Been on vacation and busy at work for a while so I have not commented in a while, but Im back in the saddle again so to speak. Im not familiar with the particulars on the company mentioned above nor on the lawsuit brought by the OK AG. Its odd that its being done by OK and not IL. I dont think this action is going to have any affect on chicken production in the USA. This company is not one of the majors ie, Tyson. What you probably dont know is that chicken manure is hot as far as Nitrogen, Potassium and Phosphorous are concerned. One wet ton of chicken manure contains approx 69# of N, 82# of P and 38# of K. Substantial when you consider that you are only applying 180 # of N to get a 180-200 BPA yield of corn and thats if you are planting corn on corn. So if this amount of litter was spread over a million acres each acre gets 23.8 # N, 28# of P and 13.11 # of K. The problem probably isnt so much the N and K but the P as P is a major source of pollution in water ways. The litter was probably not spread over 1 million acres as having that amount of acreage available to do this would be difficult at best for one company. The company was probably not using best management practices for the spreading of manure. I wouldnt feel too bad for them as its companies like this that are killing off vast stretches of ocean life in the gulf, polluting water ways and streams and generally giving farmers a bad name. Its possible to do it right, you have to test your soil every 3 years and know how much you can put on. You have to calculate how much you can safely add. You have to use proper equipment and management practices to limit run-off. This is just being a good farmer. You have to store the manure properly. Its not waste its a valuable bi product of livestock production. Its companies like this that have put many independant farmers out of buisness. Im not shedding a tear for them. I have seen what a badly run outfit can do to the environment. That is encroaching on my rights as a citizen. They are stealing from me and everyone else.

On processing chickens you can butcher them yourself as long as you are consuming them yourself. If you want to get around that sell live chickens and the person purchasing can butcher them or have them processed how ever they want. Its not hard to butcher chickens its just messy and stinks. No smell is worse than wet hot chicken feathers. you can clean a chicken in about 5 min if you are set up right. There are many small farmers that are doing this and some have even gone as far as to build their own small scale processing plants. Its not cheap or easy but now they are making more money than they thought possible, all the while producing a high quality, safe and value added product.

The reason you add lime is to even out the ph of the manure as its highly acid. For growing corn we always targeted a ph of 6-6.5 for our ground in central Illinois. In the state of Illinois you have to be certified to apply manure if you have over a certain number of animal units. I think its 300 if memory serves me. This is a good program as it helps teach people the best management practices to use so that an operator gets the most benefit of the manure without harming the environment. In the end its a win win for everyone.

Thanks for the interesting articles, keep them coming!

That is an excellent question…who, uh, egged the fellow in Oklahoma on? ARE the chemical fertilizer people involved? I don’t know, but it would be interesting to root around and see what we can infer. The lunatics are baying at the moon, but many things boil down to “follow the money trail.” Hmm…who benefits if the big poultry farmers are put out of business? Who benefits if the price of chicken and turkey go up because chicken manure has to be sent to Africa to be buried, like old TV sets, or put in drums like nuclear waste?

The gravy, quite seriously, is good on absolutely everything except ice cream. I never make any other kind, because my family would be in full rebellion if served brown or red-eye gravy. Have you got a recipe for pate d’liberal?! Fortunately, I don’t know any personally. I have a feeling their livers are so tainted with the miracles of modern chemistry that they would be hazardous to our health.

Y’all do remember that Gary is authorized to send my e-mail address to anyone who asks for it and does not appear to be a member of a maniacal cult? Hey, I’m easy to get along with. If any of the Statists want to debate with words or the weapons at their command…I’ll play. Tut! I had in mind sarcasm, lousy logic, and appeals to my social conscience. I haven’t got one. One on one I’m as kind a lady as ever breathed, but my heart does not bleed over starving Biafrans (feed them and you get more. Malthus was right.) or other human Tribbles who aren’t even sweet and cuddly.

I mention the address because I am accumulating a small coterie of those who are sent all the articles Gary doesn’t have room for, some bean-counter having said that I can’t have my own page! In particular, I think it would be fun if we had a Whiskey Outpost Contingent here in Texas. Shucks, we could have barbecues, meet at Galveston and build sand castles while discussing when we think Citi will go under, and swap ideas on how to become more self-sufficient.

Thanks again for your fun, pertinent response. Linda

I’d be curious to see where the funding for these lawsuits are coming from. Perhaps a big fertilizer company? Using the usefull idiots to do there bidding?

I say get the manure and spread it. Get all of the growers and farmers in the area to do the same. Make a BIG STINK if they come after you. The only (nonviolent) way to rid ourselves of this insanity is to confront it, face to face, and shout the lunatics down until they crawl back to their coffee shops to lick their “wounds”.

In contrast, “free range” chickens do, indeed, range far and wide in search of disgusting things that hop, wriggle, creep, and jump. They think they are fabulous munchies. Our original couple of dozen destroyed the yard so thoroughly I doubt we will ever resuscitate it, denuding the land of grass in search of succulent wiggly things.

It takes more like six months for the chickens here to become pot-, pan-, and oven-worthy. In the meantime we figure fifty cents a bird a week to supplement with grain and we use only grain that has not been laced with pesticides, insecticides, hormones, and antibiotics. If we buy chicks they run $3.25 each; if we hatch them ourselves we’re out eggs we produced and electricity to run the incubator and turner for three weeks, so you can see that by the time one is big enough to bcome an epicurean delight we have a fair investment in him. Of course you are eating males; the females are used to lay eggs except when they get old and are sold as roasters or when we’re talking about the T-Day turkey again.

The worst problem is that it costs $6.00–you read that right, SIX DOLLARS–to have the rooster slain, disemboweled, and denuded of his feathers “professionally,” and there are laws against doing it ourselves. My father refused to pay a quarter each in 1980 when we had fifty birds that had been grown for the County Fair. Five were shown and won the blue ribbon. It took three adults all afternoon to clean the chickens and prepare them for the freezer.

Today, I will have a little over twenty dollars in a chicken, not counting labor and losses to predators, and you are all going to say, “Linda…why should we buy such a chicken when Tyson will sell us one for about five dollars and Kroger’s will vend one already roasted to perfection for six?”

That’s the whole point: between mass marketing and governmental regulations, the game is rigged so thoroughly that no one can afford to raise chickens in bulk unless they are prepared to build that half-million dollar chicken house and contract with a big packing house. Nobody much wants a six dollar a pound chicken, since the grower really needs to make some sort of profit. That’s why you are forced to purchase an inferior product and why you really shouldn’t eat the livers which have been filtering out all of the chemicals. YOU have no choice because a small farmer can’t begin to compete or get his flock to market, all for the benefit of Tyson and so forth. All of those added chemicals are why little girls are beginning to develop before their ages are in double digits, instead of five years later as they did back in the dark ages when I was young. That is one reason why more and more antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria are developing.

Not content with having given agribusiness that sort of advantage in every area, their friends in government have come up with the Food “Safety” Act which will make it illegal for us to consume or you to have in your possession delicious, nutritious naturally-grown products. Imagine anyone telling Martha Washington that she couldn’t use raw milk with thick, rich cream on it, or threatening Robert E. Lee if the slaves he had freed ate ate locally-grown chickens.

Did you know that commercial chicken broth and dogfood are made from the feet and odds and ends? Ugh. NEVER throw out the broth you poached chicken in. It freezes beautifully, and you cannot buy broth of that quality.

Chuckle…making your own broth adds new meaning to “stock” market, but now you know why “organic” meat and poultry cost so much more when you can find them.

LBT

I enjoy your articles.

Douglas C Trant