A Passion for Poultry

Crossville, Alabama – It’s pretty difficult for the men and women of America’s poultry industry not to think big.  Americans consume, on average, 60 pounds of chicken each year.  Poultry producers must process and ship close to 8.5 million birds each year to meet that demand, and to fill overseas orders as well.

The chicken business is big across the south, nowhere more than Crossville, Alabama.  There, producers like Mike Carnes have figured out the how to get maximum birds for minimum cost.   His family has plenty of experience. 

Carnes says, “My parents were in the poultry business; probably for some twenty-five years in the broiler business.  So, you know, growing up in that way, you  kind of knew a lot about it.  We knew from an early age that that’s probably what we wanted to go into.”

The Carnes farm represents one of four steps in the poultry production cycle.  It’s what’s known as a breeder pullet farm.  The Carnes purchase one-day old chicks and raise them until they’re ready to produce eggs.   They live in long, low buildings, one of which may contain as many as 11,000 clucking birds.  For bio-security, visitors are required to don head-to-toe coveralls and plastic boots before entering. 

Carnes steps up to a wall-mounted computer console.  “We have a controller that pretty much runs everything in the house,” he says.  “It totally controls your feed, your water, your ventilation, your lights. “

This hi-tech gear controls the chickens’ daily schedules of eating, resting, laying.  It’s an exact science, and profits depend on good data.  Carnes is under contract with Gold Kist farms to raise these chickens, and the birds need to meet specific weight requirements as they grow.
 
Carnes’ chickens begin laying eggs at about 21 weeks old.  By that time, however, they’ve been transferred to another farm that represents step number two in the production cycle.  It’s a breeder hen farm.   

Pat Simpson is in charge of this facility:  “This is a breeder pullet operation.  We produce eggs that come from pullet houses to go to the hatchery to make the birds. “

Similar in size to the Carnes farm’s henhouses, the buildings of the breeder hen farm each hold about 10,000 birds that will never see the light of day.  There’s controlled lighting, food and water.  When they’re ready to lay eggs, the hens climb into small metal boxes designed to deposit each egg via a small slide – straight on to a conveyor belt.

How long does the hen need in the box to lay her egg?  Simpson says, “It’s just according to their nature.  Certain hens get in there quicker than others.  I would say fifteen minutes is an average.”

When the eggs are laid, Simpson’s job is done.  His eggs are loaded onto trucks and driven to a hatchery.  The hatchery is one of eighteen Gold Kist facilities that together hatch about 15 million chicks a week.  

To begin the process, the eggs go into huge temperature-controlled incubators.  There they stay for about three weeks, then the shells start to crack open.  Soon, the chirping newborns are on their way in trays down a complex series of conveyors to be loaded into baskets of 100 each.   At the loading dock – from whence the chickens will be moved yet again – 370 trays stand ready for transport. 

This time, the destination is Randy Tumlin’s farm in Rockford, Alabama.  Again, the long henhouses dominate the landscape.  After 20 years in the business, Tumlin is precise in the numbering of his inventory:  four houses, 18,600 chickens each… about 76,000 chickens in total.  The broiler farm will be just about the end of the road for the chickens.  In just eight weeks, they’ll be full-grown, plump, and ready for processing for America’s dinner tables.

Like the farmers in the processing cycle, Tumlin must meet an exacting set of standards in building and maintaining his facility.

“A new house now could probably cost you $175,000, and at the time I built these it was about $60,000,” says Tumlin.  “You are seeing it harder and harder for a young person to go into the poultry business.”

It’s a lot of up-front expense for an ambitious poultry farmer to bear, even though the poultry company underwrites the cost of the feed and the birds themselves.    And there are plenty of risks.  But with the national demand for chicken so strong these days, the poultry farmers need to stay sharp. 

Like farmers across the Heartland, Tumlin says the secret to meeting those challenges is simple:  “The better job you do, the more money you make.  So it’s in your best interest to do the best possible job you can do.”