Polyface Farm Tour~Salatin~My experience (pics on page 3).

[Quail_Antwerp]

oh, btw, when I read your post to E, he almost fell off his chair over the whole "didn't want to get his tractor wet". He said that so wouldn't have hurt his tractor!

 

[Dace]

Oh man, what a disappointment

 

[Beekissed]

Pat, those layers were RIR and Aussies...now, I've been raising chickens over a 33 year span in my life and I will tell you that the chickens were quite scrawny for their breed.

I know that he is a business man and spending extra money for having things neat and convenient for the public is probably an antithesis for him....but common sense prevails that you can use the same haybales for rainy days, just store them in a separate area..they will dry off and be as good as new. Or even, imagine this, design a wagon that didn't require hay bales! If the public is your bread and butter, then, my thinking is that I spare a few coins to cater to the public. One time expense that will yield benefits from then on. If you advertise a hay wagon tour, barring extreme emergency ~and rain in the springtime is not an emergency~you should deliver this tour as advertised.

Gravel? It doesn't take much to drive a drag over your ruts and spill a little gravel in the potholes...you can have it split into the actual tire tracks to save a little money. Gravel can last a very long time and it doesn't cost a mint.

He has several apprentices who make $100 a month, room and board, who will make this money no matter what task he puts them to....it only takes an hour to weedeat around some pathways and building entrances. No excuses can suffice there....what I gleaned from that is the fact that he knows that people will buy the product even if he doesn't dress it up or make it more convenient, so why bother?

That level of arrogance is what disturbs me...its like a rock star leaving their audience standing for two hours in the rain while they wait for the Pepsi they demanded to be flown in by helicopter because the venders only had Coke products. Inconsideration because your bottom line is money and your own gain is still inconsideration towards your fellow man and is not really excusable in my book.

After all, the man professes to be a Christian, which in my book, holds one to a higher standard than the usual money-grubbing agribiz companies that he eschews. A Christian should be placing more importance on his fellow man and his witness towards them than his bottom line.

 

[Farmfresh]

I too have read a lot of what he has to say, watched taped interviews and listened to several of his televised "sermons".

There are a LOT of good ideas. I too get the impression that he can be quite unconcerned about other people and what they think. I also get the impression that he considers women less than a man. Strength wise we probably are, but we too can still farm with rotational grazing like he preaches. No strength needed to open a gate!! It is sad that he might lose some people to the great ideas and the good ecological practices just by being so unconcerned with them. Money does things to people - that is totally true as well.

We just have to remember he is only human. Human beings sin and make mistakes. We need to read the gurus and think for ourselves. I also like Gene Logsdon, but you have to sift and sort what he says as well.

Many people are not what they appear to be in public.

 

[reinbeau]

Truly a disappointing visit, Bee, it's too bad such an unworthy person is held in high regard - at least his message is spot on.

 

[patandchickens]

Pat, those layers were RIR and Aussies

Oh, ok then

If you advertise a hay wagon tour, barring extreme emergency ~and rain in the springtime is not an emergency~you should deliver this tour as advertised.

Definitely.

Unless you figure it doesn't matter to you, and people will still pay you the same money either way...

Gravel? It doesn't take much to drive a drag over your ruts and spill a little gravel in the potholes...you can have it split into the actual tire tracks to save a little money. Gravel can last a very long time and it doesn't cost a mint.

No, but it costs SOMEthing, and the way businesses make money is by cutting *all* expenditures that do not result in earning more than you've put out.

He has several apprentices who make $100 a month, room and board, who will make this money no matter what task he puts them to....

Yeah but time spent weedwhacking is time NOT spent doing something of a profit-producing nature. Unless they spend time sitting around idle, which I have a hard time imagining <vbg>, time spent on one thing is time taken away from another thing.

After all, the man professes to be a Christian, which in my book, holds one to a higher standard than the usual money-grubbing agribiz companies that he eschews. A Christian should be placing more importance on his fellow man and his witness towards them than his bottom line.

Yeah, well, if history (and observation of the world as it now is, too) shows us nothing else, it's that there are a whole lot of very different opinions on what it means to be a Christian ;>

He's a businessman. Christian businessman, maybe, but "Christian" is the adjective, there, and "businessman" is the noun.

Also I get the impression that he is such a vocal spokesman on various issues more for the ego-boo than from a deep desire to help his fellow man in whatever way he can. Which is fair enough if you ask me, takes all kinds, and at least he is exercising his desire for notoriety and profit in a GOOD way, as compared to all the OTHER ways that people often pursue those things.

Pat

 

[bibliophile birds]

sorry you spent so much money to be disappointed... too bad he doesn't have a satisfaction guarantee.

like the others said, i'm not overly surprised by your report, but it is disheartening. you just really want to think that he lives by his beliefs and not by his wallet. surely he makes PLENTY of money doing lectures, farm tours, and whatnot, to UNDERstock his farm and still come out WAY ahead. last i checked, he was making $3,000 per lecture- and he does a LOT of lectures every year.

Paying someone to weedwhack, buying gravel for the convenience of the public, wasting hay (it may only take ten bales to do a rainy hayride *once*, but multiplied by the number of rainy days it can add up fast), or giving animals extra room to be happy if it does not increase their productivity... <shrug>

but all of those things DO increase productivity... keeping weeds down around buildings cuts down on parasites, varmints, and structural damage. i mean, get some goats to clean up those weeds... it's not hard. correctly graveling your thoroughfares keeps weeds and erosion down and puts less wear and tear on your vehicles. PLUS, it sure doesn't hurt to be convenient to the public when you are charging them $300/hr to come visit your farm. and why can't hay bales be covered in tarps on the wagon?

 

[noobiechickenlady]

I have lost a lot of respect for the man from reading your account, Bee.
Yes, he is just a man and while he did fall from the pedestal I placed him on in the beginning (my mistake) it seems he has sunk even lower now.

Great message, great ideas, but what happened to follow-through?

Now I can hope that one or more of his apprentices becomes the face for the movement and learns from discussions like this one. When you act like a jack & don't practice fully what you preach, your message gets diluted.

 

[patandchickens]

but all of those things DO increase productivity... keeping weeds down around buildings cuts down on parasites, varmints, and structural damage. i mean, get some goats to clean up those weeds... it's not hard. correctly graveling your thoroughfares keeps weeds and erosion down and puts less wear and tear on your vehicles. PLUS, it sure doesn't hurt to be convenient to the public when you are charging them $300/hr to come visit your farm. and why can't hay bales be covered in tarps on the wagon?

The question isn't whether it increases productivity, though...

It's a matter of whether the $benefit exceeds the $cost.

I do like "didn't want to get his tractor wet", though

Pat

 

[Beekissed]

Now, there seems to be a bit of confusion...I didn't pay$300 an hour for the tour, but the total number of folks that paid $10.50 were over 60, so it works out that he earned that much.

Here are a few pics that it took me 2.5 hours to upload this morning.....

His cattle and pastures...very lush, very sleek animals:

His pastured layers with their eggmobile coop/nesting boxes:

His Racken house with rabbits above and Aussies below...this pic was taken with the most flash I had because the building only had light from the daylight coming in one end of the structure. It turned out looking very bright with the flash but this wasn't the case. I realize that rabbits like the dark but I imagined he only had this kind of setup in the wintertime....why keep chickens inside a dark building during the spring? Maybe he rotates these out with the RIR on pasture?

Here are his Aussies on the crowded nests, many of which had two chickens in each nest:

One chicken was crouched under a feed trough and I nudged her with my toe because she looked sickly....she was sitting on a dirty clutch of eggs in the deep litter. A broody?

His feeding station and a few of the poor bald birds:

I don't want you folks to think I'm judging Joel unfairly or villifying him on my own expectations, but I'm just giving you my impressions. Of course, they are biased opinions because I was the only one there to form them. I guess I'm still a little country dumb and naive when it comes to folks. I've not lived in a bigger city nor have I experienced the hard world of people like some of you have, so this made a deeper impression on me, I expect.