MASSIVE Modules Turned Chicken Coops

These are old cotton modules, obsolete in the cotton industry. They are able to get those relatively inexpensive or even free. Good morning! Look what I got crawling through my window. We've had breakfast, they're playing out on the playground, and now it looks like maybe you're bored of that and trying to get— nope, don't you climb in. Okay, y'all stay out there. We have a door for a reason. I don't need a door. I've got the car attached. Goodbye playground. We are on our way to White Oak Pastures. Guys, we got checked in and then they took us to the back 40 of the farm. Remember, there are 3 3,000 acres. Over here they found us some— there's a well there so we could connect to the water if we need to, and then we have electricity too. So it's pretty nice. Look at the view here, guys. It's a nice remote spot. We're here under this amazing oak tree, very comfortable. You guys ready to go see the farm? Yeah. Okay, let's go. Beauty and Lily stayed back. Lily's just still recovering from her leg. I don't think she's gonna be keeping up with this on this farm tour. So it's just me and the boys. I am with Jeff, the poultry manager. Say hey, Jeff. Hey, Jeff. You're a funny guy. Okay, so we— he's showing us the turkeys. They're about to actually be harvested, so I better speak to that really quick. They move these guys 3 times a week, and correct me if I'm wrong with any of this, Jeff. These guys are going in for the harvest. Lots of grit, lots of feed, lots of grass. You could see where they've been. They didn't want them to be there too long to wear it out. You see these amazing houses? They said they had some good luck with these houses. You haven't had a lot of predator problems in there? Not too many predator problems between the electric net and the COVID over them. I think they seem to be happy. Oh, these are happy birds. Yeah, happy, happy birds. At least they're not taking these. Very cool. So maybe they're not harvesting these birds. Maybe they're bringing some back. Come on, buddy, come on back home. How y'all doing? Hey, how are you? Y'all know what time it is. Come on, buddy. Yeah, we'll feed them up. Now we're checking out the, um, egg-laying chickens out in the open pasture. No fence for these guys. He's got them set up in these mobile trailers. You can see where the chickens have been moving them once, maybe twice a week. They come down the pasture line, not quite to the fence, and then they turn around and go down the other side of the pasture. You can see you got some happy birds out there, free to go where they please. Check it out, this is special. This is like an old cotton module, obsolete. What, what's the matter? These are old cotton modules, obsolete in the cotton industry. They are able to get those relatively relatively inexpensive or even free. Would that be fair to say, Jeff? Fair to say. Okay, huge, huge feeders here. And then I made for this a nest box house. And check it out, they even leave some of the roosters in there. He's more alert, he's on the guard for the predators, he's a better forager. So he can— he— if he finds something and digs something up Jeff was explaining that the ladies will come over and they'll be after what he's after. Check him out, he's spending a lot of time looking around. And if you see the hens, look, look at the difference. The hens are all pecking around and getting some food. They're not looking around, but look, he's on guard. Uh-oh, grab this, buddy. Grab it, grab it, grab it, grab it. I think here we got a good example of them listening to the birds. They've put nesting boxes outside And you found that they like laying out here, right, Jeff? Absolutely. And I'm thinking, okay, what about the rain and whatnot? Do you put them up? No, they don't need to. These are plastic laying boxes. They've got AstroTurf for bedding, and they have what you call rollaway. So the eggs— the chicken lays the egg and the eggs roll out the back, and it's easy to harvest. Look, there's one. There's somebody in there right now. You see him? All right, we'll leave her to it. Here's the inside of one of these. See how they've made their roost in here? Now this is an early revision. Now they make it so there's a platform so a worker can go up in there. Did you put in the sun, the sunroofs? Absolutely. They've also learned to put roosts on the outside, and then he's spoken to that. The chickens really love that. Oh, they will fill it all up at night. And he's got his automatic waterers, big old trough here. This is the regulator here, not letting it get too high or too low. The big boys are staying back for this one. And look who's on my back! Welcome back, Mr. Brown. Y'all recognize that egg? Y'all recognize that sound? Do you hear it? You hear it? Free-range ducks. What breed is this, Jeff? A Gremaud hybrid Pekin. Now, you— are you— so this is an egg operation, or are you going to use them for meat too? This is actually a meat operation, and they've started laying, so that's a bonus, right? Absolutely. Do you normally— is that normal, or did you wait too long to butcher them? It has taken us a long time to butcher them, but you're getting some eggs out. We're working through them slowly. Well, you have a place— will you have an avenue to sell these eggs? Yes. One cool thing about this farm, maybe the coolest thing, I don't know, is that you guys, you have your own meat processing facility. Yeah, that's crazy. It is like USDA qualified, inspected. That's nuts, guys. Trust me, you just don't see that every day. Birds stay here, live their lives, and just go over the hill and turn into food-ready product. That's a good thing because when you move a— when you move an animal from the farm to the slaughterhouse, they're stressed involved, and you can lose all your good husbandry by stressing out that animal. And so here they are, happy as can be. It's time. Maybe the processing plant is behind. Perhaps. Perhaps. Okay. And then they'll go to process. They've lived their whole life on this grass. Hey, did you guys notice there's no— there's no house? And I said, Jeff, where's the house? And he said, they don't like it. So again, they're listening to the bird. They don't like it. They love the rain. I know that from when we kept our ducks. It looks like they're about to be real happy. Look at that cloud there. So it's going to rain on them. Look, it's so— you guys saw those turkeys being moved, right? That was not a stressful process. So not, not only does that create better quality meat for you because the animal wasn't stressed out, but it's also more humane. Hey, hey, quiet. Pretty soon as we approach them, they'll break out the warning call and bolt. Talk about the guineas, y'all. Raising guineas for market. I think that's going to be the first and the last on this tour, so let's cherish this. How old did it have to be before you Butcher these guineas about 14, 15 weeks. Okay, and then after that everything is really a bonus. The fence around this is not to keep the guineas in or anything like that, it's just because the cows were in here not too long ago. I could tell by the way this has been grazed as of yesterday. Oh, yesterday. Okay, they did a good job mowing this down and they kept this fenced because The cows, if you know anything about cows, they would have just tore up that. They would have gone after the grain, they would have stepped all over everything, they would have knocked over the purchase. So this is total free range, y'all. Or as Carl Hammer would say, free to go wherever you want to be. Look, the guinea arch. Have you noticed though, there's little keats in here? You guys remember all that trouble I had? Got two in one shot! Two birds with one catch! No! This one got rants and it had hunkered down. I was using that as a defense, just sitting there hoping I would— they are freaking, man. I don't know what got into them. You see them, Jason? Give me that. I've never seen anything like that. There it goes, coming at me. Now this is where you guys go at night. Thank you very much. I, I try to orient them. I try to keep them cooped up for 6 weeks, let them out, and they didn't come home. I can put up a chicken one night and it gets oriented and comes home, but they figured out a trick. They raised the keets with these guys. Those are the baby, the young ones, and they follow the main flock and they learn we're supposed to go in here at night. We're not supposed to go and be with the ducks or the chickens or the trees. We're supposed to go in here. That wraps up our tour of the poultry. We got to get out of here. It's a bit of a rough road. All right, let's get back to the beautiful one. She's making us a wonderful dinner. I heard it's Mexican. We are back home. Boy, it smells good in here. What are you doing, Lily? I got this. What a pretty drawing. I got it with Mama. Oh, did Mom help you?

Yeah, we drew it together.

Okay. Hey Lily, how's your foot? Can you put any weight on it yet? Yeah, I can stand on it. Oh wow, you could stand. Well, that's a move. You couldn't stand— whoa, I just saw you step up with it. Dad! Good job. Daddy! What are you saying? Dad, Dad! Yeah, they drawed that. Drawed that. Here we go. Look at this array, guys. Woo! Fresh salsa.

And look what Lily and I made.

What is that?

What is that?

Oh my gosh.

Chocolate pudding made with the raw milk that we got from Fell Circle Farm, and then we made the whipping cream from their cream, and then strawberries on top.

That looks delicious.

Lily and I did that together. We wanted to make something special.

Thank you guys.

It was a fun— it was a fun afternoon together. We got to spend some good girl time with each other. And so it's been good. We made— we started making dinner too.

So what is it? It's fresh salsa, guacamole.

Yeah, so we're gonna basically have taco salad.

This is a pretty easy meal to have on the road.

It's kind of labor— like, I'm kind of going all out. We could go a lot easier.

Yeah, but you always have like a frozen ground beef or ground pork or something like that, or chicken. Yeah, we can pull out. We can always have chips. We're always pretty stocked on lettuce.

Yeah, so it's easy. It is an easy meal.

It is an easy bus meal. I feel like we're eating that a lot.

I don't always make fresh salsa and guacamole.

Oh, I know, you can have salsa.

I kind of went, I kind of went crazy with the, um, at Earth Fare. I was like, I saw saw all this fresh produce and it's fresh there because it's Florida and so, yeah.

We had an amazing dinner. Now it's on to dessert. Look at that, guys. How is it, kids? Good! Good! Everybody loves it. Just me? Woo! You're getting yours.

Here you go.

There it is. And it cost that much. Say thank you. Thank you. Had an amazing dinner. Hey, you guys notice something? Notice something different? Yeah, I don't got my hat on. I got this crazy headache. It's inside of my head and it's actually outside on the surface of my head. It hurts to touch it and that's aggravating it. So hopefully that gets better soon because this is crazy. Another thing, do y'all hear the wind in the mic? It's getting crazy windy here. We're about to have a storm. Good thing our house is mobile. This road— we're on a beautiful place on this farm, but this This road, I'm afraid, is going to get very muddy, and this road is very rough. So we're gonna call it. We're out of here. We have about a 3-hour drive to our next spot, so we're gonna try to make it halfway, maybe park at a Walmart or something. Here we go! We have arrived! We're actually staying at a Walmart. This is gonna be our first time staying in a Walmart parking lot. So we'll see how that goes. But we're not just in any old Walmart parking lot. We're in America's Walmart parking lot. Do you guys get it? Is that reminding you of anything? Had to get the drone from today's shots. But Walmart in America. Y'all remember that movie? Such a good movie. Home Is Where the Heart Is. Natalie Portman. You guys get it? Boyfriend drops her off, abandons her. She ends up living in a Walmart. Going out during the day, staying in the Walmart at night. And she ended up having a baby in Walmart and named that baby Americas. Good one. All right, good night, y'all.