@農자료창고

Nigel Joice poultry farm tour. Photo: Emily West Photography

For the first time since the business invested in renewable energy strategy three years ago, it produced more power than it consumed.

Mr Joice, and his son, Patrick, welcomed young poultry producers to Uphouse Farm, South Raynham, near Fakenham. They told the 30 members of the joint National Farmers’ Union and ABN poultry industry programme that the primary goal was to produce quality chickens and minimise energy consumption.

Since 2010, they have invested in an energy centre, to warm the growing chickens, and installed solar panels.

The three arrays of photo-voltaic panels, rated to produce 450kW and mounted on roofs and on the ground, made the farm energy-positive for two days earlier this year.

Mr Joice, who started as a chicken producer in 1997, runs his flocks of birds on two self-contained farms with a team of three staff on each. To maintain strict bio-security, the staff only work on their “home” farm, he said. In a year, the 115-hectare arable farm finishes about six million table birds, roughly 12 million kg of chicken. It consumes about 20,000 tonnes of poultry feed.

The chickens produce about 8,500 tonnes of litter each year, which was a further challenge in the drive for energy production, he added.

When they started the first phase of the renewable energy strategy in 2010, two 500kW furnaces were installed to heat water for the poultry houses. For the first year, they burned woodchip but since the middle of last year, the fuel was chicken litter.

“This is under a special licence from the Environment Agency because we’ve been testing emissions,” said Mr Joice. “It has all been extremely successful and emissions have been extremely low. We’re amazed at the performance.”

There has also been another major benefit, said his son, Patrick, in terms of better poultry welfare because of the drier heat in the chicken sheds. “We didn’t think we’d get such a similar level in the improvement of the birds and their welfare. It has come as a bonus. We’ve got a better environment in the chicken sheds and they’ve rewarded us with better performance.”

He compared nine chicken crops, in a typical 50-day flock cycle, heated by LPG (liquid petroleum gas) and using the dry heat from the energy centre.

“We’ve seen a six point improvement in the food conversion rate,” said Mr Joice, who had spent £120,000 a year on LPG.

The farm, which was last year’s champion Norfolk Farm Business, was also the 2011 Farmers Weekly Poultry Farm of the Year.

As the farm produces about 8,500 tonnes of chicken litter a year, the aim was to burn the surplus to generate electricity. Mr Joice said about 2,500 tonnes was needed for heating but the rest could be generate electricity. In January his electricity bill was about £13,500.

The furnaces, installed by Irish specialists, bhsl, heat water to 85C for circulation to the chickens..

Patrick Dight, who is bhsl’s applications director, said that a new technique to burn litter on a smaller scale had been developed more than 11 years ago. Their design of fluidised bed combustion of poultry litter, used in big power stations, has operated consistently for months. It burns at more than 600C, he added.

“Chicken manure is not an easy product to manage. It was very difficult to handle because it is like shavings, honey and glue mixed together. It has high levels of ash and silica, variable moisture content and a low calorific value,” he added.

The manure is stored in a bio-secure area, under negative pressure to contain odour, before it is burnt – and the operation is monitored at bhsl’s headquarters in county Limerick.

“Our priority is the birds’ welfare. We have to maintain a set temperature of water to the birds at all times,” Although there is a back-up boiler, it has never been needed,” he said.

Chickens are the perfect starter livestock for your homestead — whether you have a small backyard in an urban area or 20 acres in the boondocks. Chickens provide eggs, meat and fertilizer, plus they’re small and easy to manage. Several chicken breed charts are available online and in books, but their information is often based on old data. So, to get current information on the best chicken breeds, we developed a survey of our readers who have lots of experience with various breeds. (Many thanks to more than 1,000 readers who participated in the survey.) The summaries below include only results from people who have more than three years’ experience raising chickens. And we only included breeds or hybrids if at least three people responded to questions about them.

Our survey didn’t ask which chicken breeds are prettiest. That’s important, too, but it’s subjective. If you’d like to see what each breed looks like, check out Feathersite.com or get a copy of Storey’s Illustrated Guide to Poultry Breeds by Carol Ekarius. It’s an excellent book with outstanding photos.

Pick Your Chicks

Before you decide which chicken breeds to raise, you’ll want to decide which attributes are most important to you: egg production, meat production, temperament or other qualities. If you try a breed for a year or two and decide it isn’t quite what you were  looking for, try another — or try two or three breeds each year to find out which one best suits your needs.

After you’ve selected a breed, use our Hatchery Finder to find mail-order sources near you, or our Directory of Hatcheries and Poultry Breeders to find a chicken hatchery or poultry breeders. Then, ask a few questions before you place your order. Breeders and hatcheries select for different traits. For example, some breeders may select Orpingtons for egg production; others, to meet a certain “type” described in a standard for shows. All birds of a certain breed won’t have identical characteristics. Some people who took our survey said Javas lay dark brown eggs; others said Javas lay tinted eggs. That doesn’t necessarily mean someone is wrong — certain flocks may have been bred to produce darker eggs than others.

Most people who keep chickens want eggs. Based on our survey results, the most productive egg layers are hybrids, including the Hy-line Brown, California White, Golden Comet, Cherry Egger and Indian River. If you prefer heritage breeds, Leghorns, White-faced Black Spanish, Rhode Island Reds, Australorps, Rhode Island Whites and Plymouth Rocks are good choices for producing lots of eggs.

Hy-line Browns, Golden Comets, ISA Browns, Cinnamon Queens and Brown Sex Links (all hybrids) lay mostly extra-large eggs. From heritage breeds, you can expect the largest eggs from Jersey Giants, Australorps, Plymouth Rocks, Orpingtons and Rhode Island Reds.

Quickest Eggs

Some hybrid pullets (young hens) start laying eggs when they’re only 17 weeks old, but pullets of some breeds take more than 26 weeks to mature and start laying. If you’re in a hurry to get fresh eggs on your table, consider Cherry Eggers, Indian Rivers, ISA Browns, Pearl Leghorns and Golden Comets. Almost all Leghorns and Leghorn hybrids are quick to mature, but if you’re looking for other heritage breeds, check out Red Caps, Whitefaced Black Spanish, Anconas and Minorcas. Hens of these breeds can start laying at as early as 21 weeks.

Egg Color Spectrum

If one of your selection criteria is eggshell color, Marans, Barnevelders and Welsummers lay the darkest brown eggs. (We didn’t include Penedesenca in our survey because they’re rare, but they usually lay even darker eggs.) Ameraucanas and Araucanas (rumpless) lay greenish or bluish eggs.

Pest Control and Free-Range

If you want low-maintenance chickens to clean up ticks and insect pests, most breeds are good choices. (See Poultry Pest Patrol.) Cubalayas and Jungle Fowl rated best for hustling much of their own food, but they’re not especially productive layers or meat birds.

Free-range chickens (chickens allowed to range on pasture) produce the most nutritious and flavorful eggs. Other breeds suited to this environment are the Catalana, Old English Game, Hamburg, Minorca and Malay. But if you have limited space, you might consider Houdans, Pearl Leghorns, Langshans, Cornish and Polish — all of which ranked highly as living equally well in confinement or on free range.

Least Likely to Get Their Hackles Up

물개구리밥에 대해서는 다음을 참조... 물개구리밥에는 질소를 고정시키는 남조류가 공생하여 농사에도 좋다는...

http://blog.naver.com/fockjju?Redirect=Log&logNo=86924157

Many consumers are unaware of the ways animals are raised and killed to stock our grocery stores. In the United States, there are virtually no laws regulating the treatment of billions of animals on factory farms, and these sensitive individuals pay the price for cheap meat with misery-filled lives.

Compassion Over Killing's documentary exposes the broiler industry and its disregard for animal welfare. 45 Days: The Life and Death of a Broiler Chicken features investigative footage—from hatching and factory-farm life to slaughter and packaging.

Please visit ChickenIndustry.com for more information.

미국에서는 뒤란에 닭을 키우는 것이 점점 퍼지고 있다는데, 여전히 법적으로는 불법이란다. 한국에서는 도시에서 이런 일을 할 수 있을까, 있으면 좋겠다. 아무튼 마당이 있는 집에서 사는 너희의 드넓은 땅이 부러울 뿐이다.

Underground Chickens: Episode 99 of The Perennial Plate from The Perennial Plate on Vimeo.

The backyard chicken trend is becoming more and more prevalent these days. But in many North American cities, keeping a flock of hens is still illegal. We met up with some unlikely outlaws while travelling through Tennessee who are breaking the law by producing fresh farm eggs, right in their back yard.

I get this a lot: “I understand that the things you write about are important — but they’re so depressing. Couldn’t you write some, you know, good news, for a change?”

So here you go: a solutions post for once, instead of another problem. (But I can’t promise to make a habit of it.)

I live most of the time in Atlanta, the capital of the South, and also of the empire of Big Chicken. Georgia raises more meat (broiler) chickens than any other place in the United States, about 1.4 billion of them a year, and — because factory-farmed chickens aren’t allowed to live very long — slaughters about 1 million of them per week. All those chickens produce 2 million tons of poultry manure and litter a year — one-fifth of what the entire U.S. poultry industry produces — along with all the other downstream effects that you would expect from such intensive livestock-raising: antibiotic-resistant bacteria, water pollution from manure disposal, air quality problems.

A recently founded nonprofit, Georgians for Pastured Poultry, advocates for change in chicken raising. It has published a detailed and troubling report about the environmental and animal-welfare costs of confinement chicken-raising, and has been holding events to raise awareness about the alternative: “pastured” poultry, chickens that are raised on vegetation, under shelter, to high animal-welfare standards.

At the heart of the group’s effort is a conundrum: Agricultural profit margins are already razor thin. Most farmers don’t have abundant savings that they can invest in completely transforming their operations. To move toward healthier livestock-raising, farmers have to know in advance that there is a market for their new product, along with an audience that gets why paying the (inevitably higher) price is worthwhile.

Georgians for Pastured Poultry identified this market gap early on, and starting today, they’re taking the first step toward closing it. They’ve gotten some of the top chefs in Atlanta — 31 as of Friday evening, many of them award-winners — to agree to serve pastured poultry in their restaurants all week. Pastured Poultry Week begins today and goes through Sunday, and will be augmented by farmers’ market and supermarket demonstrations.

A couple of the chefs talked to me about why they want to do this and what the benefits and challenges are.

Craig Richards, executive chef at Ecco (one of Esquire’s 2006 “Best New Restaurants in America“) said: “As a chef, I feel like it is part of our responsibility to provide food that is good for people nutritionally and politically.” His customers respond to that, he added: “People want to know where their chicken is from, where their fish is from… You have to respect sustainability now, people are asking for it.”

Kevin Gillespie, executive chef at Woodfire Grill (and James Beard Foundation nominee and “Top Chef” contestant) said: “We support the agenda to have poultry production, in this state and country, revert back to a more pastured form. It’s better for the environment, it’s better for the economy, and I think it produces a better product.” There’s also some self-interest, he admitted: Buying from local producers is such an important part of Woodfire’s identity that the restaurant maintains an updated list of what’s in season on the splash page of its site, as well as listing its farm partners and foragers on a separate page. But “until recently, there wasn’t a supply of chicken that met our quality standards,” he said. “As time has gone on, that has started to change, and we want to support farmers who are taking the risk.”

(Three Georgia chicken producers are supplying most of the birds for the week, according to Georgians for Pastured Poultry: White Oak Pastures, Darby Farms and Heritage Farms.)

Important point, though: Chefs aren’t, primarily, activists; they are cooks first, aiming to make something delicious, and they are also businesspersons. And making something delicious out of pastured poultry — and getting customers to buy it, so the effort and expense are not wasted — is a bit more challenging than with a commodity bird.

“Pastured birds are different,” says Shaun Doty, an Atlanta chef who is one of the founders of Georgians for Pastured Poultry and is opening a chicken-focused restaurant, Bantam and Biddy, this fall. “They’re allowed to live twice as long as factory-farmed chickens, and they’re outside, running around, engaging in natural chicken behaviors. They’re athletes. And that means the meat is very firm, and the bones are strong. They have huge, old-fashioned taste — but they cook differently, and they eat differently.”

Richards and Gillespie agreed that, to bring pastured poultry into their kitchens, they’ve had to coach their cooks in the difference, and they’re preparing their servers to coach diners as well.

“We’ve talked to the cooks about how this has to roast a little longer, a little slower,” said Richards, who bought in about 75 birds and is planning a chicken al mattone topped with local peas and shaved radishes. “And we’ll talk to the staff about how the flavor can be different, and put some up for them to try.”

Gillespie has already had some experience with customer reactions to pastured poultry. “A few years ago we were able to get a very small supply from a gentleman in South Georgia, and when we would serve it, people would say things like it, ‘It’s too flavorful’ — which was funny to me, because, you know, this is what chicken actually tastes like. It made us realize that,  if we were going to change people’s minds about the product, we would have to do it with some education attached.”

Woodfire bought about 50 birds for the week, and Gillespie plans to turn them into a small plate of tastes: white meat and dark meat done different ways, plus a forcemeat. “We want this to be a limited menu item, to drive demand,” he said. “We’re showcasing this as something that chicken can be.”

One week can’t remake an industry, of course — not even with 31 chefs, 20 restaurants and the three best farmers’ markets in Atlanta on board. But what it can do is introduce people to the idea that chicken isn’t just a placeholder on a menu, and isn’t just the cheap, almost-flavorless protein you buy when you don’t know what else to do. Like grass-fed beef and heritage pork, pastured chicken — and the agricultural change it makes possible — will only succeed if consumers purchase it, not out of duty, but out of desire. By starting with famous chefs overseeing hard-to-get tables, Pastured Poultry Week may have found the formula that allows that change to start.

“You can only pass out so much information before you sound like you’re preaching,” Gillespie told me. “We have to sell people on how pastured poultry tastes, and we’re going to do that. We’ll be telling people: This is not your average bird.”

© Farm Sanctuary

Several weeks ago, a California egg producer abandoned his farm—and an estimated 50,000 hens—leaving a horrifying mess for animal rescuers who came in to save the survivors. The LA Times reports that authorities said 47,000 of the chickens died, and that the survivors had not been fed in more than two weeks.

Authorities only discovered the hens because a citizen complained about the growing stench. The Modesto Bee reports that the local animal services agency "plans to seek prosecution of Andy Keung Cheung, owner of A&L Poultry, where the hens were found."

The LA Times quotes a woman from one of the sanctuaries that participated in the rescue:

"My heart is in my throat," said Anne Martin, with Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary...

"These are the sicker birds from the group ... most are able to stand on their feet ... they are interested in food, they are drinking but they are not as lively as the other birds, not as enthusiastic," Martin told Fox 40.

The Humane Society of the United States describes more of the scene:

For two days, volunteers from across California answered the calls from Animal Place, Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary, and Farm Sanctuary. Volunteers raced against the clock to load the emaciated birds into hundreds of animal carriers, makeshift crates, and cardboard boxes, hoisting them onto trailers and truck beds, bound for better lives at sanctuaries.

These kinds of stories aren't rare, whether it's an isolated incident or ongoingcruelty exposed, so it's easy to tire of reading about them. But their prevalence is indicative of the larger systemic problem.

HSUS explains:

It used to be standard procedure on huge egg farms to starve hens periodically to force them into another laying cycle. Burger King, McDonald's, Safeway, and others demanded an end to this starvation-induced "forced molting," and the practice was ended by most—though not all—egg producers in the United States.

Many agricultural techniques may be standard today and unforgiveable tomorrow, like gestation crates. Rather than reassuring itself that today's procedures are the best, animal agribusiness should make improvements in animal welfare now, or face the judgment of history.

These tens of thousands of hens had been trapped inside tiny cages with no food or water, and while the sanctuaries will give or find new homes for the couple thousand that were rescued, HSUS says chickens on other farms aren't so lucky. Things could be improving slightly with new legislation, but the larger problem remains. If our consumption patterns demand it, these practices will continue.

http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/50000-hens-abandoned-california-egg-farm.html

Can a new word change an entire industry?

Yes. When consumers first heard the term “cage free” eggs, they voted with their wallets at their local supermarkets and much of industry has been forced to change its practices. Will it happen again when they learn about “free range” and “pasture raised” eggs?

Alexis Koefoed of Soul Food Farm hopes consumers can learn to distinguish between “cage free,” “free range,” and “pasture raised” when they go to their local supermarket.

Cage free: Chickens that are not kept in cages. This means chickens are still confined to a barn with limited or no access to outside. The term “barn-roaming” more accurately describes this principle.

Free range: Outside the United States this term refers to a method of farming where the animals are allowed to roam freely rather than being contained in any manner. In the United States, USDA regulations apply only to poultry and indicate solely that the animal has been allowed access to the outside. These regulations do not specify the quality or size of the outside range nor the duration of time the animal must be allowed access to this space.

Pasture raised or “pastured”: Animals, like Alexis Koefoed’s chickens, that have been raised on pasture with access to shelter. This term is being used by farmers who wish to distinguish themselves from the industrialized “free-range” term [but it is not legally binding].

If possible, try to get to know the farm and learn what’s behind the terms they use to describe the eggs you buy. And tell us what kind of eggs you buy in the comments section below!