The BEST CHICKEN SYSTEM I have ever seen | Polyface Farm

greetings friends there's nothing like being outside it's like our design our makeup just drives us to want to be outside at least it should because we're not meant to be indoors constantly in a cubicle somewhere never seeing the light of day and all the beauty that is outdoors it's so good for us it just makes you feel good it does being connected and oh this makes you feel really good and there's so many benefits to being outdoors it helps with depression it helps our bodies and our hormones to be able to be more in sync and more rhythm and rhythm with with the earth we need that connection and uh i bet you didn't know that a lot of patients who are able to actually just look outdoors and and to see nature it actually helps them improve their healing i don't doubt it one bit that's pretty neat but one of my favorite things in addition to nature is seeing a nice landscape a field or a pasture and just seeing an abundance of animals going across the field when i was in my youth i used to enjoy watching some of the nature shows and and seeing some of the prairies out there in africa with the wildebeest and just numerous covering the landscape yeah hundreds of thousands yes pretty neat and that reminds me of our recent trip to polyface farm and around the farm it's like every animal that they raise on there it's just abundance and then one of the mornings that we were there mike and i we went out to the brooder and they were just so many chicks so many chicks i mean they're everywhere they look like you know like people say little dinosaurs running around everywhere [Music] look at all the chicks have you ever seen this many chicks before no no it's a lot isn't it [Music] don't chase them don't chase them man this chick brooder is just like all the other areas that has animals on it it's full of life it's just neat to see all these chicks isn't it buddy [Music] [Music] wow turn around there's some right behind you [Music] check out all this bedding here that is really really deep bedding in there so once the chicks are done in here just take all this it's good these pine shavings mix with the chicken poop and reuse it in the garden you got one there we go [Music] you're gonna hold it some more hold it gently pick your other hand and put it underneath your other hand underneath it okay so neat to see them moving around like that it's like seeing a bunch of ants and just bugs moving around there's so many of them [Music] after checking out the brooder we continued to walk around and it was pretty neat to see that they were raising some khaki camel ducks too they just are raising a lot more yeah a lot more than us well we see some animals up here i thought they were gonna be turkeys but what are they micah [Music] [Laughter] and with the abundance of life there like the chicks the ducks and the pigs they also have pigs as well as the cattle broilers and layers which you'll see here in a little bit there's a lot of lot going on there at polyface it really is the farm of many faces that's right and uh one of the things that we learned early on is that it's not a one-man show it's not joel doing it all and he really has a team there that consists of daniel who manages and and and gives direction to everyone on the day-to-day basis including joel which joel admitted to us as well as other employees and stewards who keep this this farm and operation going because there is a lot that goes on at polyface and each morning at 6 15 they all get started on our last morning there we got to see one of the most iconic images that there is at polyface the millennial feathernet and we tagged along with eli as he was doing morning chores with the lair this morning i'm here with eli and we are going to be working on layers pull it turkeys and some more bullets so right now we're heading to what is this called the feather net yeah the millennial feather net there we go this is one of the ones that you've probably seen in various pictures from polyface farm uh i've seen it a number of times and it's so neat that i'm seeing it in person so it's just neat to see all the layers that they have here check it out just grab a bucket yeah you try and carry two of them okay two buckets for every three feet okay [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] is okay if i do the other side sure you hold that for me we'll switch all right scooping feeds not that [Applause] yes sir that's good it's so crazy being around all those chickens it was just like oh it was almost overwhelming but it was like a feel good overwhelming seeing just that abundance of life all around you and as we were feeding the chickens you came along yeah and uh you started participating as well yeah he's like hey why don't you carry some around and feed some birds i'm like fine i can do that [Music] [Music] um [Music] how's it feel being around this mini [Music] chicken it's such a neat feeling being around an abundance of this life this really is it's just it's just something special about it eli how many layers would you say is here i think there's 12 1200. it's like a sea of chickens and i must say i was digging eli's shirt what's your shirt saying i saw it's not a pickup truck i like that i don't know if it would be appropriate for me to wear one of those i might get trolls but i really liked his shirt how to pick up chicks every four days we move the whole structure okay and then every two days within the within the net it gets scooted forward okay to kind of make sure the birds spread out over the whole thing yeah okay and then it saves us one day of not moving okay and then each night do you close those up so they don't go inside of them after we collect eggs okay so you just feed them once a day and gather eggs gather eggs like four o'clock yep and all the water is automatic okay so don't have to worry about that except for when you have to move it that's the only time right right right after we finished up at the feather net we next moved up to some chicken tractors that they're raising barred rock layers in that they're gonna move into another iconic piece at polyface the eggmobile and uh these broilers and these chicken tractors actually you had your chance to move a chicken tractor for the first time yes it was the last one in the line and i hadn't done one i wanted to see how heavy it was so i was like eli can i move this one he said sure but i was quickly regretting that because it was on an uphill incline and the grass in front of it was really tall and yeah i was having a hard time but i wasn't gonna let that thing beat me and i moved it the whole way by myself yeah you did a great job [Music] but at polyface they have stewards that are both male and female there and they they all do the chores as they're they're capable of doing and uh the females move the chicken tractors as well and uh it's pretty neat to see that everybody there works hard and that's one of the common threads when you ask them about polyface they say they work hard and then you can tell that they really enjoyed it [Music] you got it i believe in you carrying buckets by hand in the face may not be a mass remover one of these things but i can definitely carry a [Music] bucket [Music] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] uh [Music] [Music] well after the chicken tractors next moved over to the turkeys with ela and i had never been around that many turkeys just like i hadn't been around that many chickens either and it was so me just hearing you hear that those are turkeys just check out all these turkeys sure the turkeys seem to never learn about the electric fence really so they'll just go right over it if you push it down like this right especially right near them yeah it's it can be bad so like when you first start moving they just it all got out oh wow okay [Applause] [Music] look at that though wow that's not like chicken grit i mean those are stones right there wow they eat that no problem yeah they only like two bags of this at least in the next two days and how often do you give them grit uh i think you should give them grit every day okay like just one bag okay we didn't give them drink yesterday so i gave them two bags okay so you give them grit more than you would give chickens grill yes okay yeah they just i never knew that but when i got here they're like we gotta keep feeding them squeezing your feet they'll get processed pretty soon i don't know how old they are exactly but they look pretty close and we will probably sell these as mostly thanksgiving birds i can see here this is their their shelter this gives them some roosting bars to get on really basically covering over top yeah i mean they seem to do fine in the wet and the rain and stuff but okay the shade the shade really helps them out when it's 95 you know um and they like to reach so it doesn't have to be much but it really helps them out one of the things that i've learned since i've been homesteading is you don't need really elaborate housing for your your animals a lot of people have it in their mind that they need these really neat things that you'll see in catalogs but they don't need that in nature they just want to be in the shade a little bit now we gotta feed them and uh [Music] some bucket's over i can just care to put them in hello [Music] another thing that stood out to me at polyface is the housing that they have for the animals they're not really complex or super fancy they're really simple and basic like the turkeys just had a covering for them as well as the ducks probably the most complex one there is the feather net but you don't have to have these super neat these catalog chicken coops to raise your animals in you don't need this really fancy pink chicken coop but there's nothing wrong with that if you have a pink chicken or red or blue whatever the main point is you don't have to have something super fancy to raise your animals in and to farm or homestead so that's one of the things that it was neat for me to see at polyface after we finish with the turkeys we next move down to another set of pullets [Music] [Applause] [Music] to take the dolly out you just do the exact opposite when you put it in i'm going to pry up with this solid lift up with my left hand and just pick it up step out i didn't even really feel that with my body all right that's kind of the idea behind it sweet my third [Music] [Music] little taller than me [Applause] [Music] okay [Music] okay [Music] a little bit this one's a little talking about life so long perfect so that was our morning chores with eli we next went back and did a number of other things around the farm like processed chickens as well as got to hang out with joel salton and him going over the cattle with me which that's a video for another time but later on i was able to go out back to the same birds that we were at earlier and gather the eggs with sarah so sarah do you gather do you um gather the eggs same time every day here tuesday around four o'clock four o'clock okay yeah i carry a bathtub so usually we have the baskets for the regular eggs the ones that are pretty clean okay and we put the dirty eggs in the red bath okay just so that it's easier to sort yeah [Applause] i do yeah so out of all the different chores that you've done around here how does this rank it's just not too bad together you know this is pretty enjoyable yeah to be completely honest with you it's been a while since i've gathered eggs because my son gathers the duck eggs my daughter gathers chicken eggs actually my son gathers the chicken eggs my daughter got a duck egg so i have i haven't had to do it in a while these ones are the ones that follow the cows okay and the feather nut um doesn't follow the cows so these ones have a little bit more of a range gotcha and are these a different breed for particular reason or are they ones that maybe kind of scratch around a little bit better i think they just rotate through the breed okay i don't think there's a particular reason why these ones are different than the feathers [Music] okay ah so i must admit this was a really neat experience seeing their whole poultry set up in its entirety pretty much and see how they have a system for everything even the four wheeler that we were transporting the eggs that we had collected on even the the basket or crate or whatever that they had it set up on the four-wheeler so that way the egg baskets went on there perfectly they could fit all four of them on there it's pretty neat they just have systems everywhere on this homestead and this farm and no wonder why it runs so well and they're so successful there but uh it's pretty neat yeah it's got a lot of knowledge a lot of knowledge gained over the years there to make things easier and speaking of systems and designs joel is coming out with a new book and you could pre-order it now we'll leave the link in the show notes below but it has diagrams and instruction manual fully colored and what over 500 pages of how to build things that he has on his farm like the feather net so highly recommend checking it out i plan to get a copy and you can get yours too in the show notes and right now it's 20 off if you pre-order it yeah so i will link that to what you need overall this time that we had there at polyface was just absolutely amazing it really just a wonderful time and a really neat learning experiences and uh just a neat opportunity to also spend time with with the staff there then the stewards we even had the opportunity to share a meal group meal with everyone there and that was so nice it's so cool just the camaraderie with everyone and you know there's nothing like just having a meal with somebody yeah definitely a group of people i definitely enjoy being around and then after the meal we had a chance to chat with eli again and ask him about his experience there at polyface my name is eli custer i'm from minnesota i've been a steward here at polyface for about three and a half months since may 1st and you know i came in here from i worked on a big feed lot in south dakota actually and so i came in with all this experience of how to drive tractors and and how to work cattle and everything like that you know different from everyone else but i came here to learn as much as i could about the how to make money doing this in a scalable fashion um and more than that now that i've learned is just how to lead teams how to develop um yeah it's just watching eric and daniel teach and lead us as a big group and and the communication aspect of it but then there's all kinds of nuances that like i can't even explain what i've learned from daniel so how do you plan to apply some of the things that you've had the experiences you've had things you've learned from those guys um when you go back home it's hard to say it's really hard to say you know i really i'm i love the production of it but okay my my passion is for teaching other people about it awesome so i i don't i don't know how that's applied i'm planning on staying here for another year as an apprentice oh that's great and uh and we just found out about that last week so it's pretty exciting um as far as somebody that may be considering wanting to become a steward here at some point what would you say to them yeah i mean if you have any interest in in farming at all just apply come check out we do two day checkouts i think this year they're in december but it's too late to sign up now but for like the 2022 season um if you have any interest at all come check it out it'll be a real experience uh a lot of hard work but you learn you learn all the basics like how to drive for or manual manual trucks and uh how to pick up a chicken but if you even have experience like i did you learn all kinds of different stuff if you're willing to um and then you have this connection with all these people here and it's just a great experience really so you're not standing around watching joel and daniel and they'll do things you're actually hands on this whole time you're here yeah i mean for the first week i think we were pretty much standing there i was like a giant field trip you know but yeah as much as you're willing to jump in and do the things you'll just you get to do them there we go and they trust me to do it so it's cool [Music] awesome [Music] you

Channel: The Fit Farmer - Mike Dickson

Views: 486,955

Keywords: Polyface Farm, chicken coop, egg mobile joel salatin, egg mobile designs, millennium feathernet, feathernett outdoors

Id: QuxIM7pw7HA

Length: 29min 34sec (1774 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 08 2020