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| Turkeys on raised platforms |
Several weeks ago I visited Baffoni’s Poultry Farm. It took me awhile to write about the farm because I was overwhelmed by the shear mass of poultry. Interestingly enough, Baffoni’s Farm is not even that large,compared to most poultry farms. They raise a total of 25,000 chickens and 1,200 turkeys. They also collect hundreds of eggs a day. What was interesting about this farm was that, although there were many aspects of the farm that could be improved, it still was operating above conventional poultry farming standards. I also learned that poultry farming is complicated because there are many more factors that go into production cost than one would first think. In this post, I want to discuss several topics regarding poultry farming. The first goal is to present the history of Baffoni’s Poultry Farm. The second is to provide an overview of poultry farming and some subtopics, such as cage-free versus free range chickens, hatcheries, and debeaking. The third topic I wish to address and advocate for is why you should support Baffoni’s Poultry Farm and go deeper into why it took me so long to write about. This is important because the concept of food in mass quantities is a bit repulsive, yet realistically, this is how the majority of our food is produced. I am very interested in your response to the images because I still feel uncomfortable looking at the pictures I took. I found them rather unsettling and creepy but I do not know how to articulate an explanation for these feelings.
Baffoni’s is an eighty-acre farm that was founded in 1935. It began as a very small poultry farm and slowly expanded over the years.In 1973 the farm was inherited by the Baffoni brothers, one being Don our tour guide (“our” being Hannah, a Farm Fresh employee that went to the farm with me). Each family member tends to different tasks, ranging from upkeep, gardening, running the farm store, processing, etc. They work together and productively. In order to make ends meet, however, most of them also have to work elsewhere. Although working two jobs is common among farmers, it strikes me as incredibly difficult considering there is so much to do on this farm. Baffoni’s Poultry Farm maintains a small- sized vegetable garden, raises thousands of poultry, process all of the meat onsite, maintains a family store, collects, washes, and sorts hundreds of eggs daily, and raises their own chicks. Everything is done on site, which is a tremendous amount of labor for only eight employees total.
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| All of the eggs collected that morning |
The amount of work is amplified by the farm’s goal for high quality products. They certainly value quality over quantity, which can also be seen in their processing plant. They only process 750 chickens a week in order to insure that their product is always top-notch. Don noted that every day they completely sell out. Doing everything onsite also allows their products to remain well priced.
Baffoni’s Poultry are cage free but not free range. Cage free means that the poultry lives in pens or in barns, where as free range chickens have access to the outdoors. It is not that the people at Baffoni’s Farm do not want to give their poultry time outside, but predators become a large issue when poultry is free range. Predators such as eagles and foxes can enter a farm and attack poultry that has access to the outdoors. Free range poultry creates fiscal and safety risks for a farm that cage free does not. This practice is not very sensible for a small family farm such as Baffoni’s.
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| Baby Turkeys |
Cage free, however, is still a humane way of raising poultry. They are all fed 100% natural vegetarian feed. They are raised onsite, starting as baby chicks in large warm barns; the chicks are bought from a hatchery, which I will go into more later. As they grow older, they are moved to larger spaces. The turkeys live on a large, fenced-in platforms outside. There are 275 turkeys in each 1500 square foot platform; this is plenty of room for them to move around. The platforms are elevated so that their waste falls in between the slotted floor. The chickens and laying hens have similar arrangements. They too can run around freely in large indoor pens. In the adjacent images, it will look much more cramped than it is. This is because, depending on the age, the chickens would either run towards or away from Hannah and me. The baby chicks were more afraid and huddled together at the back of the pens as far away from us as possible. The turkeys that were a few months old were very curious about us. They ran towards the front of the door, which makes them look very crowded in the photos. Keep in mind, there was tons of empty space behind them. The broad breasted Cornish broiler poultry are the chickens that are seated; they were fully-grown and very hot from the heat wave. The laying-hens were not afraid of us and a little too close for comfort. They pecked at our legs and surrounded us. Each of the poultry’s quarters had ample space. In addition, these cage free animals all had access to plenty of sunlight and fresh air. In each barn there were multiple large screen windows where sunlight poured in.
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| Broad Breasted Cornish Broiler Chickens |
Cage free animals’ health is also much better than caged livestock’s. Hannah and I were allowed to walked around in some of the pens; unlike many poultry operations, thee chickens and hens were so healthy that they could be exposed to humans without the worry of their getting sick, or about us getting sick for that matter. The poultry’s living conditions are of remarkable standards, especially considering how many livestock they maintain.*
Baffoni’s Farm purchases chicks from a hatchery. This is so that they only get female chicks. Male chicks are considered relatively useless on farms. It makes more sense for one hatchery to distribute baby male chicks to multiple farms looking for one or two future roosters than it does to raise your own chicks. Male chicks born on farms are generally killed immediately in ways that you can look up yourself (warning). It is more humane and efficient for a small farm like Baffoni’s to purchase chicks from hatcheries than it does to incubate and cultivate fertilized eggs themselves.
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Laying Hens (top and bottom left),
Baby Turkeys that have already been debeaked |
As the chicks grow into turkeys and chickens, the turkeys and laying-hens are debeaked while the chickens are not. Debeaking is the process by which part of a fowl’s beak is sliced off or burned off so that it is less sharp and dangerous to its fellow mates. Animal right’s activists are opposed to debeaking because, well, if you were a turkey, would you enjoy having your beak burned off? In conventional farming practices, this is done because caged poultry become aggressive in close quarters, attack each other, and act cannibalistically. They will do severe, irreparable damage to one another when put too close together. However, this farm debeaks the turkeys for another reason. When a turkey gets sick or injured, the other turkeys will attack it and sometimes kill it or, again, eat it. This is not good because many minor sickness and injuries are temporary. Don says that the turkeys are debeaked because the damage their beaks can do to one another outweighs the positive arguments for not debeaking them. On the other hand (or should we say hen), the laying- hens are also very aggressive and debeaked for similar reasons. The broad breasted broiler chickens are not debeaked. They are docile compared to the other two. Don uses the same logic. The damage that the other poultry can do to one another does not outweigh the affects of debeaking. The chickens do less damage to one another, and therefore, it is unnecessary to debeak them.
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| Large Barn for laying-hens |
After visiting Baffoni’s Poultry Farm, I was faced with a reality of farming that is less than pleasant because mass produced food is unappetizing, baby turkeys look like dinosaurs, and chances are that Baffoni’s farm provides an environment for their poultry that is exponentially better than most. Of course, we all want our chicken to run around in unrestrained spaces, consume a completely natural diet, and not be debeaked. Unfortunately, those circumstances are generally unrealistic. Don told me about a woman who had her chickens processed at Baffoni’s slaughterhouse. She raised them in the “ideal” conditions I just described. Apparently, the chickens were only skin and bone. She and Don agreed that the meat was practically inedible and barely worth cooking because there was so little of it. Ideal living conditions for poultry does not create ideal tasting conditions for consumers. Don also has experienced this with his broad breasted Cornish broiler chickens. Even though it is slightly harder for these chickens to move around because they are bred to have larger breasts, consumers do not want anything smaller. In regard to the mass production issue, it is something I just need to get passed or I really need to start my own farm. If these pictures are unappetizing to you, you can also look into raising your own chickens. If you live in Rhode Island, you are voting about urban chickens soon and should watch this movie:
Mad City Chicken.
After several weeks of internal debate, I have concluded that Baffoni’s Poultry Farm is one I will support. It is has enlightened me to the fact that I do need to visit any poultry or meat farm that I consume products from. If you have the time, I highly recommend you do this yourselves. This farm really made me question if eating most chicken was worth it. Honestly, I say yes now, but I am not sure how long that will last. There are a lot of other issues to address in regard to a poultry farm such as ammonia levels, waste contamination, general environmental issues, slaughterhouses, etc. Below are some pictures of where all of the poultry is slaughtered onsite. When I have time, hopefully I will be able to present more information about these issues, but I think this post has been long enough. If you are interested in trying Baffoni’s products, you can purchase Baffoni’s Poultry at a variety of local restaurants in the Rhode Island area, their farm store, or at the following farmers’ markets in Rhode Island: Barrington, Pawtucket/ Slater Mill, and Pawtucket Wintertime.
* Don later told me that most farm tours at Baffoni's are not allowed in the barns. We were allowed in given Farm Fresh's relationship to the farm. But still, look at the egg crisis that is going on right now! We still were able to go in. The amount of space and healthy environment these poultry are in is clearly above conventional standards!
Other Fun Photos:
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Hundreds of eggs are collected a day. Then they are washed in the machine shown in the middle. The eggs get sorted by size and are hand packed.
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The Processing Center:
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| 1. The chickens are first killed. 2. A picture of the entire processing plant. 3. At 160F, the chickens are sanitized. 4. The de-feathering machine. 5. The chickens are hand inspected to make no feathers are missed. 6. The poultry is cut, gutted, and iced. After the processing is completed, minutes later you can purchase your products at the farm store connected to the processing center. |
