Fermented Plant Juice (FPJ)

Often asked about probiotics.  If you read through the blog, you may use your search button, you will know why we use probiotics over antibiotics.  You can make you own.  We had been advocating natural farming and it entails making your own farm inputs.

We had been using FPJ for our chickens.  What is fermented plant juice?

Fermented plant juice (FPJ) is derived from mixing the young shoots of the plants with molasses and/or crude sugar and fermented in one (1) week.  FPJ is rich in micro and macro-nutrients.  The juice also contains rich microorganisms which give strength to plants and animals.  The shoots of plants are difficult to dissolve in water or any kind of oil but it can be done with a little amount of alcohol.  The process of fermenting the soft part of the plants with molasses/crude sugar and with the presence of microorganisms will result to a small percent of alcohol which is responsible in extracting the juice from the young parts of the plants.  The primary elements that FPJ can provide are nitrogen and some micro-nutrients like calcium, molybdenum, manganese, iron and carbon.

The part of the plants used for this fermentation is the shoot because it is this part that stores a high percentage of nutrients coming from the soil and from the atmosphere.  Moreover, plants used for FPJ are those that are fast growing such that, if you cut the shoot now, regeneration of a new part will take effect in a few hours.  We ourselves use:  Kamote, Squash, Kangkong, Alugbati, Banana, Bamboo.  You may use others with same characteristics and the ones readily available in your area.

The FPJ enhances growth and provides food for the indigenous microorganisms (IMO).  We add it to the drinking water of our chickens and spray it all around the farm on the seedlings, vegetable plots and fruit trees. 

How to make FPJ :)

1) Finely chop 2kgs of your available ingredients.  The 2kgs will be a combination of your gathered shoots of choice.

2) Mix with 1kg molasses or crude sugar.  We use molasses.

3) Place in a clay jar or plastic pail.  We use a plastic pail.  Put a rock on top of the chopped ingredients to weigh them down to make sure that they get soaked in sugar.

4) Next day, remove the rock (by now all ingredients are coated by molasses).  Cover your container with manila paper and tie a string around or have an elastic band around.

5) Set the container in a cool and dark or shaded place.  

6) On the 7th day, fermentation will be completed.  Harvest the liquid part and store in plastic bottles.  Set them in cool places.

7) Use 2T (tablespoons) per liter of water.  We use this for the Sunshine Chicken's drinking water.  This same concoction is used for spraying our vegetables and fruit trees.  No chemicals, no antibiotics :)

The leaves at the bottom of the pail, we feed to the chickens....they just love it!  Eating pickles!

BTW, great for humans too.  Gives me stamina for the day, while giving me a restful sleep at night.

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.

From Farm To Market

At any given time, I have about four or five pairs of comfortable rubber boots.  They can be worn the whole day without taxing my legs.  It is worth it to invest in good pairs of shoes that will protect your feet and legs when going through farms and interesting finds in wet markets.  

Snakes, flood waters, thorny bushes, entangling vines etc...we have to be protected.  As in all cases, better to be defensive rather than offensive :)

Be comfortable.  The bonus is you can still look good when farming.

Green Daisy's Sunshine Chicken ala Hainanese Chicken

This post started it.  Daisy Langenegger of Green Daisy Organic Restaurant saw the recipe and just took the pointers and guide.  Daisy always uses the best and freshest ingredients that is available to her so following a recipe to the "T" is hardly done.

In one of the Philippines for Natural Farming Inc's working group's meeting, Daisy served her version of ala Hainanese Chicken.

It was really good!

Accompanying condiments and Chicken Rice

Poultry & Livestock Forum

WHAT: Poultry & Livestock Forum
WHERE: AANI Quezon Memorial Circle
WHEN: Every 3rd Sunday of the month, 1-5pm
WHO: Ben Rara and Doc Rey

This is not a seminar type, but a forum.  It will be focused on poultry and livestock sourcing, raising, marketing etc.  Open to the public and FREE. 

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!

Debutantes Stepping Out

We had several batches on trial runs for the white broilers for free ranging already, done, observed, harvested and eaten :) Starting with 100, 200 and 300 at a time. I was never around to see them step out for the first time as work took me most of time away from the farm.

We had all been blinded about the whites not being able to survive on the open range, but in our pursuit to give the farmers cheaper and safer food alternatives, there must be a way to have cheaper and more accessible free ranging chicks :) Thus the study on the whites. These chicks are readily available in most areas and pricing range dips to a level that will be very attractive to farmers.

Doc Rey here observing them while inside the brooder. He was ready to let them out now at 18days, just instructing for a manual count and weighing in before set out to range. 14days is what he practices now for brooding time. That will be a separate topic on the observations on brooding the whites for free range.

Average weights taken and head count done....the side doors were opened. See how happy they are? Doc Rey and I were discussing that you never see the industrial white chickens this way in their cramped coops. We thought that all they knew was eat, sleep and fight. Well I guess it is really on the environment. See how happy chickens are chickens naturally? Irregardless of their color :) Same characteristics when out on open areas.

Rats are the biggest problems, so Doc Rey instructs that a side of the metal walling of the brooder be lifted. That way, it will be easier for them to be herded back to safety after they go home at night. This is done as precaution because they are let out open at 14days.

Early evenings, once grouped inside, the metal sheet walling may be slid back to position so they will be safe from the Rats.

Healthy Gizzard Sisig

The gizzard is naturally crunchy so it gives the healthy sisig the needed crunch and different textures. No chicken meat, just pure gizzard. To make it creamy, we added chicken liver. This is one of our sought after products, the healthy gizzard sisig.

You may sizzle it in a hot plate, heat it up in a thick skillet to give it that brown and toasted look. Simply, it is OK to heat it up in the microwave.

Serving suggestions: over rice, wrapped in lettuce, topping in salad, using tortilla wraps, top crackers. Endless variations with your healthy and tasty food choices.

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 :)

Luxury Of Experimenting

Since start of 2010, I had been restless and knew I had to do something new or different. Marketing Sunshine, gone into healthy sausages, got the levels of the dressed chickens business to a comfortable level....what is next?

Have to go back to what was said about this 2010 in terms of Astrology, but I knew it drove me to make changes and movements. For one, I had learned to love the dressed chicken side. It wasn't part of the original enterprise, but it was part and parcel of marketing, to elevate consumers' awareness.

Been so quiet because I detached myself somewhat, to be able to see myself and where to go. I want to plant Camote! But I love my chickens too. Think of how you can do better to mankind. Think of how growing their own food will be more accessible and cheaper.

I had the luxury of time and effort. Can you guess what I did?

Look at where experiments may take you. This will help a lot of backyard farmers and people who will want to grow their own food. White broilers are readily available and cheaper.

It is in the raising!

1st PINES

Philippine International Eco Show, running from today until 29 August at the SMX Convention Center.

This is the first time CITEM and Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) put together this kind of show that is for goods and services that are ecology, green friendly. Interesting exhibit. Construction, food, packaging, machineries, solar panels etc. The seminars are eye openers and interesting mix of information. Glad I chose a booth right beside the Activity Area.

Good exposure for the market we are focusing on :)

You like our look? Using handmade paper, I have to thank my friend Gigi Gonzales for taking time to think, travel, carry, tape and cut up those rays for me! She also conceptualized our eco friendly packaging of bayongs and pulp paper.

Corded Or Free Ranged?

Can you tell by looking at the photo, if corded gamefowls are easier to tend to?

I know images flashed in your minds now. For me, I will say gamefowls. They are corded, no running around, they have small feeders, they have a tiny house that isn't cleaned etc.

But then, I have experienced having a lot of both birds. Before we got into free range chickens, we had gamefowls just for the sake of having. Much like living paintings to ogle at in the farm. When they are free ranging, the time and effort is almost the same as Sunshine Chicken. Except that you have higher nets to be maintained around them. But when they reach the stag age and they have to be corded...looks like it will be easier huh?

For the corded gamefowls, each of them have cords on their leg, that is pegged to the ground. They have their own teepees as shelters (very costly even if you make it yourself in concrete, nipa, wood etc). Each of them will have their own feeder and waterer. You clean up all those waterers and feederrs. Have another set being used while a set is being cleaned up. Periodically bathe each of the birds individually (not as simple as spraying them with water). Bend to scoop feeds into their individual feeders and put water.

Sounds simple..if you have a few. But when you have a lot...that is different. You need a lot of farm help! In a gamefowl farm we went to last week, the farthest my eyes went to had a teepee numbered "1845"! There were more. Imagine how many help the farm needs to feed 1900 birds individually?

Conversion

How do you convert from a gamefowl farm to natural farming?

1) Unlearn old practices :)

2) Let several areas rest and recuperate from all the chemicals it had been exposed to. Let the Sun do its work and allow it to bathe under the glorious Sun.

3) Bombard caretakers with info on natural farming, as they will have resistance in believing it after years of practice using antibiotics and chemicals.

4) Let caretakers attend a seminar, as brooding a hundred is different from brooding a thousand. More so, artificial brooding as far different than natural brooding.

5) Do with what you have and use present structures. Individual brooding pens may be enclosed as one. An elevated flooring may be used. Have several doors for easier cleaning, feeding etc. Don't destroy the concrete bases, as they may serve as vermi areas that will be rich from chicken manure.

Now if we have to add buildings, then the new structures will follow better designs.

6) The housing/brooding area may open up to the former cording areas, that will now be used as ranging areas. The teepees are natural shelters..or we may use the teepees as low walling for housing. You may also have low shelters with nipa or tarpaulin roofing with the trees as base. With all the trees around, you may tie the net around them for ranging area fences.

There will always be ways. No need to throw away things.

Sunshine Chicken in Couscous

Green Daisy's owner, Daisy, was a gracious host to a group of natural farmers the other night. Daisy cooked a wonderful dinner, served buffet style, in honor of Jojie and Andry Lim.

I sent her pate, sausages and chickens to cook. She served the pate and sausages to other guests she had the previous night and they loved it. This time, she made Couscous using Sunshine Chicken... it was really good!

The natural farming boys in our group were debating if it was Arroz Valenciana....whatever you call it, it was deliciously flavorful. Actually, Daisy did a great job, as always.

If you want to see more of that night, see the photos posted to the Sunshine Chicken page in Facebook :)

Green Daisy is a restaurant that serves organic food. They have their won farm that produces their organic rice, vegetables and chickens. 20 Maginhawa St, UP Village. By appointment only.

Spread Of Sales

I will say that the 2nd most asked question is "Where is the market?".

This morning I get again one of the good follow up inquiries from the ones who read then ask. It went beyond the "where is the market" thing.

The text asked if the sales for the year was 100%, was the 50% on the last quarter? Oh yes, most consumer products' sales are in the months of October to December because of the Christmas season.

In my personal experience, it isn't the case. We get a good hold of the supply and demand all throughout the year because the market for the Sunshine Chicken is the conscious consumer. The one who watches their diet, wants tasteful chickens and studies value for money.

Sure the demand may go up for Christmas season, but this type of food gets set aside for time being during the festivities. So if the demand and sales doesn't go down, then we did something very good in terms of marketing.

I like stability...and see to it that marketing makes us grounded and constant all year round.

Fill Her Up

How do I use an auto feeder?

See the opening on top? That is where you put the feeds.

There are several sizes. The smallest auto feeder can accommodate 5kgs. The advantage of using auto feeders is that the Sunshines don't get to scratch , play nor poo in their feeds :) Plus the most convenience of care taking in absentia...they are guaranteed to have feeds even if you are not around.

For now, we do the auto feeders inside the pens, and on the range. On the range, they have the choice to go to forage or grains. More often than not, they want to forage. Look at the photo above, they prefer to go outside :)

Study Then Ask

For about one week now I had been getting calls from this lady who had been reading this blog extensively and had questions.

Her questions I like answering as it teaches us too. Questions that didn't cross my mind to tackle when I was writing about topics. I know that I had been writing for the neophyte poultry dummy, but then again, I am not tasked to go into specifics nor come up with business reports, so there are details that skip my dummy mind.

Types of queries:

1) How far are the distances for the water nipple drinkers? Good one! We were doing it in the farm, on site and drilling holes and fitting the nipples into the PVC pipes as we were seeing the chickens and their sizes around us.

2) How do you assemble the nipple drinkers? That I believe I discussed. But hey, it was still an intelligent question to ask :)

3) How do the auto feeders get filled up? I may have taken that for granted, maybe discussed it...but I will take it as needing a double take to understand.

4) etc....there were a lot of good calls this week

Why am I thankful for them? It makes me see the points I have taken for granted. I must rephrase to make myself clearer. Gives me new topics. On the other hand, this blog has educated and took their questions and minds to a different level.

Thankful also that most are now reading reading and reading, then question :) As we said, we don't mind spending time and effort on this blog and out of town seminars, but please help yourselves too....so much information here.

New Veterinarians

We are glad that Alexander Ian O. Madrilejo passed the recent exams for Veterinarians. Oh he not just passed...he made Top 10!

I watched the exam results closely, and it came out tonight. We were in touch since he requested to be referred to one of the Sunshine growers for specimens to be used for his thesis.

His thesis was on Preliminary Study on the Hematological and Serum Lipid Profile Values of SASSO Chickens (Gallus Domesticus) Raised Under Free Range Management.

Congratulations!

Liver Lover

Sounds like an ad!

Eversince I can remember, I loved livers, gizzards, intestines, eyes, brains...from fishes to bulls etc. Offal as it is termed.

Memories of Reno Liver Spread in hot pandesal...a tin for myself. As you get older the tastebuds mature so we go one step up to Pate...still liver spread :)

I was in search of one with character....a Pate that can stand on its own and it says "umpppphhhh!" back at you. Bought some recently and brought a tub to our meeting for Berdelicious. The trying hard foodies in us were taste testing and discussed with Chef Myke what I wanted.

He did come up with what I wanted using our Sunshine Chicken's. Chef Myke said the taste is distinctly more intense than that of the white broiler's liver and no fishy taste. He used pure liver, no use of pork fat nor extenders. Creamy on its own. Full bodied flavor. If there was a gender for Pate, this will definitely be masculine! Not at all glamorous, prim and proper type. Have a closer look...it is forkable and may be taken alone :)

Like Foie Gras? Try slicing some Pate and soft frying it.....very good and close to addicting!

NOW AVAILABLE! Just like our other products, our Pate is for the Pinoy tastebuds, no preservatives, no extenders. Great value for your protein health and money.

Hainanese Chicken Rice

One of the most memorable Hiananese Chicken Rice I have ever had was in Cebu. They were using our chickens and serving them in their restaurant. I thought it was so hard to make.

As we developed our Chinese clientele, they had been telling me that they had been making this dish now since they discovered where to get good and flavorful chickens. They had always sounded that it was so simple. Easier heard than done...I thought!

Then I came across this post....from one of my daily blog rolls. Connie Veneracion has a way of making things easier to understand and it goes step by step.

Try it...I know I will :)

You may even do this focused business and just be known for very good Hainanese Chicken Rice.