The video is an on‑site interview with Michael and Christine Arsenault at their 10‑acre homestead, La Ferme d'Israël, in New Iberia, Louisiana. Michael explains how the family is building a self‑sufficient food system despite serious health challenges—Christine’s lifelong muscular dystrophy and Michael’s recent emergency open‑heart surgery. They discuss the design of their “egg‑mobile” chicken coops with grid floors sourced from farmtech.com, the spacing of garden rows to accommodate Christine’s mobility, and a black‑soldier‑fly composting system that turns chicken manure into protein for the flock. The couple describes their shift from breeding cattle to smaller livestock (goats, rabbits, chickens), the acquisition of a hydrostatic Kubota tractor, and the involvement of their children and grandchildren in daily chores. Throughout, they emphasize faith, family legacy, and the goal of feeding their family entirely from the farm.
Chapters
Good morning, y'all.
Good morning.
I see chores is a family affair. Yes, it is around here.
We try to keep it that way.
Papa and meemaw, meemaw, and a bunch of good-looking chidler girls.
We have Ava, Madison, Ainsley, uh, Sophie, and And then the other two are still sleeping. That would be Sophie and Aaliyah, I mean Olivia and Aaliyah.
My name is Michael Arsenault, and my wife Christine and I live in New Iberia, Louisiana, on a little 10-acre spread called La Ferme d'Israël. So these, these Chicken Mobiles you've been seeing throughout the country, do they have solid floors? Do they have Grid floors.
Uh, I've seen both, but I recommend grid floors so that then you don't have to clean it out. So the manure foster— grid floor, I can see that you get the manure coming right through. Where did you get that grid?
That came from farmtech.com. Okay. Um, I had seen the design that used expanded steel, and I didn't want to deal with that with chickens getting bumblefoot, and plastics easy to clean and more sanitary. No rust. So I guess I didn't really need to put these on. I could have just left them off, but I wanted to give them more shade.
Man, you win the best looking eggmobile. Look at that.
So you're probably wondering why are the rows spaced so far apart. Yeah, this is, uh, well, we did our garden, it was every row, and then my wife having muscular dystrophy decided she needed a place to get to the garden. So we hooked up the box blade, we knocked down every other row, and we only planted every other row. We wanted more control of where our food came from. Uh, we wanted to have our kids and grandkids involved. We wanted them to learn that, uh, it's okay to have animals for pets, but this is primarily where our food comes from, not the supermarket plastic wrap generic box that most people are used to.
What are some things that help you get through your health issues?
My wife, my faith. When I went through this last surgery, I just, I just knew I had a— I wasn't scared this time around. I just, I didn't— I knew I was coming back because I figured God's not done with me yet. He's got some purpose here. He's gonna keep me around. He didn't bring me this far through this whole heart issue to just let me die on the table. My goal for the homestead is to be entirely self-sufficient in my family's feeding.
What's your plans for these guys?
Those are a breeder pair we just bought. This lady had a breeder pair of Bourbon Red.
He's puffing up all the time, I noticed. Come on, lady, give him some attention. You have family on, on the property too?
Yeah, we have a son and his 3 daughters live up here, and daughter, son-in-law, and their 3 daughters live up in the front on this end.
You're prone to girls, huh?
Yeah, I had nothing to do with that.
At least you'll, uh, At least you'll get phone calls from the grandkids 20 years from now.
At least I'm not paying for the wedding bills.
Come on now, hee-haw for us.
They were doing it this morning. I don't know if you heard them.
I did. Camera wasn't rolling. You heard it.
Our biggest struggle for accomplishing the goals on the homestead have been, I guess, primarily our health. My wife has had muscular dystrophy since she was a child. Well, since she was born, and as we get older, it doesn't get any easier. I recently went through emergency open-heart surgery less than 2 months ago, and that put a little damper on things, getting chores done.
This is cool. Now, this is a prefab system, or did you make this up?
This, I mean, this chloroplast that you see little yard signs made of, this is, this is a sheet of it.
Wow. And this is catching their manure. It's on a slant, and urine comes down into the gutter, comes down into the bucket. Bucket. I love this.
All right, and then this goes straight to the garden, or it goes into my black fly, uh, system. Black soldier fly system.
Look, I see that's jamming.
Black soldier fly.
Oh yeah, it's working good for you.
Yep, that's one day's worth. That's going to the chickens this morning. They climb up.
Oh yeah, look.
And they'll generally climb up this little ramp and get into the bucket. I just put them fresh manure yesterday. So they're— they need some more dry matter, so I'm going to throw some chick— I'll throw a chicken feed in there.
These two like to help a lot with the rabbits.
What is your job with the rabbits, guys?
To feed them. Oh, look!
Good job, barn cat, doing your job.
That's Tiger.
You are a miniature tiger.
We have a—
oh, oh, oh, don't let it go away! Go! Oh, they lost it. What are you feeding them? You just, you just say yes, Pepaw, don't you? Now, do you come out here every day and do this?
Every day after school.
Does Pepaw pay you for this?
Oh, oh yeah.
Oh yeah, they get free eggs, huh? That's your payment. That's payment too. The girls can get attached to these guys, huh?
Yes, they, they've gotten attached to several of them before slaughter, and they've come in the barn and, Papa, where's Mr. Mustache? I'm like, well, baby, Papa had to put Mr. Mustache in the freezer.
And look at that. And now that can go directly to your garden, directly, or your soldier fly bin. And you feed your soldier flies to the chickens? Yes. There we go. What do you want? What are you doing there?
I'm going to add all this to the manure. You're putting in the live grubs into the manure, and I'm going to throw in a scoop of, uh, chicken scraps, and that supplements the chicken's diet because they'll tear everything up, spread around. They'll pick all these out.
Oh, and then they'll spread your manure for you.
Did you see the adult? She was sitting right here.
Hey, Mr. Brown, you up and at 'em this morning? I think he's hunting the trampoline. Word on the street, the kids are out and about on the trampoline.
We just paste ourselves. We use a tractor. I bought this on Craigslist. Turned out it was a friend of a friend that owned it. Little Kubota, 58 horse. Everything so far is quick connect. I do want to add some more hydraulics to the rear end later to be able to do more things, but it does what we need to do. It hauls our hay, it tills the garden, it makes our rows.
Were you happy to see him get a tractor?
Yes, I was. He's been wanting a tractor and some acreage for quite some time.
I'd say this is, uh, some perk to a physical slowdown, buddy. Yeah, good excuse for a tractor. He finally found his excuse to get his tractor.
And it's hydrostatic, so even she can drive it. We are currently getting out of breeding cattle, going to smaller animals that are easier to handle, like goats. Still be able to get our milk, but just not have to deal with— deal more with the animal I can throw over my shoulder instead of an animal that can throw me over its shoulder.
All right, Mr. Brown, let's go find the other kids. And the trampoline.
Hey, we got one more.
I'll help you. I'm wearing socks.
All right.
Wow. Okay, have fun, guys. 50 years from now, what would you love to see your grandchildren say about their Papaw?
I'm gonna cry.
It's all right.
50 years from now, I'd like my grandchildren to know I really loved them and this is why I did this.
So he got his tractor, you got your golf cart.
I love my golf cart. It helps me get around everywhere I have to go.
