The Avian Plague

[Update Spring 2023. While nobody is going to admit that locking 10,000 chickens up in a building that will asphyxiate them if the fans stop running is demonically stupid, there appears to be some sign that the government is backing away from the policy of euthanizing entire flocks based on a single PCR test — mostly because enough people pointed out how obviously insane this policy is. We hope for some positive change by next year. Maybe?]

Government policy suggests insanity

We are increasing our deposit per chicken to twenty dollars in 2023. This is because of the risk from the Federal Government’s response to Avian Influenza. Avian influenza is not a meaningful health risk to people, only to birds.

Nevertheless, for some unexplained reason (no corporate funding to explain it, likely), respiratory ailments such as avian influenza are dangerous to the profit margins of agribusiness corporations running huge, confined poultry flocks. It appears to be, in practice, U.S. government policy that commercial flocks kept in such close confinement that ventilation systems are required to filter out the aerosolized chicken manure (if they have access to the outdoors some of these birds may be sold as “free range”) could not possibly be a cause of respiratory ailments in said birds. Also, it appears that farmers are being told that it is a good idea to destroy wetlands habitat and other surface water sources on their farms to ensure the farm ecology is not shared with wild birds.

They don’t make insane, dictatorial bureaucracies like they used to

In a disappointingly weak and lackluster attempt to copy the illustrious Mao Zhuxi who, unlike the clownish erasthaipaeds in charge of the U.S. government*, had the knack of putting the “total” into “itarian”, the government (and big ag) blames wild birds for spreading avian influenza, and is particularly concerned that wild birds might breathe the same fresh, open air as domesticated poultry flocks. Fresh air is dangerous! To big ag profits?  

This story is not reminiscent of anything

To determine if a poultry flock is infected with the dreaded avian plague, the government uses a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, which has become the go-to test to detect something that isn’t there, since the PCR test, on its own, has always been and will always be invalid as a tool for diagnosis of any kind and was never intended for such a purpose, as stated explicitly by the man awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the invention of said test.  But if you’re wondering why you aren’t seeing flocks of wild geese dropping out of the sky with the sniffles, but almost all poultry lost from “avian influenza” have been part of huge commercial CAFO flocks, you’re clearly a misinformation spreader, so stop asking such questions and be thankful that you live in a free country.

(There are occasional media reports of nameless “hunters” seeing unexplained dead wild birds. A flock of more than 50 wild turkeys mate and nest on the farm and the surrounding area and hundreds of wild geese and ducks come to the farm every year. If there were anything at all to see, we would know.)

Following any positive test result, regardless of how apparently specious, the typical government response is to immediately destroy all birds in the flock, similar to the typical government response to children in Yemen, wedding parties in Iraq, or democratically-elected leaders in Africa or South America. Note that even if the entire flock were to be infected, the birds could be quarantined, processed, cooked, and eaten in complete safety, if the purpose of government policy was to benefit the public, but this is not allowed. 

Why we’re raising our deposit on chickens

Unlike the corporate CAFO factory farms and their absentee investor owners, we can’t afford to cover the loss of an entire flock of poultry so that we can profit by raising the price on you next time while driving our smaller competitors out of business. Thus, we have increased the deposit amount on bulk chicken pre-orders, which is not refundable in the event we have chickens but are prevented by law or regulatory action from selling them to you.

Do you believe drug companies care about people over profits?

The good news is that while “leaky” avian influenza vaccines have been largely banned in the U.S. and Europe due to the risks and side effects of the vaccines being deemed worse than the disease, international veterinary pharmaceutical conglomerates have for years selflessly pawned off these potentially dangerous vaccines onto politically and economically disadvantaged farmers in the “global South”, and are ready to charitably sell their vaccines in the affluent U.S. and European markets just as soon as government policy creates a sufficient demand.

Let’s Recapitulate

Avian influenza is not significantly harmful to humans but is potentially detrimental to debt-leveraged corporate agriculture confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) poultry business profits. In contrast, healthy birds raised outdoors appear to be less susceptible to the disease. Also, decentralized and distributed small scale outdoor flocks are logically more likely to experience a self-contained outbreak in contrast with huge confined flocks which are served by delivery trucks and machinery going between multiple buildings every day and thus spreading potentially contaminated litter. However, the U.S. government blames migratory wild birds for spreading avian flu, not Big Chicken warehouses full of aerosolized manure and the industrial supply chains which serve them. The solution promoted by the U.S. government is to destroy any chicken flock in which avian influenza is suspected, regardless of how many birds actually have symptoms, and to promote CAFO poultry as the safest way of raising chickens. The net result is the deliberate destruction of small, less capitalized poultry farms and thus decreased competition for the major corporations which fund agribusiness lobbying. As a (very) small producer, we can’t afford to cover the cost of having the government come and kill all our chickens, so we’re raising our deposit per chicken.

* Of course there may be many well-meaning employees of the Government. All of our interactions with such employees have been cordial. Most Federal employees probably mean well and are trying to do the right thing. None of these people has any real power to set policy. Perhaps if the hard working government employees who actually want to do the right thing were put in charge, things would be different.

Day-Range (Free Range) Broiler Chickens [edited: updates]

Due to a series of losses to predation despite our best efforts using the old pastured-poultry style system, we have made the switch to a free range system in which the chickens are fed outside the coops and go outside to forage during the day, and are locked safely inside the coops at night. While we expect to lose some birds to hawks and other daytime predators while the birds are outside, they at least have a chance of running away. The chief problem with having the chickens inside the coops was that if a predator manages to get inside then the chickens have nowhere to run. In addition, there is a built-in security flaw in the mobile coops, because they cannot have a floors in them which would prevent the chickens from foraging. In our system and with our topography it was not possible to keep predators from tunneling under the walls of the coop and getting inside.

In our day-range system the coops are now entirely covered in half-inch hardware cloth, including floors. [Covered floors proved too difficult to move through the grass, so we took them out and switched to running an electric strand around the base of the coop at night.] However, since the chickens are only kept inside the coops at night when they are asleep, it doesn’t matter that they can’t forage through the floor. [Still true, but we removed the floors for other reasons.] They go outside all day and forage in a much larger area which is protected by a temporary electric fence perimeter. We still move the coops regularly to spread out the manure deposit and to give the chickens access to new ground and we move the entire ensemble including the electric perimeter every week or two. So-called “free range” systems which do not move the chickens end up destroying all the available forage in the area. We make sure to move ours so that doesn’t happen.

For the farmer, managing this system takes about as much time as a standard pastured-poultry system in which broilers are kept inside mobile coops which are moved daily or more. In our day-range system each move takes more time and effort. The mobile coops are now heavier, must be moved farther, outdoor feeders and waterers must also be moved, and periodically the electric perimeter fence must be moved as well. However because the chickens are able to free range, when they are younger and don’t eat as much we can move them every few days instead of daily, so on average it is the same amount of time per day. Also, when using the old system we were spending a significant amount of extra time attempting to keep predators from tunneling under the coops — ultimately without success.

For now, this free range / day range system seems to be working well. We’ll provide an update after we have seen it in action for another season.

Pasture-Raised Poultry vs. "Free Range"

There is a difference

The United States Government says there is no difference between a chicken raised outdoors on pasture in the open air and moved daily to fresh forage, and a chicken raised in a giant warehouse with a door to the outside that is open sometimes.

This is clearly not true.

The American Pastured Poultry Producers Association is a trade network of farmers who share tips and ideas on how to better raise poultry on pasture. They produced a video briefly discussing the very real difference between Pasture-Raised poultry and other methods:

“Free Range” Chicken is Fake

“Free range” chicken sold in a big “organic” grocery store chain probably bears very little resemblance to what any of us would expect of a real free range chicken. Real free range chickens are pasture-raised.

Unless the giant corporate mega-farm moves the chickens frequently, the birds are not getting much of any benefit from ranging or foraging. All you have to do is imagine what a flock of chickens or ducks or other birds does in an enclosed space. The area will become covered in bird manure and the plants growing there will be pecked and scratched up. Also consider how far a chicken or pretty much any domestic animal ranges from wherever it is regularly fed every single day. How many animals do you think will leave the food trough to go wade through manure to find some distant forage-able area they don’t even know is there?

Now let’s imagine a hypothetical agribusiness chicken operation with a ventilated warehouse full of several thousand “free range” chickens provided “continuous access” to the outdoors. What does that “outdoors” look like, outside that chicken facility? Do you think there is anything really growing there? Is there a reason for the chickens to leave the warehouse where they are fed? What exactly are they doing or foraging for when they emerge into the urea-blasted moonscape out of the air-conditioned warehouse doors? (It’s air-conditioned because with that many birds in an enclosed box with only a few exits, the CO2 buildup would kill them all without a ventilation system. Pretending this is a bonus is the job of the marketing department.)

The only way to raise chickens that really do forage in fresh, healthy, natural pasture is to move the birds to new pasture on a regular basis. It simply can’t be done with birds raised inside a stationary ventilated giant warehouse with “access to the outdoors”, which is quite likely what is being advertised as “free range” chicken at your closest “organic” supermarket chain.

Don’t waste your money on overpriced fake “free range” chicken. Get the real deal. Pasture-raised at a farm near you.

New video on Youtube

We raise chickens, pigs, and sheep on pasture using rotation and holistic management to keep our animals happy and healthy and regenerating soil fertility. For more information visit us at anchorranchfarm.com

Just some video of the sheep eating grass while I ramble on.

I was thinking that our competition really comes from the big, corporate, international “so-called-organic” grocery stores. The “free range” chicken that is $4.99 a pound after being trucked across half the country, sold with million-dollar marketing campaigns, stocked on retail shelves in storefronts with million-dollar leases, with huge management staffs, expensive but individually-underpaid retail labor, high-priced corporate attorneys, well-funded lobbyists…

In other words, fakes! All that extra overhead cost and yet they manage to sell a “free range” chicken! Of course these big business chickens are not free range in any sense that small, conscientious family farms are raising chickens.

We think the more local, sustainable farms the better. Small farmers have more flexibility to adopt sustainable practices. Smaller, local stores can sometimes stock great products at reasonable prices because they buy locally instead of shipping food around the world. And shoppers who want better, sustainably-raised food have much more influence with a local farmer or a locally-run store they can actually go visit and talk to face to face.