Batangas Visit

First on our agenda was to visit Rumandan Farms. It is literally a visit, because it is breeze dealing with this grower. From owner Gene, assistant Karen to farm manager Luis, it had always been easy transactions. Luis should find raising Sunshines "sisiw"....he was a Darag Coordinator for PCARRD for quite sometime and dealt with Doc Synan in the studies. He still maintained his Darag production, but as he says, the commercial quantity to serve consumers is still far, plus the fact that you can't predict harvest.

Until now, he gets and shares pointers with Doc Synan (grab a copy of Agriculture Magazine of Manila Bulletin for August 2008), making raising Sunshines easier for him.

Luis is in the process of opening a new range area and now plans to have a quadrant for every batch. He was surprised how this present batch of 200 wiped out grass in an area of 150sqm in less than 2weeks!

We didn't plan to have lunch there, but the aroma of kalderetang Sunshine from the kitchen, across the nipa hut where we sat, was calling or names distinctly. The fact that we hardly have rice with our meals, made the table spread seem too much. Well, the magic word was "seem"...na seemot ang table :)

We knew we will be there more often, after tasting Edwin's cooking and because they will load more chicks at more regular intervals.

Next stop was a farm near Malarayat Golf. Suggestions were made to correct feeding and housing as brooding stage wasn't managed well. But the chicks were so happy when we taught caretaker to chop a banana trunk and feed it to them...they were so excited.

Last stop was calling on dealers for the area as we had been getting a lot of inquiries from Batangas. We wanted to make sure that the link to the backyard farmers are established.

Quite Quiet?

In the blog, quiet, yes...but not a few steps away from this desk!

Unforseen turn of events have me flying to Cebu tomorrow, after a breakfast meeting with my breeder partners at the Park N Fly building.

Hopefully it isn't raining in Cebu so we can take updated photos of growers' ranging areas in the afternoon.

Back to Manila for ingress of IFEX....or so I thought :( Just realized after opening emails that ingress is only until 7pm. Well, option#1, I ask Raymond to fix booth himself. Option#2, we fix booth real early Friday am.

See you at IFEX Philippines 2008. We we will be at the Retail Section, Booth A10. You can't miss us, strategically at a corner. Sunshine as most times, partners with Raymond Rubia of Daily Dose Farm and Chef Bert. Our featured growers for this show will be Rumandan Farms of Batangas, and Sunshine Capon of Joey Rigor in Victoria Tarlac.

2nd INAHGEN

We have come from an exciting 3days for the 2nd INAHGEN.


Rumandan Farms And Nursery, based in Rosario, Batangas was our partner grower for the event. They marketed their dressed Sunshines. Very good exposure as they got a lot of interest on their products.

Another grower, Joey Rigor of Sunshine Capon, was interviewed by Zac Sarian. Last Sunday, Zac got wind of a grower doing capon and asked me to set up meeting with Joey as he wanted to feature the product.

The Sunshine Chicken got a lot of attention. In turn, the inquiries redirected to our listed dealers were immediately felt.

That is our commitment to our dealers and growers...that the focus of marketing will be on the good product and them.

Several other major trade shows have been lined up for the rest of 2008.

We didn't get the attention in a major veterinary trade show because we were offering high technology. On the contrary, the people who are in the know..knew they had to unlearn practices. Rememeber, we are going back to basics.

Saboroso

I deleted the name and the organization of the source of the "saboroso" reaction, as the person may be high profile.

Anyway, this is an excerpt from the email of a Batangas grower.

Dr. XXXX from XXXXXX emailed that it tasted "saboroso"
kuno...parang lasang native chicken, malinamnam.

Vacuum Packed Sunshines

I attached here photos of "vacuum-packed"
dressed sunshines. Vacuum packing(which I
know, you are familiar) is one of the best
methods of preserving the freshness of food
items but is also one that is more expensive.
The vacuum machine itself is not expensive
but the packing materials or the vacuum
bags are. 

That was part of the email from a Batangas grower.

A further email said that these chickens were part of the October loading, dressed weights of about 3k.

Sun Shines in Rosario, Batangas

Hi Sandy,

I got the 2nd batch of Sunshines Sunday (Nov.18) at FTI-AANI. Arrived there early
at 5:50A - maybe earlier than some of the stall owners. It was drizzling and a bit
chilly that morning. While waiting for your crew, I did some "walking" and
"browsing" inside the market to while away the time. Just a few buyers here and
there. Maybe because of the rain and it was still early, anyway.

The delivery van arrived at around 6:20A, coming from the domestic airport to drop
some orders for airfreight, I was told.

Before I left AANI, I bought some "kakanin"- puto, bibingka, suman, etc. For an
amount equivalent to something like 20 USD, I could feed a barangay already! "Mura
talaga sa AANI weekend market".

I arrived back at Lipa before 8:00A with a stop along the way to check the
Sunshines, had a quick breakfast at my in-law's house then picked up my farm
manager and onward to Rosario, Batangas where this 2nd batch will be reared.

At Rosario, there were three chicks that were acting "groggy" when I transferred
the batch to the brooder. The rest were okay and as soon as they were heated,
already running and jumping. Gave them some feeds in the afternoon when I figured
they were already rested and some drinking water before sunset.

Some of them even took a bath in the waterer! I was worried they would get sick!
But they seemed to be happy doing that! And as soon as they wet themselves they
laid close to the light bulbs to heat and dry up. A tad crazy, I thought...

The following day, on the 19th, the 3 weak ones died. But those that took a bath
were just as sprite as everyone. Well, I could not really pinpoint which ones but
they were all robust and cheerful so I just assumed, you know.

Sending you some photos of this second batch. The first batch I don't have any at
all, I forgot to bring my camera. The first batch is in another location by the
Taal lake in Lipa. Next time I will not forget to bring my camera. Karen did not
take photos last time.

I will order another batch next December when I go home for the Christmas
holidays. Most probably the following Saturday right after Christmas so that I can
pick it up myself. Anyway, I will e-mail confirmation.

Thanks a lot and best regards,
Gene