Polyface Farm Field Day Photos

Greg and I spent Saturday at Polyface Farm in Staunton, VA for their Farm Field Day.  For one day, they open their farm to the public, and share their trade secrets with anyone willing to pay the admission fee, make the drive and endure the heat.  Fortunately, it wasn't beastly hot!

We arrived around 7:30am. Because of some radical changes in the weather, there was an amazing fog in among the hills and gullies as we drove down some very windy and narrow back-roads to get to the farm.  After registering and checking out the vendors, we did some exploring.  We were able to get a good idea of how the broiler pens were constructed and laid out, how they build their pastured rabbit pens, checked out the rabbitry, hay barns, hoop houses, and egg-mobiles.

We sat in on some small group "workshops" while the morning tour was underway.  Polyface served a fantastic lunch of bbq chicken, sliced fresh peaches and cucumbers, buttermilk chocolate cake as well as beef and pork bbq. It was delish!

After lunch, we participated in the afternoon tour of the farm. We saw their feather-net enclosed laying hens, salad bar beef, pasture fed broiler chickens and turkeys, sows with piglets, pastured hogs, brooder houses and hay barns. With all of this, there was a lot of discussion and information sharing.

I didn't take a lot of pictures but here's the few I did remember to snap while on the tour.  We had a great time on the Polyface farm and are very encouraged about what we can do on the farm.

The 1-mile trek around a small portion of the farm was such an educational experience.

This coop houses 1,000 chickens plus a couple guard-geese and is moved daily.
It sits on 1/4 acre, fenced with electric poultry netting.

A little bit closer look

Joel telling us about the set-up

All of these layers are Barred Rocks. Gorgeous chickens!

Walking to the next site for the tour... but we went the wrong way and had to back track.

Free range turkeys.  In the background are the broiler chicken pens.

Joel standing on a broiler pen talking to everyone.