Naturally Farmed White Layers

After experimenting and getting good results with pasturing white broilers, Doc Rey decided to try raising the white layers in natural farming conditions.

We didn't pasture them, as they will mix with our broilers, as the ranging chickens can't be stopped from visiting neighbors in other ranging areas.

Trial of white layers, we used the HiSex brand of Console Farms. Housing was airy and gave them a lot of room and sunshine. There were fed the same way the pastured whites were. Last week, on week 19, they started making their "clacking" sound. Then, their diet was supplemented with calcium....snails and egg shells.

On week 20, the first drops...notice their size and the color?

Look how deep yellow the yolk is and how thick the egg white is :)

The cleanliness of the chicken and the eggs is not based on the color of the feathers, but it is in how it how it was raised.

After These, What Is Next?

Agri Plain Talk, Manila Bulletin, December 11 2010

Agri Plain Talk, Manila Bulletin, Jan 08 2011

Agriculture Magazine, Jan 2011, Page7

Panorama, Jan 02 2011, Page 20 and 21

In December 25 2010, Mag Agri Tayo, shown every Saturday at 9am over Channel 4 had featured the white pastured chickens too.  We are now partnering with them in given a school on the air and will be showing in several episodes our farming practices.  In early 2010 they did a 2part feature on us already, but they are now interested in the whites and the natural farming.  Watch out for the January 29 2011 episode.

Can you guess what the next stories of Mr. Zac Sarian will be focusing on? 

Dec 18, at AANI St Vincent

Doc Rey will conduct a seminar on Raising Pastured Chickens, at 4pm at the AANI St Vincent Seminary, along Tandang Sora, QC.

If you are interested to learning from a technical person/farmer, you will enjoy his style of teaching.

White Chickens Now Pastured

This must be the longest time I hadn't blogged!  I missed it so muchhhhhhhhhhhh.

Not that I wanted to take a break....no, I longed to be in touch.  Just that my old laptop acted up a lot.  Cried to be changed.  Not only that, my softwares said they have expired.  Whatever that meant, maybe I knew I just had to reinstall but I closed my eyes so I can buy a new toy :) So, I stuck to just browsing and FB for about 2weeks.  I deliberated as after getting his and hers IPads, I saw the beauty of  the bitten Apple.  Do I get a Mac?  That means having to learn and TRANSFER files aarrggghhhhh.

Meantime, I kept busy with planning our paths for 2011, and talking and meeting up with groups who can't believe that is was possible.

How can I blog now?  You guess it right!  I got myself a new toy.  Learned to save photos.....now the monumental thing to do is get my power point working.  Tried but failed transfer.  Will try after I get more confidence with her :)

Aside from so happy to be able to blog today...another pleasant gift today was THIS!

Read abour Mr. Zac Sarian's article on us here.

Mr. Zac Sarian had been with us since we started experimenting with pasturing the white broilers since we started in April.  Actually he already wrote teasers on them, not naming us...just saying his lady friend :)

Last week he said it was ripe to be introduced to the agriculture industry, although we had been harvesting the whites already and have actually gotten good reviews.  Clients haven't noticed the difference until we ask for feedback since we knew what batch of harvests were colored or white.  After finding in themselves the difference...if any...it was for the better as far as Filipino tastebuds were concerned.

Filipinos like their soups yellow, rounded body chickens, meaty but tender compared to the colored....we got that with the pastured whites.

Go With The Flow

Just came back from Lucena to attend the 7th National Organic Agricultural Congress (NOAC).  Very successful and it was a great opportunity for the meeting of minds of organic and natural farmers. 

Many have opened their minds to pasturing white chickens.  There are problems with the over supply of white chicks now in the Philippines...so let's use that to our advantage!  Let's pasture and free range the whites.  It is cheaper and easy to find.  Big help to us smaller farmers.

Key words were echoed and served as discernment :)  

Brings us to going with the flow.  Recent Typhoon Juan had almost all our trees in the farm down.  It will take a lot of energy and time to prop them up again, with the risk of stressing their roots. We decided to let them be and let them lie as they are now.  Easier to to harvest and we won't be jumpy whenever a storm warning is up again.

Listen  and observe, to guide you to do what is right.

Juan Batch

Remember the photos posted earlier, on the batch that was in the brooder during Typhoon Juan? The day after Juan, they were let to the open. A week after at 21days, they were transferred to the range housing.

Meet them now, at 28days. Most of them are out in the range and pasturing themselves:)

Might be your first time to see white chickens in clean, comfortable and airy cages?

Why You Don't Have To Get Chicks From Us

We have refocused and making it cheaper and easier for all to have  access to good tasting and healthy chicken meat.  You may grow your own food or get from farmers you know and trust.  Get to know your farmer.  Its all about farming :)

How did we make it cheaper and more accessible to grow clean meat?  We run trials and have gotten the results we wanted by using the white chicks that are used for commercial poultry raising.  

When given probiotics/fermented plant juices and pastured for the same time as its colored cousins, they have the same taste, and surely the healthy benefits are in how it was raised.

We are teaching you a concept.  We are selling you the idea of raising/eating well.  Food that you may grow yourself.  Food that you may entrust to farmers you really know.

If for some reason you can't find dayold chicks in your area, or you want the brand that we use, then we can cater them to you.  But again, the ,most ideal is get the chicks from your area.  The point was to make it cheaper and easy for all farmers.

Another plus side:  Easier to teach when we aren't selling anything to you :)

At 42days, Still Kids

As I was having a good time and exercising from bending to take the photos.....this cute thing ran, trying to avoid me....just like a tyke who knowingly did something naughty.

See his dirty feet? You suspect he was into something :)

He is still a kid at 42days, even if he weighs 1.5kgs. Now you won't be surprised why the commercial supermarket chickens are tastless. They were barely out of their nurseries when harvested at about 30days :(

My Spot

I have a favorite spot in the farm.  It past the holding area for the "to be harvested", after where Doc Rey decides to normally park.  If he brought a 4X4 then it means I am closer to my spot.  After the 1st housing is an Aratiles tree.  Very short walk from the parked truck, so this is my favorite place to reach out for my treasures of those reddish, sweet, juicy beads.

Surprise!  I now have white competitors.  Thank you that they can't reach up, they just contend themselves with what falls on the ground.

See how they love it!

6weeks old :)

White Christmas

At four (4) weeks now, they will be seeing you in December :)

The recently held Poultry Show was very motivating.  People embraced the idea of "yes, the whites can be pastured".  Low cost, easy to find, safe chicken for all!

For us at Solraya, it isn't just an "idea" anymore.  It had been ran and tested several batches.  Harvested and taste tested at different intervals.  For our pastured chickens, we still go with a slow developing chicken.  Let it age and naturally farmed....it will give you great tasting and healthy chickens :)

We will be happy to explain them to you during AGRILINK 2010.

Support & Trust

Thankful for friends in Agriculture who have stood by, believed and supported us through all these times.

Now that we are refocusing in using the white chickens for our endeavor, they have listened and took the steps with us.  They make us confident in going against norms and bringing  to all ,the benefits of economics and food :)

Others may belittle it, but we appreciate that friends spread the good work around and make it known to all...for others to be guided or to follow.

Philippines for natural farming!  Philippines may raise pastured chickens using the white broilers perceived only for commercial farming.

Read about the WHITE PASTURED CHICKENS here.

Color Blinded Or Harsh White Light?

When Mr Zac Sarian wrote a blind item about 2weeks ago in his Agripage column in Manila Bulletin, that brought a lot of interest on the Who and the Where the free ranging of the white broilers.

When I started blogging about our tests/experiments and now showed photos of the whites free ranging, we got so many calls and texts.  Some were asking, some were curious, but several calls and texts were to say that they have been doing it too!!!

The write ups and the blog made them to come out forward and speak up :)  We all were discussing that why wasn't it done before and spread?

Maybe the marketing of the veterinary companies wanted us blinded to the fact that the white broilers used by the industrial poultry industry, has to be reared using all those veterinary products.  Maybe the companies producing the colored chickens had hypnotized everyone to the fact that it was only the ones they produced that are able to free range.

Maybe the above paragraph is my imagination.  Maybe it was all of US who simply presumed, because we grew up with the white chickens raised caged and bombarded with chemicals.

We thought the better option was raising colored.  Now we have a better choice.  Raising the cheap and readily available white chicks, free ranged and natural farming methods.

Remember, the taste is in the age of the chicken.  Harvest at a later date than the industrials at 30days.  The safe and healthy chickens are in what we fed them and how we reared them.  

Combine both and now you get a good Sunshine!

Holding Well

After several trial batches and taste tastes, the whites stood up well to the colored cousins.

The taste was really in a slow developing chicken. Harvest at a much later date and encourage slow growth and free ranging abilities, you get great tasting chicken. As for the health benefits? It is in how you raise and feed the chickens. No antibiotics, no hormones - translates to healthy chicken on our plates :)

From day1, they are given probiotics, fermented plant juices and fresh herbs. See the red siling labuyo?

When left out on their own, they enjoy the same things that their colored cousins do. Look at her run with glee to her treasure find of fallen Aratiles fruits. I will love them too for myself!

They also love playing around.

And rest. Notice that unlike when their white sisters are raised in captivity, they always seem sleepy? But when let out and free ranged, they are always alert. Even when resting, they prefer to sit by in their terrace.

The white chicks are far cheaper and easily accessible to all. There will be a favorite poultry supply store in the market, selling these. Just like the Sunshine Chicks, look for their properly printed chick boxes so you know you are getting premium grades of chicks.

Just for the record. We have type casted them for the caged and industrial chickens only. They may be free ranged :)