Introductions…
My name is Doug.
I am a poultry farmer.
I am a freshly-minted, small-scale, unlikely poultry farmer who was lucky enough to have settled in one of the most beautiful spots on the eastern seaboard, Martha’s Vineyard’s Tisbury Great Pond.
My wife Emily’s family has farmed and maintained their hundred-acre property for three generations, its main products being baled hay, lamb, eggs and beef. To their grass-based grazing system I have added a fleet of three 12 X 12 foot A-frame “chicken tractors.” In these humble huts I have raised approximately 800 Cornish Rock Cross chickens in the last three years. They have all been slaughtered on farm and sold (until recently) to end-users that, in a CSA-inspired model, paid a deposit for their birds. I have tried my hand at raising Pekin duck and heritage breed cockerels as well.
As you can well guess, this meager poultry operation I have started hardly pays the bills. My day jobs include assisting at a local middle school where I hope to teach once I finish a Master’s program this coming spring. I teach guitar privately. In the summer I have worked at camps…catered. A mixed bag of employment you might call it. I have a five month old son, Milo, a beagle named Winston and two dairy goats named Sophia and Chokey. The goats’ milk is a key ingredient in the hand-made, cold process soaps that my wife makes and sells at retail stores and farmers’ markets.
With these introductions out of the way I can now tell you why I have asked Jared to carve out a little space on his blog for me now and again…
During my extremely short career in agriculture I have experienced a lot of the hardships and successes that come with small scale farming in America today. For example, I have been served a Cease and Desist order from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for selling chickens off the farm…which as far as I can see is completely within my rights. A whole shipment of 160 chicks arrived D.O.A. at the farm. I have had a chicken tractor hurled across the barnyard during a late summer storm. Dedicated customers have been supportive during my ‘troubles’ with the state, while other members of our small Island community have apparently ‘informed’ on me…or so I am told. When I moved to the Island I was a suburbanite that had literally never known the origin of his food. Now, I am a person that regularly slaughters animals of all sorts and spends the better part of his daydreaming hours hatching feathered, egg-laying schemes.
I have enjoyed modest financial success with my poultry business but also discovered that the farming gods are fickle and will swiftly cost you time, money and the better part of your sanity. I thought that there may be just a few people that might like to hear about my humble efforts in pasture raising chickens.
So…what now? The quiet Island winter approaches. In the name of optimism…and in an effort to keep my spirits up as the days grow shorter I won’t dwell on this summer’s setbacks and will instead look forward to next spring and the poultry rearing season I intend to pursue. In order to do so, I will need to introduce you to the backbone of my (and most) meat-variety chicken farms: the Cornish Rock Cross Jumbo Broiler.
Related posts:
- CRX: The Bird That Built a Nation
- Killing Chickens vs. Processing Chickens (part I)
- Turkey Dealing in the Parking Lot
- Kale, how I love thee (weekly menu 5)
- Freezer Madness and the Long Winter Ahead
Tags: Chicken, CSA, Food Politics, Grass-Fed, local food movement