 Welcome to today's webinar on behalf of our NDSU Extension small farms team and this is our last webinar of our series of poultry needs and egg production. So just a few things. First of all, there is a link in the chat for a pre survey link, please go there and take the pre survey. There is going to be a poll launched pretty soon go ahead and take that poll as well. Just a couple of things that we're working on or have done as part of the small farms team. We recently published a beginner's guide to raising chicken publication so that is on the web so feel free to look that up. And then the next thing that we have coming up on this fall is a beginner's guide to grant writing. And so that's a two day workshop about maybe three to four weeks in between each day. But the first day basically you have your proposal outline, and we give you the resources to create that into a full proposal, and they are come back the second day. And more look at the role from or look at it from the role of the reviewer and kind of learn those strategies for finding funding and how to polish up proposal for submission. So keep an eye out open for that. There will be a save the date coming out in June from NDSU Extension. But again, that'll be this fall. Questions, please feel free to put those in the chat. And we will get to that as they come through. And then the recording. I've been getting the recording links out usually within just a couple days. We've been pretty good at getting that done. So but for sure by like next Monday but you should have it by the end of the week. So with that, I'm going to hand it over to probably Travis. And thanks for helping to coordinate this and Penny, we have our slides and presentation that is a gentleman for those of you that are joined us. This is our fifth of five of our five part webinar series. Of course, with a little focus from our NDSU extension, our small farms teams, and our teammates and colleagues that have helped to pull this together. I wanted to give just a quick background of kind of kind of where we've been as we've talked about our initial four. And so one of the first ones that we had are obviously the first one that we had was getting livestock ready for harvest. And so that was the first portion of what we would do. And in fact, again, you see that we've done May three, May 10, and then down the line here and all these are available again on a YouTube site that we can host at North Dakota State University extension. But there's one main graph that kind of summarizes the getting livestock ready for harvest. And in fact, it's about timely management as we relate to animal growth. And it's going to stay pretty linear in terms of the bone growth. Muscle growth is going to continue as you get through your supply chain and get through the production system. And then one of the things that happens is that muscularity plateaus, and then the adipose or fat tissue increases. And so when we think about that, primarily from our four red meat species there of beef, pork, lamb and goat is that we want to identify that those have an adequate amount of fat for harvest, much like we would need to get marbling for cattle or belly thickness for swine. But also we don't want to get too much external fat or seem fat as we continue to grow as well. And so one of those things that can be certainly very important in what we're doing. The second one of our functions that we that we talked about here kind of pulled together the excuse me the farm to market. And that with we look at it of farmers market options as we see on the top one with kind of a retail stand set up. We also worked with the North Dakota Department of Agriculture, and the North Dakota Department of Public Institution to talk again about our farmers markets, and some of our farm to school programs and so that's something that interests you feel free to to check that one out as well. The next one that we talked about as we brainstorm and kind of move into it is is truthfully highlighting some of the things on retail inventory and management. So I use the sheep or the land here as an example about what we would expect and this was a function that you know I pulled together through the University of Minnesota extension on what products you produce and what do you have to be available because if you're going to think of your animals from a local direct market. If you so choose to parse that out from individual cuts, you need to know what you're going to accomplish. And then the last one that we did was was building on consumer trust and relationships and so when we can build that trust and build that relationships. Truthfully that's the advantage that we have and depending on what roles or what claims and labels that you wish to put on your products. It's still about knowing who those people are knowing who can produce those animals and then be able to make that food that that fits the dinner plate and so I'm excited to be joined by a great group of talented guests here on our poultry meet an egg production one and penny. Look forward to hearing how you get to serve as our moderator and introduce our guests for primarily our poultry meet an egg production. Penny. So thank you Travis. So tonight, we're kind of mixing it up a little bit and we are spending the night talking about poultry. We spent the last couple of sessions really focusing on our larger scale livestock or diversified livestock and today we're just going to talk about our feathered friends so tonight I am joined with a variety of different experts in the field. And we are in good hands to talk to about a wide range of things that you have to consider in the poultry production so our first expert of the night will be Wayne Martin he is the alternative livestock system specialist at the University of Minnesota extension. He has helped you have them publish a wide variety of poultry information and educational publications and programs there. So welcome Wayne thanks for being here tonight and joining us. So on our list tonight will be Dr. Julie Gardner Robinson. Julie is our food and nutrition specialist at NDSU and she will be covering some things that you have to be aware of on the food safety side of things and poultry and egg regulation inside of things that as you know we're going to reference North Dakota consumers and producers in this webinar that are specific to North Dakota. So thank you Julie for joining us and last but certainly not least is April and Adam Moby and they are producers in the Botno region of the state for Garden Dwellers Ranch. So if you've joined us other times Adam and April have talked a little bit about their lamb operation. But tonight they're going to focus on their poultry side of the operation. So thank you April and Adam for joining us as well. First off we're going to kind of roll down to the getting started in poultry production and Wayne I'm going to have you kind of start us off and give us a little bit of an idea of how we get started in meat or egg production on the poultry side of things. Some considerations that we have to think about. Well I guess I would say first off it really depends on what kind of an operation you're going to have. Are you going to do it just in the backyard and do for your own production or are you going to have a business enterprise. And is it going to be meat, me birds or is it going to be egg laying each of those facilities each of those breeds have birds have different needs and both in terms of housing and in terms of the kind of feed they get. So, in terms of getting them started, when they arrive as chicks of course, you've got to have a room set up for them to keep them warm, have the right kind of feed have plenty of because broiler feed is different than feed for laying birds. So, in order to, in order to get, you know, off to a good start you need to maybe use a medicated feed, such as to prevent coxidiosis. One of the things that I am concerned about always is getting the birds off to a really good start because that makes all the difference. So, if I can, should I just go ahead and go through a few slides real quick, or should we do that later. Why don't you just get started with the slides and we'll go from there. So, anyway, this is just a quick overview because there's so much to learn, and it's all a process of getting as much information as you can and then also gathering your own experience over time. So, and it's, there's always new things to learn as you go through it. So, if I do this, here's a whole list of reasons and I will share this slide presentation with people if they're interested in it afterwards. You know, do you want to produce your own meat and eggs, do you want to have for each projects for the kids develop a business enterprise that kind of activity. And basic terms, if you're thinking about having chickens, when you go to order, you're going to order chicks. You can order cockerels, which are young male male birds, or you can order young females, which are called pullets. And then a rooster is an adult male and a hen is an adult female. And you can order either all cockerels or all pullets or a straight run, which is a mixture of the two. When you get them, you should have a brooder set up, which is a heat source. And so that because those birds have just come out of an incubator, and they're used to 90 to 95 degrees and so you want to have that for them for the first week of life. So there's the term brooder, and then compare that to the term broody, which is the maternal instinct in the hen to cause her to want to set on eggs and hatch them. In terms of types of birds, there's basic layers, there's meat producing birds, the broilers, dual purpose breeds, ornamental breeds, and which are showbirds, and then bantams, which are merely miniature versions of all the others. So obviously, if you're going to produce eggs for a business, you want birds that are really focused on laying eggs. If you want to go into the broiler business, you need a bird for that. If you're doing it for your own benefit, you can get dual purpose breeds, which do a little bit of both. So it's good to remember that it's going to take five to six months before your bullets that you get those chicks will be laying eggs. And they produce for two years, more or less, and then begin to decline. And you get about an egg a day. Not quite 25 hours to produce an egg. Now for the meat birds, the Cornish Cross is the standard bird. And a lot of people who do pastured raised poultry still do this bird, even though it doesn't get out and roam around much. They use it simply because it grows so fast. It puts on weight, puts on meat very quickly and gives a huge breast, which is what is the most expensive cut of meat. So when ordering birds, when getting started, especially with broilers, you should have your plans already established as to what you're going to do with them before they arrive. So plan their arrival essentially around their departure. Because in six to eight weeks at the most, you're going to be processing those birds. So you need to have processing and the market lined up well in advance of them even arriving at your house at your farmstead. When I when I raise chickens on campus at the same on the St. Paul campus, we tend to buy cockerels because they're a little more expensive, but they grow a lot faster and you get about an extra pound of meat. A lot of people don't like to raise all cockerels, but that's something that has worked well for us. There are two vaccinations that I get with the birds. One is against coxidiosis. Coxidiosis can cause diarrhea and it can kill a lot of birds in a hurry. And then Merrick's disease causes paralysis and it's 100% fatal. And so you should just assume that Merrick's is everywhere, much like coxidiosis. And so we get birds vaccinated for that as well. Both are really cheap. And for us, it's been well worth it. And with coxidiosis, hundreds of birds can die in just a few days. So you do really want to be careful with that. So again, I mentioned earlier, have a clean space, this warm draft free with wood shavings or sawdust or straw. Wood shavings are really the best to use. The other two sawdust and straw are okay if they're free, I suppose, but not not really. And then 90 to 95 degrees for the first week of life and then lower it for each week until it's down to about 70 or so. By four weeks of age, they'll be almost fully feathered. Incandescent heat in the wintertime in particular to really warm up the air in the springtime and warm weather infrared can work because it only heats body and living tissue. So again, to help them really thrive, clean water twice daily. Limit feed for Cornish cross birds after the first week or so simply because they can have heart attacks as they grow. Avoid ammonia buildup. Keep your area biosecure. We'll talk more about that later. In hot weather, pull the heat pull the feed just simply because the Cornish cross will keep eating and they can have heart attacks in heats with heat stress. Let's see. I'm going to skip this one. Different types of feed you can buy conventional transitional or organic feeds organic certified organic feed has particular standards to follow. No chicken feed has added hormones. I think that's important to note, because in the grocery store, you'll often see an ad. You'll see a label that says these birds were raised without added hormones. And that's purely a marketing gimmick because there'll be an asterisk beside it. And then further down on the package, you will see the USDA prohibits the use of hormone added hormones in poultry production. Let's see. You can probably your best choice is a blended feed from a local grain elevator that may be the most economical. And that's important because feed is cost is 60 to 70% of your total variable cost. For your laying hens, they'll need four to five square feet in a in a hut. And if they are in an enclosed run, they would need about 10 square feet of space per bird. Obviously, if they're out on pasture, that would not be a big deal. Predators are an issue, especially for pasture raised birds. On the St. Paul campus we have, we have hawks, foxes, coyotes, raccoons, they're all a problem, but the worst for the hawks, they're relentless. And again, I mentioned coxidiosis, you can treat it. It's better to prevent it. Merrick's biosecurity is something that especially now I so hope you've all been hearing about avian influenza and how it is affecting flocks everywhere, especially not only big large commercial operations, but also a lot of backyard operations have been hit this time around. So it's just simply a way when you think about biosecurity, it's a way for preventing disease from entering your property. And even if you're doing outdoor production of birds, you could there are a lot of things that you can do to reduce the likelihood that your birds will get exposed to avian influenza or other diseases. Create a line of separation around your property. A line of separation just around the property and around each one of the buildings and a field as best you can. And that's it. That's it for me. And I went through that really fast. So if you have questions, don't hesitate to ask. Thank you, Wayne. We really appreciate that and I also wanted to throw up a plug while we're talking about getting started in chicken production because we do have a new publication that we just released through NDSU extension that covers a lot of the things that we go through quickly. So this is our beginner's guide to raising chickens that goes through those step by step things to think about as you're preparing that brooder for your chicken flock. So we don't spend a lot of time talking about, you know, meat production stages of birds, but we do go through, you know, the basic steps of raising chickens. I will put that in the chat box if you want more information about that publication in the future. So next up, we're going to transition to Julie Gardner Robinson. So Julie is our specialist that kind of helps us go through the food safety aspects of raising chickens and eggs. She is an expert that has worked a lot with our local farmers markets groups and as far as regulations and coming to provide products for the patrons of North Dakota. So Julie, I'm going to roll it over into you. And I hope you're seeing my screen. We can. Good. So as Penny said today, or tonight I am sharing with you some of the rules and regulations. I did not throw a personal spin on these I actually went to the regulations and I pulled them into my PowerPoint slide so I'm not making this up. And I have a couple of things that you can certainly Google and check this out from the North Dakota Department of Agriculture. North Dakota poultry slaughter processing and sales guidelines is an excellent piece that will guide you through the process. And we just had one of the neighboring experts from the University of Minnesota. And I would encourage anyone who's not from North Dakota or Minnesota to go to your extension agency in your state to look up specific information about raising poultry and eggs. And also we'll be talking about some of the food born illness outbreaks and some of the food safety guidelines and handling regulations. So we'll get started here. So I live in Fargo, North Dakota, and a few years ago actually six years ago, they published a guideline or a little workbook I guess called urban agriculture and backyard chickens and that was from the cast clay food systems project. And from 2017 to 2019, they issued 19 permits that allowed backyard chickens. They could not have roosters, because they're kind of noisy, and you could not have coops in your front yard. And the other rule associated with that was no chickens within 75 feet of any dwelling without consent of the owners. So again, I encourage you to check out your local ordinances if you have any, because in this case in Fargo, you do have to get a license in order to have your chickens present. So in North Dakota, we have state limits on poultry slaughter. And again, as I said, I didn't try to make this small I did want to show you the actual writing from the guidance. So whole frozen poultry products slaughtered by the producer on the farm where the poultry is raised. If no more than 1000 poultry are slaughtered per calendar year so you have a maximum of 1000. And those are sold to the home consumer. And that's from the administrative code section as noted. There are other exemptions for up to 20,000 birds, but in this case you can't sell to a distributor to retail or interstate. So if you have a really large flock, more than 20,000 you have other mandates to follow. So of course in the world of food safety chicken and eggs are linked with a lot of foodborne illness outbreaks as I will show you. So these whole frozen poultry products have to have safe for handling instructions very similar to what you see in the grocery store on a pack of ground beef, for example. So the rule of thumb for keeping poultry safe as either to keep it solidly frozen at zero degrees Fahrenheit or lower that's the magic temperature. Once it's thought your refrigerator should be at 41 or lower. So that will keep it safe for several days. And then the temperature for cooking poultry is 165. So again, that that specific verbata message has to be included on the safe handling instructions. And then on this package, there must also be a consumer advisory that says poultry products do not come from a government approved source. So poultry products are are slaughtered in the presence of USDA. So there's a lot of regulations related to meat because of its tendency to to be linked with foodborne illnesses. First now, so are many other products, many vegetable products. Next piece I'd like you to take a look at you can simply Google this it's called frequently asked questions about egg licensing from the North Dakota Department of egg. And again, food operators may voluntarily be licensed as egg dealers and approved by the North Dakota Department of Agriculture. This also must be handled and labeled labeled according to egg requirements. So if they're being offered for sale they should be candle and that allows a look inside the egg with light. So you can see what the, you know what the inside of the egg looks like if there are blood spots what the air sac looks like and all that sort of thing. The eggs are washed either manually or with the aid of an automatic cleaning equipment. And the temperature of eggs is 45 degrees or lower that will help maintain its safety. The cartons of eggs offered for sale and again this is from the North Dakota Department of Agriculture. The cartons should be identified with the producer's name and address, and just like with whole poultry, the cartons should be labeled with the safe handling instructions. And in this case, keep them refrigerated cook until the yolks are firm and cook any foods containing eggs thoroughly. And those are that's USDA advice, which the North Dakota Department of Agriculture follows. So any person who wants to act who wants access to commercial egg markets shall first apply to an obtain an egg dealers license. So that egg dealers license comes from the North Dakota Department of Agriculture. And any person who candles and grades eggs must also be licensed. And you can apply for that license from the North Dakota Department of Agriculture just look for article 711. So what makes eggs safe for not safe temperatures. And I already mentioned this one, but the temperature should not exceed 45 degrees Fahrenheit and that also includes temporary storage. And I know that in other countries I hear this all the time, eggs are not kept in the refrigerator. Go to Europe I understand you will see eggs sitting out on the counter. Most of the time, you know as soon as you wash the egg you're removing some of the protective coating and that does decrease the shelf life, but it is required with this washing and sanitizing, according to USDA, and also our state egg department. The carton should include the producer's name and address. In fact, I don't have this on the slide but I was doing a little more looking. The best type of cartons for safety are the type that you can actually wash and sanitize. So the ones that, and the ones that are not as safe in terms of being able to be washed and sanitized would be your, your standard cardboard type egg carton. Well the plastic ones are actually safer. Expiration dates should be included on that typically is 23 days from the date of washing and sanitizing. So there's, there is an expiration date. It's kind of an interesting thing that eggs can be used to quite a while they will remain safe in your fridge so going further down this path. Let's say up to it's three to five weeks in your refrigerator. So a little longer actually than this expiration date indicates. Okay, now we're going to get into some of the microbiology, not too much. One thing that has shown up in recent times related to poultry are salmonellosis outbreaks. That means, and that's because backyard poultry, lots of lots of different animals can carry, can carry salmonella bacteria and poultry in particular, even if they look healthy and clean and they don't look sick. They can certainly be carriers of salmonella. So simply by touching backyard poultry or even their environment, you could get sick. So there are some guide, there is some guidance related to that. But first let's take a look at a very recent outbreak actually happened. Oh, during the pandemic. As of December 17, a total of 1722 people were infected with one of the outbreak strains of salmonella, and these were reported in all states all 50 states, and 333 of the people were hospitalized. And 33% of those with information available anyway. One death and 24% of the ill people were children younger than five years of age. Young children was preschoolers and younger are particularly vulnerable to foodborne illness because their immune systems aren't as fully developed as a healthy adult. And then people older, older adults are also very vulnerable as our immune compromised. So we have some special guidance for those vulnerable groups to foodborne illness. But I was kind of surprised I until I looked this up I wasn't fully aware that so many people had been second and so recently. What happens if you have some analysis that's a condition associated with salmonella. It's very it's like a severe flu diarrhea fever stomach cramps. There's often a fever associated with some analysis. The illness could last four to seven days. Fortunately, most people will recover without any special treatment. Even if they're young children 65 plus year old adults, or those who may be having cancer treatment or have some other immune compromised system are very vulnerable. Another group that typically is included with vulnerable populations are pregnant women. So that's something to think about. A little bit more on that case 576 of the 876 ill people who were interviewed reported contact with chicks and ducklings. And that they work from all just one source they were getting these birds from various sources including agricultural stores websites hatcheries. So it wasn't just one place they really had to work hard to track down on what was happening. All right, so now we're going to talk a little bit about chickens and safety. And sometimes chickens can be a little aggressive. I have never raised chickens in full disclosure but I've been around them. But they can carry germs and their beaks. And if they pack you bite you. That could lead to infections. So what's recommended is to wash those wounds very carefully with soap and water. And if you develop an infection you should see a medical provider, because it you might not recover unless you get medication. Well, we've heard this advice a lot in the last few years, but the same safety advice applies when we're raising chickens or gathering eggs. Or when we're preparing the chicken or the eggs in your kitchen, wash your hands. Our recommendation is at least 20 seconds with soap and water, right after touching the poultry after touching the eggs or anything where they, where they might roam you might be, you know, touching areas where they are, where they are living so you do need to wash your hands in that case. And young children aren't particularly good at washing their hands and we've done a lot of hand washing activities with kids so it's very important for adults to supervise their hand washing so they actually are getting their hands good and clean. If soap and water aren't readily available, hand sanitizer is okay, but it isn't a good replacement for just plain soap and water and plenty of scrubbing. But certainly if you're out and about, you don't have those facilities. Keeping some hand sanitizer near your coop is a good idea and make sure that it has adequate alcohol content and you use enough so that you really rub your hands until it evaporates. Okay, so this comes from the CDC I didn't make this up. Maybe there are people out there that like to kiss and snuggle with their their poultry, but the rule is don't kiss snuggle or touch backyard poultry and then touch your face or your mouth because that's how you could transfer the salmonella bacteria into your mouth. Don't bring your poultry in the house, especially into the kitchen to invite them up to the table and, and so on. If you're outside, have a separate pair of shoes to wear when you're taking care of poultry and keep those outside of the house because otherwise you could track manure into your house and along with that, different types of bacteria. Salmonella is just one of the kinds of bacteria that can be found in in poultry manure. And poultry is one of the, another type of bacteria associated with poultry is Campylobacter and Salmonella and Campylobacter are two of the very common types of disease causing or illness causing bacteria in food. And also clean the containers for feed and water. And again, just another reminder, supervision of kids and make sure they're washing their hands. And then if the kids are younger than five years old, they really shouldn't handle or touch chicks I know they're cute and they like to, but those young children are much more likely to get sick from germs like Salmonella. So some rules again from CDC. Be sure to collect eggs often because eggs that sit in the nest can become dirty or break. If you come upon cracked eggs, remember that the germs on the shell can easily enter the eggs through through a cracked shell. You can use fine sandpaper, a brush or a cloth to clean eggs that have dirt and other debris on them. And this is an interesting thing. The same thing can happen in produce. It's called infiltration. So if you have warm fresh eggs and then you put it in cold water. That water can be pulled with germs into the inside of the egg because the shells on eggs are quite porous. So you want the eggs to cool down before you wash them. So don't grab a warm egg and put it in cold water. Refrigerate eggs after collection that will slow germ growth and help maintain freshness. And then finally when it's time to have that delicious farm fresh egg or backyard fresh egg, remember to cook them thoroughly. Egg dishes, so if you like a brunch dish for example, according to USDA, they should reach an internal temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit or hotter. All right, so I'm going to pass this along to the next person. Well, thank you Julie. I had to laugh on your slide talking about kids and not hugging or kissing your bird. So I'm a long time poultry producer. We grew raised chickens and geese and ducks growing up. And my first pet chicken I used to carry it around the farm yard. And I never got Salmonella from her but she did give me head lice. And that is my first experience and my last experience with head lice. Luckily, chicken lice is a lot easier to control than human lice, but my mother wasn't taking any chances. So I got the medicated shampoo and all the stuffed animals went into the dryer and the combs and all of that. And so there's other things to think about than just Salmonella handling your birds. But always a funny story that I distinctly remember and I still raised chickens and showed them in 4-H after that. So it wasn't a horrible experience, but still one that was memorable. So thanks for sharing. So I figured I'd make it a little more personable. So that brings us to the production side of things. Did you see that other question in the chat? I just wanted to make sure we got that one. So Janelle would like to know if one can sell smoked chicken or turkey in North Dakota. Ooh, let me look that up. I don't think so. And I'm not sure if Travis knows the answer to that. I know there's more regulations when it comes to, you know, a cooked product or a smoked product than a raw product in the States. So yes, I don't think you can because then that would have to be certainly a licensed inspected facility. But Travis, have you come upon that question? Well, I'll keep looking. I'll see if I find anything. Not yet. I think, you know, like you said, we can, we can look into that. I would presume that again, yeah, we're going to have some additional regulations. If we do smoke those, but we can check and get back to it here within this time period. Yep. I think I know where that is. It's on the North Dakota Department of Ag. And it's, if it's further processed. It doesn't fall under that exemption I talked about. Yep. So we'll double check that for you, Janelle. And in the meantime, we're going to switch over to Adam and April. So they have a flock of their own that they raise pasture raised chickens and they've had experience in other poultry as well. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to April and she can kind of explain a little bit about their operation. Hi, I'm April. My husband Adam is on here via phone as well. As we own garden dwellers farm and ranch were located in the Botno area and currently buying our forever farm in service North Dakota. We're a small scale diverse farm selling direct to consumer. We raise herbs pasture raised lamb and around 300 borrower chickens per season. Adam and I were married in 2020, but prior to our marriage, we both had our own individual experiences with raising chickens. He began raising broilage on pasture in 2018 to help with the cash flow of his grass fed ketahden sheep operation and to improve soil health. That's a really important thing to both of us. I don't have experience prior to this raising chickens but learned enough to get started from what he could read online and following some of John's Escobages methods. I'll try and find a link at the end for anyone that might be interested in looking him up. I've personally raised broilers and laying hens for personal consumption since 2009 and learn most of what I know about raising broilers from reading Joel Salton's book pastured poultry profits. But the majority of what both of us know probably it's just trial and error. That's sometimes the best way to learn. When we were married in 2020, we were able to kind of join forces with our combined knowledge and experience and expand our operation to what it is now and keep expanding in the future. So now we're selling birds. I didn't start out that way it was just for for my own family's needs primarily, but everything we're doing can be scaled scaled down to homeowner's level, or scaled up. So we actually raise. I used to raise Cornish cross for many years that's what I have most most of my experience with raising broilers has been Cornish cross. Adam talked me into trying his favorite breed freedom ranger, and they are a hybrid out of a freedom ranger hatchery in Pennsylvania. We've chosen to raise them over the Cornish cross because we found them to be a little heartier and able to forage better. But they do grow slower. So typically your Cornish cross is going to be butcher size at six to eight weeks depending on how you eat them. They're extremely fast growing. And they do definitely have their place their bread for eating and growing. They're not real intelligent birds. We found the freedom rangers just have a little more natural chicken instincts and they just survive better they can kill over and die the Cornish if they grow too fast. If you offer them free feed, they can their organs can grow at a rate that they're the rest of them can't keep up so they can actually heart attacks and things like that and skeletal issues where they might have a hard time walking. So we've been really happy with the freedom rangers. Many hatcheries around the country sell their own kind of version of a slower growing broiler as an alternative to a Cornish cross, the industry standard. We do raise straight runs. As was mentioned earlier today that means it's both males and females they're just unsexed. We've done it both ways where we've just raised roosters, but we've kind of found some of our customers do like a little bit smaller bird like in the four and a half pound range. With these freedom rangers they don't quite fill out like they're still there's their skeletal system needs to grow faster in proportion to the meat than the Cornish, if that makes sense. So they're just that by raising the hens, we're able to get a short a smaller framed bird that still fills out proportionally more similar to the Cornish cross. And more fat, not everybody likes fat on their meats but the people that we are selling to I think do enjoy the fat and it's delicious on these birds. Nice golden fat I actually render it at home and use it for personal cooking as well. Chicks this is just how we raise our chicks. This can be get to be a lot of work but I do dip every little chicks beak in the water pot arrival. I usually make up a concoction of warm water molasses raw honey and raw apple cider vinegar. I have used electrolyte probiotic mixes in the past but it costs money, and we're training make money. So we found that that mixture actually works just as well for us. It gives them an extra boost of energy and the probiotics and kind of teaches them how to drink right away and get some hydrated right before a chick hatches at the hatchery. The rest of the yolk actually goes inside their belly and they that's how they're able to chef them in the mail for two or three days that yolk sustains them so they don't actually have to eat or drink for up to three days. I would like to step in here and credit April on I. When I started raising chickens in 2019 I didn't believe the dip beaks every single being can count them out and this year April took over the incoming chick job and we had 123 chicks show up in our first batch and we have 123 chicks that are just about a week away from ready from butcher. I that really made the difference I think this year is taking that time to dedicate into getting each chick associated with the new water source with food and everything like that and they're in their brooder once they get set up. I can probably say I had a 10% mortality before people showed up and started helping me out with that which is normal you're going to lose some chicks normally. I would say 5 to 10% loss that can happen it happens. We feed ours. A feed mix we buy by the tote from feed the feed mix company at a Harvey. We yeah we buy by the ton but if I was raising smaller batches we would probably just be buying baked feed. Yeah, some important things. Also, probably the most important thing is clean dry bedding and that kind of ties together with bio security. A few others mentioned coxidiosis I did have a problem with that one year. So I'm very careful now that the biggest factor is keeping them on clean dry bedding. Also, we have laying hens for our own production. Coxidiosis is something that's probably just in the guts of most mature birds so they have to be exposed very slowly. So I'm really mindful to not be walking through the hens area, and then walking into the the chick brooder. We don't want to spread that around. And since we don't feed medicated feed to ours we're just prevention is the best cure for us. One reason they'll poop in the water. It just to help eliminate that problem. And we keep feed in front of ours at all time, like, like I said earlier, you. It's not always a great idea with the Cornish cross but we haven't had a problem with the freedom rangers and keeping food in front of them at all times. I wanted to touch on that biosecurity real quick like right now in our operation we've got a week old chicks. We've got 10 week old broilers. We've got three week old ducks and we got two year old hens. So when it comes down to biosecurity we're always starting with the youngest batch first doing chores with them trying to stay as clean as possible. And then cleaning cleaner and glove cleaner and stuff we'll rinse off with sometimes before we get on to the next batch next youngest next youngest and then finally until we get to the oldest because the oldest birds have built up more immunities and have a system that's better capable of handling toxiciosis and stuff like that. Yep. So this is one of our chicken tractors. They're 10 by 12 by three. Adam's a big guy so he doesn't have a problem pulling these. I struggle a little bit so sometimes I use the riding mower to hook on to these and pull them. But the idea is that when the weather cooperates the birds are three to four weeks old when we put them out. They're 15 hours off of heat sooner than what most would. But with, oh another reason we like the freedom rangers right Adam is that they grow feathers in really quickly and they're fully feathered whereas the Cornish cross they're halfway naked. And that red skin is showing it gets sunburned and then they have a tendency they might scratch each other and if a wound starts then they might start cannibalizing each other it's not good. So we have these guys because they grow their feathers in really quickly and they don't need a heat source because they have their clothes on we're able to put them out as early as three weeks if the weather is good. We move the tractors once or twice a day. So this enables them to forage for insects plants get grit out of the soil and keeps them out of their own manure so they're clean. It's important as we get closer to processing time it keeps our dunking water and the whole food safety process easier if the birds are not caked in manure so we're careful to move them. They do eat a lot of plant material people think chickens are primarily carnivores that's that is true. So we do offer them feed as well. But they eat a surprising amount of plant material including we have just discovered this spring they love leafy spurge so bonus points for that leafy spurge is really high in protein actually. So we've, we believe the reason them on pasture in these chicken tractors is a humane way to allow them to still get to behave like chickens while keeping them safe from predators and create a healthier food product for our customers. They live a very good chicken life and they have one bad day which we're going to go to next year. Oh, here's another picture of our chicken tractor so this this is the batch we have going this spring and the grass back here is it is greening up incredibly fast this picture was taken a few weeks ago now. Okay, processing day. So food safety first we always use tested potable water, keep our hands washed, wash, rinse, sanitize, sink surfaces, knives tools, every piece of equipment that a meat or our hands are going to be touching we make sure it's clean. We provide ourselves and the birds with shade and wind protection, so we don't want dust blowing in on our meats that we're processing. I think it's to be a hot, a hot day when you're working in the sun we want to keep that meat cool so soon as they're processed they go into an ice bath to cool to hydro cool, and then we package and chill them quickly. So this is kind of a picture of our butcher setup. So we have the chickens in a dog crate in the back of the pickup. We only grab them out of there, maybe a dozen at a time if you butcher if you just slaughter too many at once, get rega mortis, and it's hard to get them chilled to the correct temperature and everything on time. So we've just found like a dozen birds at a time works really well for for us is just us to doing the butchering. So we have what's called killing cones over here. Just screwed onto this palette. So you put the bird in head down and Adam will gently pull the head down and Nick the main artery there in the bird will will bleed out. Once it's nerve stop twitching, he will scald them in the water. He has a certain temperature in time he does it that's. I'm not sure exactly what that temperature is but he's got it down to a science and then he'll come over to this thing that's probably as old as him and I are. And drum style barrel style chicken plucker and you just hold the bird on there and if you get your scald temperature right, then it won't rip the skin, but it will take the feathers out. So it's that sweet spot and then he'll give the birds to me. They go in this stainless steel sink and I'll do any plucking that he may have missed with the machine. I'll pose them off, remove the legs. And then they come over to my eviscerating table where I'm the gutter, primarily smaller hands than him, and I'm that I like doing it. So then we, once the guts are removed, they get a spray off in this side of the sink and then they go into this tank over here is actually a very old stainless steel dairy tank so it's insulated and seamless and we fill it up with ice water really cold ice water and as we get done with chickens they go into there until we are ready to beg them at the end of the day. So then we'll drain them out, get all the chickens out, make sure we got all the feathers out that we possibly can. And then they go into a bag, and we zip tie the bag shut poke a little hole in it for air to escape and then he will dunk the birds in the. We change the water, he will dunk the birds in clean hot water for so many seconds and it will just vacuum pack the chicken basically then they get our, our label with all the correct information on it and they go into our freezer to freeze as quickly as possible will spread them out so they can freeze quickly, and then we are able to sell them. So this is what they look like when they're all bagged up and ready to go. We just stick our sticker right over that hole that we had to make for the air to escape through the bags. We sell direct to consumer year round we tried always have some frozen chickens on hand. So we don't aren't in such a rush to to, you know, get them out of the freezer we try to do pre orders. So we have some sold before we're even butchering for the air word of mouth has been great for us, we want to keep our customers happy and coming back and talking about it to other people. Facebook has been a big marketing tool for us, but they do kind of restrict what you can say as far as animal sales go. There's not much we can do about that but we will be advertising them on our website soon as well. And we're planning on selling at farmers market this year for the first time. That's about all I have here. Anything you want to add? Nope, we covered most of it. I guess in a processing day will go through. Since it is just April and I we try and shoot for one tractor or tractors are set up to hold 4546 birds. And that normally turns out to six and a half to eight hour day depending on how far the birds are from our processing facility. And where we're set up. But we like to do that number because it's physically what we can handle and as far as time wise what it takes to get through them and get them into the freezer. A safe level. Save time frame so Well, thank you, April and Adam and actually while we were talking Adam and Julie both put the North Dakota poultry slaughter processing and sale guidelines in the chat so that kind of goes over the general rules. Adam it looks like you've kind of had this question before or you've inquired about this before. Can you give us any or any outlooks of what the answer may or may not be I think there's some conflicting information out there. Yeah, and so if you look at that brochure it says further processing and then producer grower under 1000 and it says yes. Now when I've talked to Nathan. But that's in there and you have to kind of refer to cottage food law and as long as you're labeling it not produced from a processing facility that it was done in a home kitchen. It's kind of covered under there but as far as he sees anything like a Brian, a 24 hour Brian or smoking or any processing other than just plain chicken. So even in there it says producer growers can sell cuts, you can cut up the chicken and sell just the boneless skinless breasts or just legs and just thighs. It does allow that but any additives if you're going to add anything to the chicken is how he and I had last discussed now is about a year ago now. It was looked down upon found upon or even they may send out the compliance officer to do an inspection in your facility making sure that you're following proper food safety standards and keeping up to other codes as well. So we've always stuck to the whole frozen chicken. When a consumer wants to do with it, it's finding up to them to maintain a safety standard. And for fun I found the Colorado State how to smoke poultry so that is in the chat as well Colorado State is well known for their their food safety research. So I guess I'd let the consumer take your nice poultry and it's up to them. And while we're kind of on the food safety side of things Julie we did have another question in the chat about if you can sell egg eggs that are under the egg glassing technique. I know this is something that we've talked about, because I've had this question in my extension office as well so let's cover a glassing. The only thing I found in the rules for North Dakota talks about candling. And I did put a link there you can find a lot about glassing around the web. In my look and I didn't do an exhaustive look because it's kind of challenging to navigate some of these sites. I'm only seeing candling and there is a requirement for being licensed as a candler. So Penny what did you tell your consumers. I think, you know, glassing is not quite the same as candling so you know maybe keep to your regulations when you're selling products so yeah. Someone mentioned a colony, how to write colony when I first started as a food safety specialist a long time ago. I got a call because they were slaughtering chickens and not following that that pattern of not a lot of birds in the same vat of cold water, and all the chickens turned fluorescent green. So I called the microbiology department and say what is going on there's green chickens. And it was a cooling problem. And I think they said it was pseudomonas which is really not a good bacteria that you want in your, in your chicken so they they actually had to discard all of those chickens that hadn't been cooled fast enough. I thought of one more thing I'd like to bring up real quick. We have time. You've seen a lot of folks probably knew out there. We're using broilers and selling same with eggs, eggs to for really cheap. I just want to encourage people out there if you're going to sell your products know what it's costing you to produce because we've seen prices out there that we do not believe people are making profit on that you're hurting yourself when you do that, obviously, but you're also hurting other producers know what it's costing you to raise your product and try and pay yourself as well. And just another comment on the water glassing question. I know this was an old way to store eggs. But remember that we've research has shown that eggs are now a lot more porous than we once thought so you know you are using lime which is potentially toxic so if you do have a crack or that egg that porousness of that egg that lime can cause problems to so might not really be a great recommendation on our extension side to use that technique. Travis you look like you might have a burning question or comment. Thanks, Penny I just I appreciate all of our presenters there. But I think you know as we described it and kind of ramping up or just getting started with a few chicks. I'm going to pass that back to April and Adam and and and Wayne to if he wants to in of if we're going to just get 50 chicks or just get a small number to get started. What can we do if we go down to the local farm store and and grab us for enough facilities and and and equipment so we I'll actually give it to you and then Adam and April can can finish it. What do I need to do to just be functioning and make it into the start. I need to get a heat lamp for sure, and probably a breeder as well and again a breeder something that I mentioned is that is an area that the little chicks can gather under in order to feel the heat. So they need that they warm start because they've just come out of an incubator at 1995 so that's really important. So if you have enough waters for 50, 50 chicks, you could probably do to one gallon waters and then change those twice daily. And as April mentioned, it's good to really when those chicks arrive take them and dip their beak right in the water because they've been short of water for who knows how long and so it's important that they get water right away. They're going to take a week in the water get them started. So, a breeder, a heat lamp, a bedding, you'll need a wood chips, and a small feeder to in order to get them started with three but the important thing is really water. Thank you. Um, is give them some space if you can make a breeder around area really is best because chicks like to do what's called piling up. If they're cold or scared or something, they will pack into a corner and literally suffocate and smush each other to death. So the best thing that we have found, we, we raise so many we just can't do a round breeder unless we found an old green bin. There's an idea. But we hang our heat lamps down and we have a few different heat lamps because our breeder is very large, but it's not near any walls so they have to come into a middle section to get under the lamp. And they can still manage to pile up that way, but watch your chicks if they're huddled up that means they're probably too cold so you may need another heat lamp. Now if they're away from the heat lamp like in a circle around the heat lamp that means that your heat lamp is too close you need to raise it off that they're too hot and watch for any panting and stuff like that exactly just as easy as cold can. And bedding. Don't skimp on the bedding. In my opinion, I think that's where I've gotten in trouble a few times is not having adequate dry fresh bedding forum. We've gotten into a habit now of rebedding every day with water and feed getting that changed and just keeping fresh in on the up and up. We don't change the bedding until after they're in the breeder we do what's called the deep litter method. So we start our breeder out by putting a layer of lime or charcoal or something absorbent down that can also be composted because eventually it will go into our garden. And then what what shavings the large flake ones because the chicks can't eat those. And then usually we move on to straw just because it's cheaper and we have it already, but I put a thin layer of whatever I'm using for bedding on top of any manure areas. Every day, you don't have to get carried away and really make it thick but just enough to cover up the manure that's there. And that's really saved us I think you really want to reduce or eliminate the smell of ammonia as much as you can, because it is an irritant on young chicks on their lungs and it can cause respiratory issues right off the bat or even cause some sort of a disease to come on. I don't imagine it's great for people to be breathing that either you'll know when it gets wrong you'll know like air flow is really important or in the breeder, but not direct draft you don't want to chill your, your chicks down. And I used to work at tractor supply and had a lot of people come in and ask, you know, talk poultry new poultry owners right and a lot of people say oh I want a few ducks to. Well, I don't think raising ducks and chickens together is a great idea because, like I said we should keep our chicks dry right dry to prevent coxidiosis, and ducks cannot stay out of the water they will make a mess they will just sit and play in your water, and tell it's empty, and they will get all the bedding wet and that's not good good news for your chicks. Well, you touched on again and shared it initially that you had lots of different portions is there anything that you'd like to talk on as you diversify outside the realm of chickens and you touched on the ducks there, but you open the door and so feel free to to expound on anything that you wish and penny you can follow up. I think I would need some specific questions hit me with some questions Travis. Well, you know, like I said, you know, those that make it to chickens that that was that was easier see and then they demand to duck so now they made it to geese right or what they think change in terms of what we wanted to accomplish. I would say for sure if we're talking to home scale and these are for your own personal use and pets. I have a tendency to get very afraid of people. So handle them a lot when they're young and wash your hands afterwards, but handle them a lot. And we have a batch of ducklings right now we feed them freeze dried worms every day so they learn to come to us and to associate people with food. I would really do the same thing with geese because they're going to not grow up to be afraid of you they're going to grow up to want to chase you and be mean. We also handle ducks the same way. Outstanding there and for entertainment value penny got to share a story of her world there with her chicken and when I was growing up we, we did have one goose, and it made it to pet level. All right, but as you know from at least my background with it having one goose and not a mirror. It was actually convinced that it was a sheet. So it's okay. If you haven't noticed there was a poll that popped up on your screen a little while ago that probably got in the way of everyone's faces. But we really appreciate it if you answer those polls give us an idea of what helped you what didn't what we can improve on it just gives us an idea of what to aim for the next time we do more. Programming regarding to direct meat production in North Dakota so it looks pretty quiet in the chat box and know we are about 15 minutes over our time allotments so with that. Thank you everyone for joining us today. Like Lindy said before, we will be sending out an email link to the YouTube video recording of this session to anyone that wants it so you can take another look at your own time and you can go back and look at all our other different topics that we had in these five main women webinars that we've had so with that is there anything else that I am forgetting Lindy or Travis. Thanks for hosting penny and moderating and it's great that we've had so many people across our webinar series to join us so thanks so much. Thank you everyone, you guys have a great evening and thanks for joining us tonight.