by Elizabeth Irving

When Joel Salatin talks about his ‘eggmobile’, his ‘racken house’, his ‘shademobile’ and his ‘pigerator’, you know this is a farmer who is not hampered by traditional, dogmatic thinking!

Salatin spoke in January at COG Ottawa’s Ecological Farming Day about the controlled grazing system he uses at Polyface Farm in Virginia to produce the eggs, broilers, pork, beef and rabbits he sells direct to consumers.

Controlled grazing, says Salatin, mimics the high-density herd and short duration stay of natural herbivore populations the world over as they follow a fresh growth of forage. For larger animals, such as cows, pigs, sheep and goats, the total available pasture area is divided up into paddocks, usually with electric fencing; the animals are moved to a new paddock every day or two. Smaller livestock, like chickens and rabbits, can be rotated onto a new patch of pasture by means of movable, bottomless pens. This constant moving to give the animals access to fresh forage keeps both animals and pasture healthy and dramatically cuts feed bills. Salatin figures the time he spends each day moving animals brings him a return of $30 an hour.

He owns and uses very little heavy equipment on his farm. One great advantage to this, he points out, is that the whole family, young children included, can safely play a more active role in the farming operation.

Control is the key for Salatin, who compares himself to an orchestra conductor, making sure all the animals are doing their jobs. "Let the animals do the work," he says. Making sure they drop manure in the right place is an important aspect of this control.

Manure is a resource that many farmers manage poorly, says Salatin. A cow drops about 50 pounds of manure a day, containing one-third of a pound each of N, P and K. Bringing in the amount of N, P and K produced by one cow would cost 20 cents a day – or $20 a day for 100 cows.

To control and capitalize on his manure, Salatin places a four-foot-deep layer of straw in the stable before the cows go in from January to March. (They can’t graze during this period and the dormant soil can’t metabolize any nutrients; manure dropped on it would just leach away.) When the straw is put in, a few hundred pounds of grain is mixed with it – deep enough so the cows don't eat it. As the cows drop manure into the bedding, Salatin adds wood chips and old hay periodically to keep it sweeter. This warm, soft layer greatly increases the comfort of the cattle and reduces hay consumption by 15 percent; the addition of carbonaceous materials keeps the manure from leaching away. "If you smell manure," says Salatin, "you’re smelling mismanagement."

After the cows are turned out to pasture in the early spring, he activates the 'pigerator': the new crop of pigs is housed in the stable, where they root through the straw after the fermented grain and, incidentally, mix up the straw and manure, hastening the composting process. This is the only feed the pigs get, and when Salatin sells them, it’s all profit. "The pigs love it," he points out, "and this allows us to compost a four-foot layer of bedding material without starting one gas engine."

Outside, the cows are moved frequently from pasture to pasture. The speed of moving them varies with the season and the pasture’s ability to metabolize the nitrogen in their manure. By means of the 'shademobile', a portable loafing structure which can shelter 50 animals, Salatin controls where manure is dropped.

Following immediately behind the cows through the pastures is the 'eggmobile', a portable henhouse that holds 200 layers. The eggmobile is placed over the cow pies, and the chickens scratch and incorporate them into the pasture in no time. This maximizes the benefits of the manure, which does not have a chance to leach away or burn the sward. Salatin finds this technique provides excellent control of parasites and pathogens, and cattle manure contains all the correct enzymes for proper poultry nutrition. In nature, birds always follow herbivores, observes Salatin. Later, the cattle graze back over the pasture to harvest the growth from the chicken manure.

More manure management is at work in the 'racken house', the name Salatin has coined for a two-storeyed structure with two levels of production in the same space: rabbits on the upper floor and chickens below. Rabbit manure from above drops onto the floor of the chicken apartment, where it is scratched, aerated and incorporated with the bedding to start composting. Deep bedding is used everywhere on the farm; one reason is that it grows the moulds and fungi that produce natural antibiotics.

As with all the other animals on the farm, Salatin uses controlled grazing for his broilers. The beauty of raising broilers, he says, is that the season comes to an end. He has even prepared a video explaining the process from the arrival of the day-old chicks to the pick-up at the farm of dressed birds by customers. (Note: Unlike in the U.S., commercial poultry production in Canada is controlled by marketing boards.)

The brooder house has permanent deep bedding which is aerated between batches of chicks by stirring and then covered with a few inches of fresh wood shavings. With the proper C:N ratio in the bedding, there is no odor and the heat from the compost-ing manure and straw keeps the little birds cosy. The chicks are not vaccinated or debeaked. They spend about three weeks in the brooder house; as one batch is leaving, a new one is coming in.

The three-week old birds are then put in mobile, bottomless pens which are moved, using a manually operated dolly, onto fresh pasture every day. It takes about 30 seconds to move each pen just far enough so that the chickens have access to all fresh grass. Always giving them fresh food increases their ingestion and makes them grow faster. Another reason for moving them frequently is not to overload the soil with nitrogen. "It’s critical to apply nutrients so they can be used," Salatin explains.

He makes his pens out of pressure-treated wood because of its rot resistance and its tensile strength. The pens are 10'x12' in size, and two feet tall. Half of each pen is covered with lightweight aluminum to provide light- and heat-reflecting shelter for the birds; Salatin advises against using steel, as it might make the pen too heavy to move. The other half is covered with poultry netting.

By letting the chickens have access only to the fresh forage every day before replacing their feed and water containers, Salatin is able save 30 percent on his feed bill and the birds grow quickly.

Salatin schedules only 28 processing days during the season, so the task does not seem onerous or never-ending. The job is done right on the farm, and customers come to pick up their chickens the same day.

Being able to sell direct to his customers, to let them come to the farm, is one of the best things about his business, says Salatin. Sixty years ago, he explains, a farmer got between 60 and 70 cents of every retail food dollar spent; today, with the intervention of countless middlemen, the farmer is lucky to get nine cents. If farmers spent more time educating consumers and encouraging direct sales by welcoming city people to their farms, the farming community would benefit immensely.

Salatin's controlled grazing system gives him more free time to spend on his customers – and with his family.