HW 7c

Chapter 11 is still talking about the switch to being organic.  The author talks about how he visited a free range chicken farm.  When he was there he said that "Petaluma turns out to be more animal factory than farm".  All tho the farm is a "Free range" chicken farm he tells you that the chickens are not allowed to go outside until they are 5 weeks old.  But by that time since they are so used to the indoors they don't really have a desire to go outside.  In a way that is actually false advertising because it makes people think that the chickens were treated fairly instead of being packed in a small room.  That was actually the gem of the chapter for me.  A question I have is how come this isn't considered false advertising?  Has anyone picked up on this fact?

Chapter 12 talks about when he was working at a place called Polyface Farm.  The reason that he went there was because he said he wanted to find out if it was possible for a non industrial food chain to survive in the twenty-first century.  A gem for me was that the author says that Joel Salatin's farm was successful because its foundation was grass not petroleum.  Joel Salatin says in the book that he is a "Grass Farmer".  I have never heard the term grass farmer but I guess it has a significant purpose some how.  A question I have about the chapter is how are you supposed to make money off of grass?  Is there even a point to being a grass farmer.

Chapter 13:  While on Polyface farm I really started to look at grass from different angles and aspects.  I didn't only look at what the grass looked like but I also looked at the animals that were around the grass and were attracted by it.  That just shows you how grass is important to some but not important for others.  Other work I did on the farm was stacking 50 pound bales of hay all day.  A gem in this chapter was how different types of grass have different taste and different amount of nourishment.  A question I have is why do certain animals eat certain kinds of grass?

Chapter 14: Every morning I would wake up at Polyface farm and would do one of the most important jobs at the farm.  That job was to feed and give water the chickens and move their pens.  Every day for 56 days the pens were supposed to be moved 10 feet from each other.  The chickens manure would be used to fertilize the farms soil.  A gem in the chapter was that if the chickens were left in one place for to long then they would destroy the soil which is why they are moved so much.  A question I have is why were they moved 10 feet away? Why did they choose that mount of space?

Chapter 15:  One morning i woke up and knowing that today was going to be the day that we killed all of the chickens.  The way the chickens were killed is that workers would have to cut the chickens neck without cutting its head off.  After that they have to take the feathers off the chicken and take their insides out.  Then they can cut the feet and head off. A gem for me was why couldn't cut the chickens head off right away.  My question is why did they have to wait till everything else was off so they could cut the head off?

Chapter 16:  The Polyface farm does not ship its product off to far from the actual farm.  The chickens that we had just killed the other day were sent only a few dozen miles from the farm.  Polyface farm sends its product much closer then the average conventional farms sell theirs.  A gem in this chapter is that Polyface really only sends their products within their state.  A question I have is tehat why doesnt Polyface farm expand where they send their product?  Wont that make them more money in the long run if they expand?