Restocking the brooder with 1200 new chicks
Chicks crawling over Mrs. Murphy's boots
nipple drinkers, they worked very well
1200 Cornish Cross chicks
Day old chicks, they're quite cute
Catching chicks to bring to pasture
Young chickens on pasture
30 chicken tractors in the Broiler Field
Catching birds for processing
400 birds caught and loaded
Ready for processing to begin
Polyface intern Ben working at the kill station
Mr. Murphy and Polyface apprentice Nathen ready to start
Mr. and Mrs Murphy and Polyface intern Amanda
QC table
The chickens necks are slit and they bleed out in the cones
The messy job
The chickens chill in these tanks for about three hours or until they're about 40 degrees
Freezers full of chicken
Composting the feathers, blood and guts. It's makes some of the best compost
Building chicken tractors
Field feed storage
Very slick operation! I'm assuming that Buxton farm is using the fast grow broilers. Do you know what the percentage of bird mortality was for them? I love the shot of all those chicks under Mrs. Murphy's skirt - very cute!
ReplyDeleteMrs. Bryan - Only 5 days till wedding day!
Uumm. GREAT blog at first! AAhh! I can't believe you put slottering pictures on your blog. YUCK! First you get us all 'oooh' and aahh'ing over these simply adorable little yellow fuzz balls THEN you pull out the big guns and show us the slotter! Innocence was BLISS Jon. Ew!
ReplyDeletelol.
Both at Polyface and Buxton they raise the Cornish Cross power growers. Joel is raising a few heritage breed this year. There isn't the market for the smaller birds, everyone expects big breasted chickens.
ReplyDeleteCousin - that's farming :)
I really liked that picture too Mrs. Bryan!
ReplyDeleteWe miss your family Murphy's!
Krista Joy
The pictures are beautiful. My daughters and I visited the Polyface farm in Virginia a couple
ReplyDeleteyears ago. I grew up on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania. We live in California, but miss
the farm. Your blog brings back pleasant memories. We dream of purchasing acreage to raise some animals in another state for ourselves and for our daughters and their future spouses, if God wills. Thank you for
the inspiration!