Red Hen Ranch aspires to produce BC’s best pastured eggs and poultry. We will use regenerative techniques for a more gentil and nutritious product for our customers. Land use: We will use regenerative techniques in raising our animals in order to build soil and protect wildlife. Doing this ensures that the poultry remain healthy because they are moved to a fresh patch of ground every day. It also keeps manure loads at a health rate on any given patch of ground. Essentially we are making our chickens become soil amenders by moving them in this manner. Infrastructure: the farms infrastructure will be almost entirely mobile. This is for 2 reasons. 1) the land owner will not need to pay for new infrastructure in order for me to move in and they will not have to make any repairs or demolitions when the lease runs out. 2) we will be using mobile eggmobiles, chicken tractors, etc, for the health of our animals and the land. 5 year plan: Year 1: the biggest goals of the first year consists of building necessary infrastructure and building a good client base for our products. For the farm this means an egg mobile and an egg packery. Both will be built on the chassis of trailers or caravan trailers so as to keep our infrastructure mobile and modular. Other year 1 on farm goals is to set up a good perimeter fence if one is not already there and building a hoop house for summer vegetables and winter hen housing. Year 2: the second year will build off of the first year. Practically, this means that pastured broilers and turkeys will be added as slightly smaller side enterprises. A small flock of sheep could be added for personal use as well. From a farm infrastructure point of view we are looking at chicken tractors which are easy to store in the off season. We could also be looking at an on farm poultry abattoir. Like the egg mobile this would be off the back of a caravan trailers chassis or a shipping container. Years 3-5: after the first 2 years the farm and business will have all its necessary infrastructure. Changes will be smaller and more incremental. Focus will be on quality products and good land management. In these years the grass will be visibly taller, as well as staying green for longer. There is no saying what the potential of any piece of land is, but we can promise that we will use the best techniques available on this land and there will be a positive difference.
We are looking for a pasture set up. Former crop land, rundown/abandoned fields will likely work for us. Slope and soil type are not of concern. We are not looking for is a field that has a history of regular and sustained flooding or substantial wet spots. Uncleared land is also not preferable.