Failure Reboot

Photo by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi on Pexels.com

We brought in another batch of chickens to the butcher last week.  I was excited.  As you may remember, I have been having a hard time getting huge chickens.  My goal is eight to nine pound birds, raised on pasture.

I have not been getting that.

This time was going to be different.  This time the birds were huge.  This time I was very excited.

When I went to pick up the birds from the butcher, he greeted me with “Are you even feeding these birds?”

That is not a good sign, in case you were wondering.

Also, in case you were wondering, yes I have been feeding these birds.  They have access to chicken food 24 hours a day.  They are also moved to fresh pasture several times a day.  I am literally doing everything right.  And yet, I am still failing.

Failing makes me want to quit.

Last year, I thought about quitting pigs.  I was failing.  Oh, they were getting big and healthy and happy.  The butcher said our pigs were some of the nicest he’d worked with.  The problem was that pigs are adventurers.  There is nothing they like so much as escaping their lush green pasture to check out the neighbor’s lush green pasture.  Or your flower garden.  Or your neighbor’s flower garden two miles away.

I was tired of pigs escaping.  I was tired of being the difficult neighbor.  I was physically tired of chasing pigs.  “This is the last year I raise pigs!” I announced.  I felt like a failure.

It was not my last year raising pigs.

Instead, I went back to the drawing board.  The pigs were clearly not escaping due to a lack of food, fresh pasture, or clean water.  They were escaping because… why not?  It was fun and it’s not like they had a job other than getting big and meaty.  They were escaping because there was no reason not to.

All I needed to do was to give them a reason not to. Enter the electric fence.

This year, the pigs did not escape.  Well, one got loose once, but he clearly wanted nothing more than to go back in and be with his buddies.  There were no mass exodus type excursions like last year.  And also, the pigs were still perfectly happy.  They lounged in the sun, they dug in the grass, they played and ran together.  They didn’t escape because there was no reason to.  Also, getting zapped by the fence was unpleasant.

I failed with the pigs last year, but I had great success this year.  I had success because I went back to the drawing board and figured out what I needed to do differently.

So now, I need to go back to the drawing board with the chickens.  To start with, I am selling them by the pound.  There are some people out there who will be willing to cook two chickens instead of one for their family dinner if they know the chickens were raised with fresh air, sunshine, and clean pasture.  Those are the people I look for right now, because 150 chickens in my freezer is a bit much for us.

Also, I will reevaluate their grain.  It’s possible that since they are getting such a large portion of their food from pasture, they need a different recipe for their grain.  I have ordered some books by Joel Salatin, the pastured chicken pioneer.  I have done some research on the internet.  Unfortunately, when farmers find an exceptional feed recipe, they tend to keep it a secret.  I may have to develop my own secret recipe.  It will probably contain my own blend of herbs and spices.  Also kelp, because what kale and avocado toast are to hipsters, kelp is to animals.

I may also discover that the secret is to just let them grow for another week.  Eight weeks is usually the rule of thumb.  Much longer than that, and your chickens start dying from broken legs and heart attacks.  However, if you chickens are growing slower, they aren’t going to be as prone to broken bones or heart attacks.  Maybe an extra week wouldn’t be such a terrible thing.

Finally, I need to congratulate myself on the things I did do well.  Out of several hundred chickens, I only lost maybe five to sudden chick death syndrome.  This is almost unheard of.  You should expect roughly a ten percent loss, usually.  I also solved the predator problem by keeping geese with my chickens.  These things are successes that I need to remind myself I am having.  It is important to remind yourself that you are doing some things right, after all.

This last batch of chickens was something of a failure.  I have one more batch to go, and it doesn’t look like they are going to be unusually large either, but I am going back to the drawing board.  I will reboot next year with some new solutions and, hopefully, bigger, more saleable birds.

Until then, at least we will have a freezer full of healthy, humanely raised meat that will last us quite a long time!