Floyd is truly a conscientious and excellent farmer; he is a farmer that we need to support because being a conscientious farmer in this day and age dones not pay! I have enjoyed all my conversations with Floyd about his chickens and his struggle competing with modern farming; it has kept me motivated to see this cooperative work - God Willing - so that we do not lose farmers like Floyd to farmers like Perdue (if you can call them farmers!)
Here is what his brochure says:
These Cornish
White Rock cross chickens are raised and processed under special conditions
so they will have a better taste than those sold by commercial processors.
The birds spend the first 3 weeks of their stay at Shoal Creek Farm in the brooder house. Inside they are kept under heat lamps on a soft aerobic bedding of mostly soil, wood chips, and saw dust.
After 3 weeks of pampered
life in the brooder house, it's to the pasture. The chickens are kept
in 8' x 16' shelters I like to call my "2 door coupes".
The high meat, double breasted birds are given lots of room for exercise
and plenty of good food to eat.
The shelters are meant primarily to protect the birds, not to confine
them. We do everything we can to make their stay at Shoal Creek Farm as
comfortable as possible. Curtains are added to the shelters on cold or
stormy days. We move the homes, which have wheels, to new spots daily
so that the chickens will have a fresh patch of grass for grazing.
We grind and mix our own feed using as much of our own grain as possible.
The feed consists of mainly corn, soybean meal and oats. The soybean meal
is extruded and not chemically treated to remove oils. It also contains
fish meal, kelp meal, and a special vitamin pack to help keep the birds
in tip-top shape.
Floyd takes the chickens to a small family owned slaughterhouse to be processed when the chickens are eight weeks. We have a Muslim brother slaughter the chickens and then they are processed into whole or cuts of 8. They are vacuum packed and flash frozen. They are not electrocuted before slaughter. And they are not machine slaughtered by hand. Each chicken is placed in a cone without stunning or electrocution, and then a Muslim brother cuts the neck as is stipulated by Islam. After the chickens bleed they are processsed and packed by the processor.
All of this can be verified simply by paying a visit to the farm and processor. Floyd welcomes visitors and believes his customers shuld get to know where their food is coming from. The processor is also accommodating of visitors.