Joel is my neighbor ( 8 mi). We get our feed from the same family farm in our county where all of the grains and legumes are gmo-free and locally grown. Not organic, but low spray. I don’t even know if modern, or even old breed chickens could live without some input, but we certainly wouldn’t have the production we want. When I don’t a have pig, all my scraps go to the chickens and it’s not enough without some chick feed, too. Harvey Ussery is doing a lot with growing worms and other methods to eliminate needing outside feed.While many younger farmers around the country are emulating Joel, I think a lot of the older local farmers resent that he is so successful. He gets a higher price that many rural locals can’t afford.
I’d love to see him around town more, engaged in sustainability issues.
Well said, Doug.
Also, great to hear from some of Salatin’s neighbors. We could sure use an example like that in the Mississippi Delta.
At the church picnic tonight I got hooked up with one of the locals that raise sorghum !! They have been grinding for flour .for the low gluten bread Thank you for the sites I can study to make it into syrup . Could be that I get overwhelmed and just find a place to get it already made . One place says to use it just like sugar . It takes us 40 gallon of maple and walnut sap to get 1 gallon of syrup … a whole lot of wood to cook it down … the boys said it was about enought to cure their sweet tooth .
I would not be surprised if you are one popular neighbor to have in the future. Hummm wonder what ppl would barter for the syrup ? Would you share the recipe for using it to cure the bacon please .
With all the partying ( I mean Work ) when do you find time to go into town and fit people for glasses ?!? LOL
Thank you for sharing the info and encouragement
FM
[quote=Ready]I wanted to take an opportunity to aquaint you with some of the important premisis of this site.[/quote]Unless you are an official moderator here, that would be a bit high-handed.
Everything in your post is a logical fallacy, specifically an Ad Hominem. That type of post will not get you very far here.Mentioning that the man has an extremist, fringe life- view is very pertinent. We are discussing the man and his ideas, not only the interview.
If you have a critique of something the man said in his interview, that is certainly fair game. But we try to separtate beliefs from facts here, and Joel's (or your) beliefs, especially about religion, goes against the grain of the site, as well as the posting guidelines.I have a critique of the man himself. That's also fair game. People who bought his books feel the same way, eg from amazon:
I bought this book looking for practical advice on farming. What I got instead was a multi-page, political diatribe of the author's personal opinions on government, science, and the business of agriculture. This book is a basic slap in the face to farmers who till the earth to actually make a living and support their families. The book is so frustrating and infuriating that I couldn't even bear to give it away - it hit the trashbin instead. Don't waste your hard-earned dollars!Fair enough? We're all grown-ups here, not fanbois. Let's have open discussions without veiled threats.
I see you have a list of people you’ve interviewed for podcasts - all 25 of them are men.
Where are the interviews of women? I would like to see input from women. Also in the articles.
This world’s so out of balance: the economy, the wars, wall street, bankers, congress, IMF, NAFTA, the UN - it’s fact these are run mostly by men. Perhaps now is an excellent time to start listening to the voices of wise women and begin to balance the scales.
Some suggestions: Catherine Austin Fitts, Elizabeth Warren, Carolyn Baker PhD, Helen Caldicott MD, Leuren Moret, Sarah Edwards PhD, Diana Leafe Christian, Judy Wicks, Jessica Nelson, Jennifer Gray, Joanna Gabriel, Jill Bamburg, Sarah Van Gelder, Lucia Rene, Inelia Benz to name a few.
Hey scribe:
Throwing out Mr. Salatin’s advice/ideas is your prerogative. In coming to terms with the 3 Es, we all have to examine the possible strategies we might use to become more resilient in the face of the changes/challenges that are here (and waxing with each passing month). If you don’t find Mr. Salatin’s methods useful you are free to pursue other strategies vis-a-vis your food supply. But to dismiss his methods of food production because one does not cotton to his personal moral beliefs is in my opinion a losing strategy.
An analogy: if a cure for breast cancer was discovered by someone with extremist religious or political views, would you advise people to ignore it? (This is not to imply that I believe Mr. Salatin’s religious/political views are extremist. I have no firsthand knowledge of either, and don’t really care. What I care about is: do his methods work? They evidently do.)
As for the review from Amazon, I checked the site and found the review in question. It was the only 1-star review (out of 73). We could likely pick any book from the genre and locate at least one dissatisfied customer, so I don’t know what quoting that review is supposed to do other than stir the pot. And I actually am about 20 pages from finishing the book in question ("You Can Farm"). I’ve found the book useful (I’ll be buying "Pastured Poultry Profit$" next).
Mr. Salatin certainly spends time critiquing the Big Food/Big Pharma/Big Government complex. IMO such a critique dovetails quite naturally with the rest of the book, since a huge pillar of Mr. Salatin’s philosophy involves working with Nature – recognizing we are a part of it instead of thinking we’re outside of it and it is therefore ours to loot as we see fit. YMMV.
I also think having a strong opinion is less of a fault than having no opinion at all. I may disagree with somebody’s opinion, but I’ll respect that at least they’re engaged with the issue instead of marinating in apathy/ignorance. If what I’ve read on this thread is true, I differ in many respects from Mr. Salatin philosophically. But from what I’ve read in his book and seen in a couple of documentaries, I will happily defer to him on matters agricultural.
Viva – Sager
What Sager said.
Actually, I have found Mr. Salatin’s books to be quite instructive. Especially Pastured Poultry Profit$ and Salad Bar Beef. The Amazon reviewer sounds as though he/she might be one of those people that refuses to accept new ideas and is jealous of those that are using the ideas to improve their lot. Joel has mentioned that he has changed some of his techniques to ways that, when first mentioned, he felt would not be successful.
scribe, you mention something about discussion. Let it begin with you. Maybe we could talk about the pros and cons of deep bedding or maybe worming techniques or maybe whether or not increasing the carbon content of the soil is beneficial.
Thank you for bring up the idea that we need to consider and learn sprouting . I recently read a story of how some people survived a fairly recent collapse in their country and how others in the same family did not because they would not get out in the city and eat the weeds . It is so easy to become complacent in the situation we are in . So many years of easy living and easy food from the market … It is hard to even wrap our mind around people are actually going through such at this very moment in time . This lady’s account told of how important it is to know how and have things hidden . We do not like to think doom and gloom in our ivory palaces but it is out there and we are not above such things happening to us. How will we feel if our own pride and stupidity caused our family to suffer .
Even this year when a lot of the fruit was frosted off caused us to have to consider getting more than just one years supply preserved .
So thank you again .
FM
I see my attempt to help you understand the implications of using a logical fallacy as an argument on this site both fell on deaf ears, and actually resulted in you employing 2 others in your response.
The folks on this thread have shown great restraint with what could easliy be classifed as troll like remarks on your part. Rather than feed those remarks, I will simply point out the posting guidelines:
Site Posting Terms of Use
SITE MISSION
- Have the Crash Course viewed as widely as possible
- Increase collective understanding of the role that energy, the economy, and natural resources play in our future
- Move individuals towards personal and common responsibility for the future
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
The goal of PeakProsperity.com is to draw attention to the important messages in the Crash Course and also to create a safe and welcoming place for people to discuss its implications in an intelligent and enlightened way.Together we will continue to hold this site to a higher standard than is usually found elsewhere on the Internet. We will be civil with each other, respectful, thoughtful, and considerate.
Anything that causes people to feel unwelcome or unsafe will be discouraged or removed, as will things that serve to detract from our high standard of intelligent discourse. Our mission is to engage, not to repel.
Posts must be data-rich, fact-based, and constructive, especially if they are critical. We ask that all critical commentary be accompanied by thoughtful suggestions for improvement—or not offered at all.
Now, I won’t go thru and highlight all the areas that you are coloring outside the lines on this one, you can see that for yourself.
We have been asked to self moderate by the owner of this site. You are new here, and I understand you may not have seen this, however it is real. Often times folks come here from ZeroHedge or other similar sites where anything goes on the forums. This is not ZeroHedge.
[quote=Ready]We have been asked to self moderate by the owner of this site.[/quote]If by "self-moderate" you mean not mentioning that Salatin speaks from a creationist, far right wing viewpoiint, then No, I will not be self-moderating. It’s a pity he’s of that mindview, because he has some interesting ideas.
Who else is like Salatin, but better, and comes without all the extremist claptrap attached? I nominate Gene Logsdon, author of some fine books on the same topics as Salatin, and with a lot of the same content, but this time with wisdom and humor.
I’d like to hear Chris interview him.
Scribe–
I like Joel Salatin too much to see this forum banished to controversial topics. I assume that you will be censored if you don’t self regulate. It has been really hard for me to self regulate myself and keep my fingers off the keyboard firing off a knee jerk response. Of course if Joel were here himself he could definitely defend himself. He was an English major, and he does love to express his opinions.
If you spend some time on the land, it will cause you to develop a spiritual sense, whether it is in line with Joel’s or not.
When I think that people have been farming over thousands of years, and he comes and discovers these new techniques with some electric wire and respect for the creatures and the ecosystem…now that is amazing!
At CM.com one of our key guidelines for discussion is to stick to the relevant facts.
It is true that drawing attention to the beliefs of a speaker is not necessarily an attack ad hominem. It can conceivably be evidence which goes toward the reliability of the speaker. I.e., if it can be shown that the speaker believes that space aliens are responsible for rush-hour traffic in New York, then we can infer that their logic is not reliable and may be prone to error in other matters as well.
However, in this case there is no way to prove out this hypothesis without first settling the evolution/divine creation debate. This debate would be nearly impossible to conclude because some religious authorities (such as the Roman Catholic Church) have concluded that evolution and divine creation are not mutually exclusive ideas. Without more detail about exactly what Mr. Salatin’s scientific beliefs are, the debate couldn’t even begin, and it certainly would never find an end. I also draw your attention to our prohibition on discussion of religion, which exists for good reasons.
Furthermore, Mr. Salatin’s interview is detailed enough that it can stand on its own. It cites independent facts which can be directly supported or controverted. There is no need to inquire into the reliability of his logic, because his logic in the interview has been laid out for all to see: we can apply our own logic to what he says. I agree with Ready and the other users that questioning Mr. Salatin’s private beliefs in other areas is not an appropriate or constructive avenue of discussion. It will be much better to stick to the facts of the interview, and leave everybody’s personal beliefs aside. Let’s do so.
On a different note, when a veteran site user attempts to explain how our forum rules work, they are entitled to deference. Moderators cannot be everywhere at the same time, and a new user who defiantly refuses to listen to guidance from the mouth of any person other than an official moderator is demanding a greater share of time and resouces.
You may ignore the advice of veteran users, but do it at your peril. We often give users warnings before more severe sanctions are applied for breaches of the forum rules. But in cases where a user has already been warned by another user - especially if that warning refered to the forum guidelines - then we may well decide to skip directly to a harsher sanction rather than repeat a warning that was already given and ignored.
Once you have been warned by another user that your behavior might be a violation of the forum rules, even if you happen to disagree, the burden is on you contact us and ask for clarification. I hope this is helpful to everybody.
I started using ‘Salatin style’ pens for broilers 5 years ago, right after I finished "Omnivore’s Dilemma". Before that, I’ve raised them in static pens.
We butcher them anywhere betwixt 8-16 weeks old, to reach a carcass weight of 4.5-10 (!) lbs. A 10 lb chicken has a higher meat:waste ration (I believe), so if your feed inputs are cheap enough, or your food conversion ratio (FCR) is low enough, or both, it may be cost effective to raise CRX to this weight.
But I don’t care, because I love giant chickens! I can feed my family all week on one 10 lb bird. Roasted, salad, sandwiches, soup & stock…Forrest Gump’s shrimp company ain’t got nothing on us!
I used to hand pluck, and that was fine, then I built a Whizbang Chicken Plucker from a plan book and parts kit I bought from another radical, religious fella (that’s a joke, son) over at http://thedeliberateagrarian.blogspot.co… . With the plucker, I saw that I could now scale up, so I can sell the surplus to reduce my per unit cost. (Which is my main goal on the homestead, and my definition of a ‘farm’: grow enough to feed the folks that work, with a surplus to sell for cash or barter.)
After I learned a couple magic numbers for a good scald, and started using shears*, I can process about a dozen birds an hour. I’ve outlined my "butchering by the steps" below, but there’re tons of online resources for the Show Me State crowd ;)…
Magic numbers: Scald your birds at exactly 145 F, for exactly 90 seconds, dunking to get water in among the feathers. When you can easily pull the wing primaries out, the bird is ready to pluck. Look for skin coming off as a symptom of too hot/too long a scald.
By the steps:
1. hang the birds upside down and slit throats, saving the blood which will congeal quickly. Dry this as a garden amendment.
2. scald by the numbers: Scald your birds at exactly 145 F, for exactly 90 seconds, dunking to get water in among the feathers. When you can easily pull the wing primaries out, the bird is ready to pluck. Look for skin coming off as a symptom of too hot/too long a scald.
3. pluck birds. I run them for a minute at a time, spraying a bit of cold water in the plucker. My plucker gets most feathers off the first time if the scald is correct. sometimes the armpits need a bit of manual pluckin’.
4. Eviscerate: USE SHEARS* to cut off legs and head, put in your stock pot bucket for later cookin’. carefully trim around anus (don’t nick and get poop on the meat) and pull slightly out with the intestine attached. Slit skin at neck, then cut neck off as far down as you can. You can rip it off, actually. Then loosen crop and esophagus. Reach into gut cavity, enlarging hole as necessary. Reach way up and get the heart, wiggle your fingers to get the lungs if you’re good, and pull all out. Trim away the organs you want and put liver, heart in a bowl of ice water. Gizzards are excellent stewed in Italian dressing. Yeah buddy.
5. QC: squirt with a hose, especially around the lungs. You’ll want to get the bird in the ice bath ASAP, so you may want to wait to pull pin feathers etc until after its chilled, and you move your operation to the kitchen.
6. Weigh & Bag: AFter they’re chilled, I take them to the kitchen. We do a final check, pat dry, put in a poultry bag I get from a butcher, and weigh. We tag them according to weight and quality (sometimes damage occurs during plucking), then either put them on ice, the fridge or double bag them for the freezer. You can submerge a bagged chicken to push the air out.
7. Aging: the consensus seems to be that a bird’s tenderness improves with up to 3 days of aging uncovered in the fridge. I use this for all poultry, especially game birds. I try to encourage air flow in the carcass by putting the bird on a roasting rack in a pan to catch the drips. Sooo dang tasty.
8. Cooking: nothing beats a rub with a lime (then throw it inside the cavity), a shake of garlic salt (we make our own) and a squirt of olive oil.
- Shears: I grew up hunting and fishing. I’ve been carrying a pocket knife since I was in 6th grade. Our family reunions always included the ‘knife hand around’, where a young man’s credibility was marked by the sturdiness, practicality but especially the sharpness of the knife he carried. I love knives, love to use them and collect them. Butchering chickens, IMO is not the right job for this tool. Sharp shears are safer, faster, more precise, and less likely to cause punctures to intestines, which may result in contaminated meat. And, if you are working fast, and have a lot of birds, you WILL nick yourself. Then you’ve got an open wound coated with chicken guts and fat. So, invest in good shears, and learn to sharpen them.
Which Bird do you like to raise / butcher ? Where have you found the best place to order the chicks ? Have done the cost per pound We are finding we are not so keen on the darker meat and pin feathers and would like to stay with a white bird if possible .
FM
I’ve raised CRX, ‘colored broilers’ (aka "freedom rangers"** etc.), cockerals from laying breeds, and ‘dual purpose’ breeds. I figure it takes about 20 lbs of feed to grow a 5 lb bird (FCR=4.0). So, to grow 100 birds, you’ll need up to a ton of feed. At $.40/lb for ‘non corn-soy-gmo, organic feed’, delivered to my farm, that’s only $2.00 per 5 lb bird, plus the, say, $2.00 for each chick. I think that’s a decent deal for some dang good chicken meat! Of course, you can buy bulk feed that’s not ‘non’ anything, for about $.11/lb out here in western WA. GIGO, tho…By far, the best bird for meat is the CRX. Some local growers get on their high horse about ‘inhumane breeds’, which is pure marketing poppycock. Humane is in the treatment of the birds, the life they lead up until butcher day, and is a cornerstone of the Salatin model: let them express their ‘chickenness’.
I introduce greens and grit at a very early age, and put them in pasture at about 3-4 weeks old, depending on conditions.
i try and find a local hatchery to buy from, and usually your local feed stores have the best handle on who that may be. But, I’ve used Murray McMurray most of all, and have no issues. Actually, if you don’t mind the little extra price, its a good thing to buy from the local feedstore: you’re supporting an important local biz, and if you buy 3-6 day olds, you’ve let the store experience the usual mortality from shipping. You can pick the strongest looking birdies out of a huge, fuzzy peeping mass of chicks!
I’ve heard of a hatchery or two who are working on a CRX strain that are ‘better foragers’. I don’t know how they’re doing with that.
** "freedom rangers" is the US jingoistic term describing "red French broilers", which in France are exclusively grown for their pastured, "Lable Rouge" certification. I think they suck compared to CRX; they’re harder to pluck, take longer to get to weight, are ‘tougher’, and forage no better than my CRX. In other words, it takes just as much work and feed inputs to get a slower, skinnier, tougher bird. No thanks!
And by the way, I still eat French Fries, French Toast and French Bread…
[quote=Moderator Jason]It is true that drawing attention to the beliefs of a speaker is not necessarily an attack ad hominem. [/quote]Of course it’s not an ad hom! The interview is about the man and his views, so bringing in his (hidden) views is on topic.
In any other reader’s shoes, I would be very grateful to someone who pointed out to me that an author and guest speaker is a Creationist. It would instantly color my perceptions of the person, as it should. Unless CM.com is keen on interviewing people like this?
I suspect CM himself did not know about the fringe personal beliefs of Salatin. Now, thanks to me, he does. CM is a highly educated man who would have no sympathy for Creationists.
Conclusion: More careful vetting of guests is required.
This does not mean I am "raising religion" and deserve to be banned. Creationism is a denial of science, not a religion. We should not ask people who deny science for advice about farming, because at their core they are anti-scientific. So while Salatin may have chanced upon some good concepts, how sound are they, really? How can we be sure they are correct? Are the ideas originally his? (I see claims on the web to the contrary) And why are his books filled with Libertarian political rantings, rather than farming concepts? Interviews like this are meant to promote books, as this interview did, and we should all be warned about the content of his books before buying.
Threatening me with banning is absurd. If this site cannot tolerate debate, I’d rather not be part of it anyway.
Creationism is certainly not a fringe personal belief in the U.S. According to recent Gallup polls, around 40% of Americans adhere to a form of it http://www.gallup.com/poll/27847/Majority-Republicans-Doubt-Theory-Evolution.aspx
Now, I’m an atheist and a plant geneticist to boot, so I most likely cleave more to your personal beliefs than Mr. Salatin’s, but can’t a man have good things to say about farming and yet be a creationist at the same time? I don’t like his stance against GMOs either (shared by many participants on these sites, for some reason), but clearly he’s got valuable knowledge and experience on other aspects of farming. There’s no need to police the personal beliefs of guests. The open marketplace of ideas makes life interesting.
Without a word of a lie, I raised a 7.5kg chicken here last year (meat chicken breed) which is over 15 pounds. And yes, we fed off it all week…!
Mike
Scribe,
Creationism does not necessarily deny science.
For example, the Catholic Church position (Wikipedia) " is an example of theistic evolution, also known as evolutionary creation, stating that faith and scientific findings regarding human evolution are not in conflict, though humans are regarded as a special creation, and that the existence of God is required to explain both monogenism and the spiritual component of human origins. Moreover, the Church teaches that the process of evolution is a planned and purpose-driven natural process, actively guided by God."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution
We should not ask people who deny science for advice about farming, because at their core they are anti-scientific.If you do this, you will marginalize a large portion of the contributing population who can contribute positively to help society adapt to our current predicament. Your views are the equivalent of "belief apartheid", and are akin to what the position the MSM took in the period leading up to the housing crisis. It is vitally important to hear all sides of a story, and not just the views that fit into ones own view of the world.
It is virtually impossible to have a debate about creationism without involving religion. We will not have that debate on this thread, because sooner or later somebody will lose their self-control and the thread will degenerate into a hostile name-calling match. Religion and creationism are sensitive "hot button" topics for many people. Incidentally, they also have little to do with localized food and energy, which was the topic of the interview.
Nobody is threatening anybody with banning. I say that because I am confident that you (and all other users) will not continue to debate creationism or the personal political or religious beliefs of the interview guest on this thread.
Let me make that clear: no further posts on this subject, by anybody. Nor will I further publicly debate this. This is a warning.
As always, feel free to contact me by email with questions or comments.