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MANAGEMENT
ALTERNATIVES
82
FARM PROFILE • Pasture: Daily Move Pens
Jeff and Beverly Berens, Uphill Farms
Holland, Michigan
There’s a Market for Broilers Raised on Pasture
Many farmers remember “Mom’s egg money” from back in the days before farmstead chicken flocks virtually
disappeared. Well, those flocks are coming back. And, hard to believe, Mom’s egg money can be 50 bucks a day.
It’s the same story for broilers. When raised with access to the out-of-doors, they sell for about $7 each, which adds
up if you raise a few batches each summer. The same is true for turkeys. While turkey is selling in the supermarket
for 69 cents a pound, a range-reared bird brings $2.25 a pound.
At the small farm of Jeff and Beverly Berens near Holland, Michigan, the family works to make extra money and
create an attractive lifestyle on 40 acres of land. The land is well-suited for cash crops and they have rented it
out in the past, but they prefer to use the land to develop their own enterprises without investing in tractors
and expensive field equipment. They’ve settled on pasturing. One August evening, pasture walkers—mostly
sheep, dairy, and beef producers—visited their farm to see something of the opportunity offered by pasturing
nonruminant creatures like broilers, laying hens, and turkeys. The laying hens and turkeys are raised in a free-range
system and the broilers in cages on wheels moved every day or oftener, the system popularized by Virginia farmer
Joel Salatin.
Bev Berens estimates that chickens can get about a quarter of their feed needs from pasture, if you choose breeds
that are “grazers and diggers,” as she calls them. They still need a high-protein, high-energy grain ration. But it’s
really not the feed that makes the difference. It’s the whole issue of how they’re raised and how customers react
to that. It’s really about marketing. Grass-fed animals and animal products are said to be high in omega-3 fatty
acids—the good ones—and low in omega-6 acids—the bad ones. That fact, and the fact that the Berenses use no
antibiotics or growth promotants, are marketing tools.
Broilers
The Berenses have been producing about 1,000 broilers each summer, using the system developed by Joel Salatin.
They raise one batch every seven weeks, raising the broilers in cages built on wheels they move each day across
a pasture. About 75 birds are confined in a cage made of chicken wire and measuring about 12 feet square and
three feet high. The sides are open, the top covered to provide shade. The birds follow beef animals, pecking
through the droppings and eating flies and larvae as well as grasshoppers and other insects. But they must be fed
grain and given water, and that requires the labor of moving both into the pasture.
On the plus side, Jeff and Bev can charge $1.90 a pound for the dressed chickens, which is well above the store
price for chicken. They have an area under a roof, open at the sides, in which they process the presold broilers. It
is equipped with killing cones, a scalder, a feather plucker, and eviscerating tables. The dressed birds are cooled
in vats of ice water and bagged for customers who are told when to come to pick them up, usually the day after
slaughter. This system requires that the birds be preordered, and Bev feels that this is a weakness in their current
marketing. It’s not easy to line up customers to order birds for delivery six weeks down the road, so there is
always the potential for uncontracted birds. They have consulted and worked with the local Michigan Department
of Agriculture inspector to ensure that they are meeting state requirements; still Bev is looking for alternative ways
to process and market their broilers.
The Berenses would like to diversify and expand sales. Bev hopes to add vegetables and start a CSA. She wants
to work with other CSAs by providing them with eggs. She wants to find other small farmers who want to raise
broilers for her to sell through her sales network.
Marketing takes time. Bev maintains a mailing list and sends mailings and a newsletter to customers. Their Uphill
Farm is listed on the www.eatwild.com website, which touts the benefits of eating products from animals raised
on grass. Bev likes the Kalamazoo Farmers’ Market, and could attend all three days a week it’s open instead of just
one. They are also in the process of developing a web site, www.uphill-farms.com, to use as a marketing tool.