IGI Poultry Event

Island Grown Initiative, IGI, held an all-day educational "Poultry" event at the new Ag Hall, Saturday February 16th.

Upwards of 60 people at any one time listened to speakers and shared their experiences on growing egg-layers, meat birds and heritage hens. What birds to raise, how to pasture chickens and protect them from predators and the design and construction of mobile pasture "tractors" were some of the generous discussions. In all, it was an informative community exchange of knowhow and insight.

Ms. Potter from Chappy said "my father used to put red sunglasses on his chickens to keep them from pecking each other." Apparently this is common industry practice, as pecking is a problem among young chickens establishing a "pecking order." [see Linsey Lee's "Marion Harding Article" for more chicken glasses stories.] Some outfits even stub chick's beeks prior to shipping them. (This was not a popular option with those gathered.)

Also discussed: feed requirements for meat birds rounds out to about 2.5 - 3 pounds of feed per 1 pound of meat. Even with chickens snacking on gourmet pasture grass, that can add up to 15 - 20 lbs a bird. So, as you can imagine, feed sourcing and collaborative efforts to help distribute/reduce cost were topics floated.

Among those speaking were Patrick McNiff, an organic farmer from Casey Farm, in North Kingston, RI. Mr. McNiff is an organic farmer who offered insight on, among other things, Red Tail Hawks and coop design: "They like to perch on top of our mobile hutch, and after the chickens have huddled beneath, they just wait. It's frustrating, after losing 10-12 birds a week. We're hoping RISD can help us come up with a monofilament line umbrella or something to keep them from swooping in. We've now got slack lines and dummy owls on top of it. We'll see."

Doug Brush, along with Jeff Munroe, have started what they are calling a CSC, or Community Supported Chickens at Flat Point Poultry. Doug shared his last year's experiences with a Joel Salatin style chicken tractor (view image). He's working up a 12' by 12' mobile tractor for their pastured poultry, and they will be scaling up their production a bit more this year.

Later in the day were cooking demonstrations by Jan Burhman of Kitchen Porch Catering, Danielle Dominick of the Scottish Bakehouse, and Dan Sauer of the Outermost Inn.

Lunch was served courtesy of the MVRHS Culinary Arts Program.

You can contact Doug and Jeff at Flatpoint Poultry by calling them at 508 939 1140.

Once again, for more information about chickens and other community agriculture connections you can contact IGI at Island Grown Initiative's website.