Note: This information was sent to us by local member, Julia Serra.
Last year the Eugene Chapter WAPF worked with a farmer in Creswell to raise soy free pastured poultry for some local members. Each person committed to buying a certain amount of broilers. We figured out each persons cost of feed and also paid the farmer a fee per bird for raising and butchering. We are interested in doing this again. I am inquiring with a couple of people who have acreage about setting up some tractors and using their land. We would need to pay for their time, the feed, and cost of each bird again. This will make it at least $9. extra per bird outside of feed costs. I also would like to use a non hybridized breed or at least not Cornish X because they gain so rapidly, etc. I would prefer to not raise birds that may be suffering. I am looking into Freedom Rangers, a hybrid, but they don’t appear to suffer like the Cornish X and also the usual heritage meat birds. This would be the most costly route as we would need to pay for the feed, the processing and raising.
The other option would be to raise some birds in our own backyards, everyone feeds them as they want to, and we rent equipment – scalder, plucker, cone set up, etc. and share the rental cost = processing party. If there are people in the group who are willing and have knowledge to do the processing please speak up because there are many of us interested in raising the birds but are not ready to jump into the butchering yet nor do we even have experience to do so. I would like to organize a group of people that can raise broilers for theirselves, maybe some have room to raise for others, people that are willing to do the processing, etc. If you are at all interested in participating in this email me. This would be the chepaest way to raise our own pastured poultry. I realize many people have small backyards but if true pastured poultry or organic from the store is out of your budget then this is the next best option. Raising them semi contained in your backyard on mostly feed vs. acreages of fresh forage is still better than factory farmed chicken.
Thanks!
Julia Serra
