soybean
ration but you can probably speak better than that yeah very similar to the Hogs okay just
non-jumoth corn soy and then a vitamin pack that would meet their requirements awesome yeah super
cool um well that's that that's been incredible I do want to ask a question um you know about
just kind of Labor of the size of operation um what does it take to come in here every morning
and and do this at this scale desire you gotta want to do it yeah yeah it's absolutely right
yeah it does take desire yep takes desire to do it um it's yeah it's it's complicated to have 14
000 hands out here and there's a lot a lot to take care of but um like how many people does
it take to harvest every morning how long to get together yeah um when We Gather it from
one one to five basically it's a three-man crew it's like it's in between like eight to
nine man hours to be honest that's what usually gotcha wait how many uh eight to nine man hours
okay gotcha so one sometimes I get done at four there's just different variables but and what are
they um they're putting in those crates that we saw earlier at the beginning of the stream right
they're just literally just they're going around those nesters I call I call them the human
conveyor belt they're just moving with the nesting gotcha gotcha just loading them up in
there and then put them on the bit on a bed of a truck something driving them to the shop yeah
and we actually have some down time between going from one building instead of buildings to the
next so if you know everything was one place we could gather quicker yeah yeah there's drive
time between and you don't want to drive too fast you have scrambled eggs before you get back
gotcha but hey man like you said it's your most profitable Enterprise so if you do you do do
whatever it takes site is the most profitable Enterprise that we have so everything else kind of
dictates around it and this is another example of how and we're not buying in uh we're not buying
in baby chicks to start now we're starting with ready lay pullets schedule someone else's that
first you know that first uh part of the life of that chicken is super important and that's
going to dictate how it's going to be able to lay and unless you're totally set up to do
that well you need to find somebody that can yeah yeah and uh John uh which which court which
core is that I pronounce that wrong but he asked them how old are the birds when you get them and
who's doing the brooding six 16 weeks okay you're coming at 16 weeks gotcha um I got a couple
different contacts Moyers Moyers Hatchery on Pennsylvania with most of our blocks that came
from here gotcha Dutch Country Organics here in Indiana is another one a Stage Court Stage
Coach organic State Stagecoach Trail Organics based out of Illinois super cool awesome well
man guys I think that covers most of what we wanted to cover on the tour right yeah it is uh
you got to see bits and pieces of of every bit of our production Enterprises we didn't go too deep
into any of them but uh no it's been good though I mean it's a real eye-opener I know our hundreds
of people watching have enjoyed it as well um you know I can't say thank you enough everybody's give
these guys a round of applause let them know your gratitude and what you think I want to say thanks
to everybody so much for watching live here or if you're watching the recorded version of this
video here at seven sons Farm in Roanoke Indiana where they're doing an amazing job you guys are
an awesome family really really grateful for you guys for inviting us out and showing everybody
you guys this Farm as transparently as humanly possible absolutely thanks for coming along
with the tour awesome all right so thank you guys so much for watching the Great American farm
tour here at heifer USA if you've enjoyed this make sure you subscribe to our Channel hit that
notification Bell because we're going to be doing more of these Great American farm tours I won't
tell you exactly where we're going next but I'll give you a hint he's a huge YouTube channel and
he lives in North Carolina so you you let me know who you think that might be where we're going to
be out there sometime early November so subscribe like follow for notifications check these guys out
on social media okay if you haven't already they have an awesome YouTube channel great Facebook
friends presence you'll find all those links in the description of this video and if you want to
get access to or purchase some of their products those links will be there for you as well because
just seeing your production Enterprises I imagine it is very tasty so you would don't want to
miss that and be sure to check some of that out if you want to get some of that delivered
to your door right absolutely deliver to your door keep it convenient awesome all right thank
you guys so much we'll see you all next time thank you foreign