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How To Raise Chickens on Pasture and Process Birds ft. Will Vogl

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Show Notes

Join Nicole and Will from The Vogl Homestead Farm LLC as they discuss the Vogl farm, raising chickens on pasture, and how to process chickens.

What You’ll Learn

  • The current projects on The Vogl Homestead Farm
  • How to raise chickens on pasture
  • The basics of processing your own chickens

Our Guest

For this episode we are joined by Will Vogl, founder of The Vogl Homestead Farm LLC. The Vogl Homestead Farm LLC is a regenerative farm in Black Forest, just northeast of Colorado Springs, Colorado. They sell eggs from pasture raised chickens, organic fed pasture raised while chickens, beyond organic no-till vegetables, and soon to have sheep.

Will serves his community as a Firefighter, and runs the family farm with his wife and children.

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    Announcer: Welcome to the Backyard Bounty Podcast from heritageacresmarket.com where we talk about all things backyard poultry, beekeeping, gardening, sustainable living and more. And now here's your host Nicole.

    Nicole: Hello and welcome to Backyard Bounty. I'm your host Nicole and today we're joined by William with the Vogel Homestead. William, thank you so much for joining me today.

    Will: Yeah, absolutely.

    Nicole: Can you tell us some about your homestead?

    Will: Yeah. We're a little farm up in Black Forest. It's just outside of Colorado Springs, about 15 minutes. We do a whole bunch of things. We started off with chickens and we've kind of morphed. We started with eight chickens and we've morphed that into quite the egg and meat chicken operation for the homestead, if you will, where we do everything on pasture. Also, we raise sheep. We just got the sheep this year, and then we also have a vegetable operation that we're growing veggies in bunch of greenhouses that we're leasing right up the street from us, and then we had an area about a quarter of an acre at our place as well.

    Nicole: Awesome. You do all this on, you said seven acres?

    Will: Yeah. We have seven acres and we just started to lease on another 16ish. I've never actually measured it, but it's about 16 acres. This other property that we're leasing is actually, it used to be a horse ranch and then the current owner, she bought it and turned it into her own homestead until she couldn't do it anymore because of her age.

    Will: So now she leased it out and she's super excited because she went a year without having anything on this property. Now we're bringing the sheep and the chickens, all this stuff back, and she's really excited to see it come back to life. So it works really well for us and for her in that sense. But all these paddocks that she has, she's got 15 paddocks for the sheep that we can rotate them around, and then area set up for the chickens that we're raising right now for this year. And then the three greenhouses that we're starting to grow veggies in.

    Will: Then our place, mainly we're just... We're still working on fencing it off for the sheep, but we're running our chickens on a portable system where we can move them anywhere on our property. We also have, like I said, it's about a quarter acre of just outdoor growing space.

    Nicole: We talked a little bit before we started recording here. The garden on your property, is that where you're doing your irrigationless growing?

    Will: Yeah. Here in Colorado, our irrigation or our water laws are just... They're probably the strictest in the country. So we're on a domestic well, which means that we can't use our well for irrigation purposes for commercial agriculture and stuff. It's funny because our well permit says we can irrigate up to 5,000 square feet, but I can't sell a single carrier that had a lettuce off that at all.

    Will: So we've had to get really creative with the way we're growing our food. One of the best ways we found is through increasing our soil and really just building up that organic matter in our soil so that it can hold moisture naturally, and then we mulch it really heavy everywhere we are growing things.

    Will: That way, it keeps it from evaporating because here... Where we're at, we're lucky. We get about 18 to 20 inches on average of rain which is more than most areas around us, but it's still pretty arid and we'll go months without really any precipitation. So anything we can do to hold that there is a big bonus.

    Will: It's something like for every 1% of organic matter you increase in your soil, you increase the water holding capability of your soil by 25,000 gallons per acre. It's pretty impressive. If you can increase your organic matter in your soil by two, three, 4% you start holding a lot of moisture there.

    Will: Given the fact that most of our, most of our soils here, anywhere from one to 4% organic matter, which is really low, anything you can do to increase that is going to help not just hold that water, but it's also going to increase that soil biology that's going to really feed your plants naturally and really help them out a lot. So we're doing a whole bunch of things to just really do that like Back to Eden, swales, mulches, basically anything we can find to build the organic matter up.

    Nicole: Yeah. Is there one that you prefer over the other or are you still figuring out which one you like better?

    Will: Yeah. We got a lot going on. I like to experiment. Back to Eden is similar to lasagna gardening. It's like you add layers of organic matter and then you mulch the heck out of the top of it. That's been really successful especially for stuff like squashes and potatoes and garlic and stuff that really has a good root structure. I think it'd work well with lettuce, but you'd have to do it like head lettuce and stuff. I don't think it would work with like a salad mix as well.

    Will: And then some of the other things we've done, we've got a swale system for a food forest that we're starting to really expand out this year. That's really worked well. Again, our soil is so sandy that we can't really hold water with it. So we backfill that with same kind of Back to Eden method and it really holds a lot of that moisture in place when it rains or snows. Everything we've done on there so far has done really well.

    Will: We've lost a few fruit trees that we can't irrigate, but like I said, it's all experimenting. It's figuring out what's going to go well. A lot of our perennial stuff that we do grow on that, it's just loving it. It grows like crazy.

    Nicole: Do you grow it in a greenhouse or is it just out in the open?

    Will: No. It's all outside. We got the greenhouses for some of our veggies just this year, but everything we've grown up to this point has been outdoor.

    Nicole: Exposed to the elements.

    Will: Yeah. Exposed to the elements. We find out really fast what's growing well and what's not. A lot of the stuff we're going towards is a lot of perennial bushes and smaller herbs and stuff because you don't have to do anything with them. You plant them and they just grow wild.

    Nicole: Sure.

    Will: It's pretty impressive.

    Nicole: Yeah. Especially in Colorado. Anything that you can get to grow in Colorado.

    Will: Yeah. Exactly. It's one of the harshest areas to grow anything.

    Nicole: Yes.

    Will: You know, it's funny talking to people from other States where they're like, "Yeah, I just dropped seeds and stuff grows" and you're like, "That happens?" No. You got to baby everything here. You know?

    Nicole: Yeah, and find ridiculously strong plants with a good root system that can tolerate the heat and the wind, the cold.

    Will: Yeah. Then you got to be out there on moment's notice to cover it from hail.

    Nicole: Yes. Yep.

    Will: Yeah. It's like Colorado wants to kill our gardens.

    Nicole: Yes. Actually, this year is successful. Who knows? With that weird snow that we just got.

    Will: Oh, yeah. I've learned. I don't even plant things until June now. If it's not covered, it doesn't get a seed yet, so...

    Nicole: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So you do the chickens and the sheep and then the garden. We were again talking before we started recording and you said you have a couple of hundred chickens that you got running around right now. Both layers and meat birds?

    Will: Yeah, yeah. We got a little crazy this year. We started a few years ago with just eight. We started with just the backyard flock and then the next year, at 16 more, I was like, "Oh, this-"

    Nicole: Chicken myth.

    Will: Yeah, exactly. Right? Just a couple more and the next thing you know later that year, I ended up getting a hundred. At that point, we decided I liked really raising them so we were going to sell them as started pullets. So that way they were just a few weeks or a month out from being able to lay eggs. That turned out to be a lot more work than I anticipated, so we abandoned that idea after one season and then we just had them for eggs.

    Will: I follow a lot of people that do the regenerative agriculture, especially on pasture raising stuff. So I wanted to keep everything out on pasture and I felt it's lot more humane for the chickens instead of keeping them bunched up in one static coop within a little shade and stuff. So we started making these structures that we can move around our pasture and we'll give them an area for a week or so depending on weather and stuff.

    Will: Then we have a portable fence that's electric that can follow around them. We can set it up and the whole thing weighs like maybe 30 pounds. So it's super easy. It's lightweight. And then we have a portable charger that has a little solar panel on it and charges it. It does a good job of keeping all of the ground predators away, as well as the chickens shock themselves like three times and they're like, "Okay, that fence is the boundary. I don't go over that."

    Will: It's funny because this thing is only 40 inches tall and they could totally fly over it if they wanted to, and they do sometimes. I mean you get those few times where they've been out of water for two seconds and you're filling the waters in front of them and they're like, "Nope, we're getting out of here. We're dying." You're like, "I just took the waters out of your thing. You're fine, you know." But that's really the only time they ever jumped out of there. So we don't even clip their wings. For the most part, they stay contained in that as long as you give them a good sized area.

    Will: Then we move them around. Our main coop now, it started off with these little wooden things that we have a tarp over. Now, our main one is a two horse trailer that we found used that was just in really bad shape. So we fixed it up and put some perches in there. Since it's only a bedroom, we can put a lot more birds in there than recommended for a backyard coop and stuff because they have tremendous amounts of area to roam around and whatnot.

    Will: During the day, they're not in that at all, but we can cram them in there pretty tight at night. Actually, they prefer that at night because it gives them more of a warmth and that close quarters gives them a lot more-

    Nicole: Security.

    Will: ... security and whatnot. We can put about a hundred birds in that thing. And then we're getting ready to build another one because we have about 200 new chicks coming on and they're about a month old almost. We got a few more months before they go out in the pasture because they're just so little. They'd just be taken out by all of our hawks and stuff right now.

    Will: Then we got some geese that we raise with them. Each flock gets its own goose and it kind of deters the aerial predators as well because these geese are just massive. They get a wingspan of four feet and they'll honk at any little finch that goes over. So they see the hawks and they start flapping their wings, and the hawks that are flying over, they're like, "I don't want to mess with that bird. I'm going to go get that rabbit over there." So we just figured out a way to do it on pasture in a way that also deters the predators.

    Will: One of the things we also do is we try and incorporate ways to enhance the wildlife on our farm. That way that there is a food source for the predators as well, because hungry predators, at some point, there's a point where they're going to be willing to go through your defenses, essentially. Right? But if we can make our birds look a lot harder than the rabbits that live there naturally, they're going to go for the rabbits.

    Nicole: Right.

    Will: So we've added habitat for the rabbits and stuff like that as well.

    Nicole: Oh, neat.

    Will: Then eventually, our hope is to start moving the pasture birds right behind our sheep as we move the sheep on a regular basis. So that way they'd also serve the additional function of spreading the manure the sheep leave and eating any flies that lay their eggs in the manure as well as any of the maggots that start to hatch out of those. And then that way we break the fly cycle as well and it helps us with pest control on that side as well as anything like grasshoppers in our pasture and stuff, which we've seen that already. There's a drastic reduction in the grasshopper population on our property.

    Nicole: Oh, sure. And happier chickens.

    Will: Oh, yeah. They love them. It's funny you'd see them jumping through the fence and then it's just 20 chickens go running after them, and they love him.

    Nicole: So you have both laying chickens and meat chickens also?

    Will: Yep. Yep. So we just started meat birds last year and we've been running Cornish Cross, which is the traditional chicken that they raise for your store meat. They're kind of a weird bird because they grow stupid fast. You know, you'll go out every day and you're like, "That bird is visibly bigger." It's just crazy how big they grow. They actually can grow. If they're in a barn like the traditional way they grow or raise chickens, they don't move much at all. They just have their food and water there and they grow to the point where they can't walk. It's pretty sad.

    Will: One of the reasons we wanted to start raising our own meat is because I don't like contributing to that. I don't feel like it's humane for the animals at all. So we figured we're going to take it into our own hands to take on that responsibility of raising them for ourselves. So we started pasture raising them and what we have to do is... It makes them more active, but we also have to restrict their feed a little bit. So they'll get enough food until about mid-afternoon, and then the only thing they get is whatever is on the ground.

    Will: Our field shelters that we have, they have an open bottom so they can access anything on the ground, any bugs that jump in, all the seed on the ground from weeds and whatever. So they'll eat all that down and then we move them every day. In that way, they have a new fresh salad bar essentially that they can eat as well as the feed we give them. It slows their growth down enough that their bodies can keep pace with them so they can stay active and keep moving and all that.

    Will: Then we also use them as a tool to repair our land because most of the land around here is pretty degraded over all. By moving the chickens over, obviously they're dropping a lot of manure. I mean, a lot of nitrogen goes into that soil immediately behind them. And then because they eat everything down, I got worried that with how dry it is here, that it's just going to scorch the ground because it's all bare all of a sudden.

    Will: So we started putting about an eighth of an inch of compost behind them and it's just like between the fertilizer from the chickens in that compost, the grass grows like crazy. It's like adding this big boost of everything they need and the grass will grow right back to what it was, a foot tall or whatever in just a few weeks after that. For here in Colorado, I mean it's like any moisture and that combination of having the birds move over them, it's incredible seeing that. You would normally see that unless it was an irrigated pasture.

    Nicole: Yeah, definitely.

    Will: I think that compost really helps to increase that organic matter, like I was saying, to hold that moisture there in place and protect the soil as well. We started using them as a tool as well as for producing our own food. Then we're looking at also here later this year going to a broiler that's more specific for pasture raising. There's breeds out there that are more similar to a heritage bird. They still grow fast, but not as fast and they don't have the big breast meat and stuff. They got a lot more meat on their thighs, but they act like chickens. They're normal chickens and that's the environment that chickens love is being able to go out and scratch in the grass and look up bugs and stuff.

    Will: So we're trying to really harbor that ability for their instinct to kick in and do what they want to do. You know? Then we could move them around and they'll just still do a lot of the same stuff that the smaller shelters that we run do, but it will be on a much larger area.

    Nicole: Sure. Are you raising that many birds just for you and your family or do you sell them or what's... If you were raising birds just for yourself or in your family, how many would you need?

    Will: If we were just doing all our own family, I'd raise about 50, about one a week. I feel like that's a good number especially some of these birds they give you multiple meals. If you got a bigger family, maybe double that depending on how many teenagers you got or something. You know how teenagers are. So at that point, maybe up to a hundred but 50 for sure that gives you a lot of meat.

    Will: And then if you're creative, I don't like waste at all, so we tried to use as much of the bird as possible. You can also use all the bones to make a stock or something like that afterwards. You can really extend that ability to use these chickens to a full level and you can use stuff that you'd normally wouldn't use like the feet and stuff and organ meat. There's a lot of things you can do.

    Will: We're just starting to learn how to do that. You know, we're trying to teach ourselves how to utilize this stuff because we didn't grow up in an environment where we did all this ourselves. I came from a normal family. We bought Lay's potato chips all the time and all that other junk food that we're trying to avoid now.

    Nicole: Just because you don't... Like for organ meat, people that might be like "Ew, that's gross." You could always use it for your animals or feed the pets.

    Will: Yeah. There's a lot of stuff. The chicken livers, my wife is not into that idea at all and whatnot. You got to cook them just right, I think, to make them palatable for most people. We have seven cats and then... My wife is a cat lover, so we've got seven cats. Most of them are outdoor cats, but that's one of the things we'll supplement their food with is some of the organ meat like that.

    Will: And then even the egg layers, there's a point where they get too old to start laying or to keep laying anymore. So we'll butcher them as well. You can use them for stew birds and stuff, but you really got to cook them just right. One of the things we will do with those is we'll feed them to our dog. I'm not going to say I'm an expert at the raw food diets or anything, but we'll just... In supplement with this dog food, we'll give him a whole chicken because he's a German shepherd, so he's a big breed. But we'll just get him a whole chicken for the day every so often, and he'll just eat it bones and all, and he loves it. As long as it's not cooked, it's all pretty safe and healthy for him.

    Will: Then we also add all of our broken eggs and stuff. If there's cracked eggs or super dirty eggs or something, instead of dealing with those and trying to clean them up, we'll crack them on their food or give them to the cats.

    Nicole: Yeah. We do it, too.

    Will: They really like that, you know.

    Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. Or if you drop one outside, then the pets can take care of that one, too.

    Will: Yeah, exactly.

    Nicole: The dog always follows me around when I get eggs. They hope we're going to drop one.

    Will: They're pretty smart. Yeah. Our cats, they hear me cracking eggs in the morning for the dog food and then all of a sudden, I got three cats around me just meowing their head off like, "Yeah, you want to give me mine, too."

    Nicole: Do you use the eggshells? Do you give them back to the birds or use them in the garden or anything?

    Will: Usually, what we do is we actually have a bowl that we keep them set aside and then whenever we use the stove or we'll let them air dry out. But if we're using the stove, we'll throw that into a big stainless steel bowl. We'll throw them in there after we're done and we turn it off. Just let it all bake everything-

    Nicole: Oh, yeah. That's really good idea.

    Will: ... and then we crush it all up. At that point, we can use it in the garden or most often what we do so we cut down on our costs with the chickens is we feed them back to the chickens as a calcium supplement. So instead of doing oyster shell or something, we'll give them the eggshells from everything we use. And that usually in tandem with whatever is in their feed does covers all their calcium needs. So it's nice, easy way to recycle that stuff. But yeah, garden is a really good second source that we'll use them for if we got just a ton of extra or something.

    Nicole: I like the idea of putting them in the oven at the end when you're done using it. That's a good use of that.

    Will: Yeah. It doesn't take long. I mean, egg shells are so thin that in just 20 minutes as oven is cooling down, it's usually enough to get them to a point where they're nice and dry and you can crush them up into small particles.

    Nicole: Yeah. That's a good idea. We also talked earlier about kind of mostly about your chickens and about processing them. Can you go over your processing the chickens?

    Will: Yeah. Yeah. We started off with the heritage birds. Like I said, when they get to an age where they just stop laying as many eggs, some people will turn them into pets and stuff, but us trying to do the most sustainable thing, is keep them, using them as much as we can. So we started trying to eat them ourselves. Like I said, you got to really cook them the right way. That's why we've kind of defaulted to the dog food. But that was the first birds that we started to process ourselves on farm. Now, we're to the point, I mean we process everything on farm. There's only been a few times where I haven't done that and it's usually because it's too cold because we're doing it outside and winter is coming or something.

    Will: But we started with that and very steep learning curve because like I said I didn't grow up doing all this. That is something I had to self teach myself how to do. I started finding out the stuff that really works well and what doesn't and what whatnot. So we found it's critical to have a good scalding. We started out for the turkey fryer and that was a pain in the butt. You could not keep it in a consistent temperature. When you're trying to scald them to pull the feathers out, depending on the type of bird, there's a pretty specific temperature range. It's like within five or 10 degrees that you have to scald them in. If you don't, then you either start cooking the bird or you under scald them and the feathers won't come out properly.

    Will: So we started with this turkey fryer and it had a malfunctioning firing mechanism. So I had to manually hold it there. Then I had this little, turkey fryer thermometer that I don't think was accurate at all. So the first few birds was like a pure disaster and then we ended up almost skinning all of them just because it ended up just being really hard.

    Will: Then as I started learning more and more, I found out that scald is so important. So we actually got a scalder that's... It's not a commercial sized one, that will probably be one of the next things we get, but it's a smaller one, but it works great for the amount of birds we're doing now and it's great for backyard use. It's things like, I don't know, it's not much bigger than a paper shredder or something. It's pretty compact and then it has everything automatic. It has the auto set temperature so you don't do anything with it other than open the lid, dunk your birds and then close it back up. It's really nice and hands off.

    Will: And then the other thing we realized that we were doing wrong, I guess, was we started off with just the knives we happen to have on hand, which were really poor quality knives. They dulled really fast and it just made our lives so much more difficult than it should have been. Now, we've put a little more money into having quality knives that we can easily sharpen. And then I have an actual sharpening stone instead of a kitchen sharpener. That works really well for keeping them sharp, and that goes day night difference.

    Will: I mean, if anyone wants to do their own at home, those two things play a huge critical part, but the knives especially. I mean, even without the scalder, the knives, you can at least skin them really easily and you don't have to pluck them. If you're going to pluck them, everyone wants to have that plucker that looks cool and whatnot. But it really isn't all that much of a time-saving over hand plucking if you have the right scalder. The scalder, if you're going to buy something, it's better to invest in than anything else other than the knives. And then after that, I mean you can do everything else to just kind of... You can revolve around that fairly easily. There's a lot of good videos out there that go into detail on that and stuff.

    Nicole: With the knives, is there... I don't know much about the knives, but a boning knife or what kind of knife do you use?

    Will: We actually have three different knives that we run. We got a boning knife for the fine details and then cutting them open. We'll use a... It's just a bigger knife. It's like a big kitchen knife almost, but it's a higher quality one. So it keeps its edge for the actual killing because we use the cones and hang them upside down and let the blood drain out. The thing I like about that is we can use that blood as a fertilizer for plants. We'll capture it in a bucket. That's one of the fastest ways in my opinion to humanely kill them.

    Will: And then that knife is really nice for that because it does it in a very nice swift movement. You have enough blade there that you don't have to worry about it catching on feathers or something and then messing up. I've done that and it feels horrible when you do it wrong. You realize that you got to do it again and the chickens got a little pain, you're like, "I'm sorry."

    Will: It took us a little time to really perfect it. But once you perfect it, you realize that they really don't feel anything as long as you get the good knife for it. Then we'll use usually a thicker bladed knife for some of the joints and stuff. So like the legs when you're cutting them off and stuff like that, you want to have a more durable knife because the boning knives are a lot thinner and if you don't know what you're doing, you can run the risk of actually breaking your knife.

    Will: But yeah, having a quality knife on all that. I mean, if nothing else, you could have a couple of good boning knives and that would do all of that because the boning knife I think is the most important for some of that more fine work that you got to do and stuff. We've evolved to the point where we've got three good knives.

    Nicole: So somebody that is brand new to processing chickens on maybe a larger scale than just one or two here and there, they would need what? A kill cone and your scalder and your knives. Is that pretty much...

    Will: Yeah. I mean, start off with for sure... Cones are pretty cheap and I've seen people make them. I mean, everything from just... I mean, whatever they have on hand to construction cones. I've seen some pretty crazy setups that work. They really do. But even the ones that you buy that are metal and stuff, they're 10, 15 bucks at most, and you really don't need more than one or two. And then the knives, I'd put a good 50 to 100 bucks into knives if you're going to do it on a regular basis.

    Will: Maybe for that first few times to get a feel for it, maybe just one good knife. But if you realize that it's something you're going to do more often for your family, then having that set of knives I think goes a long way. Then if you're going to pluck them, definitely the scalder. I would buy a scalder 100% of the time over a plucker. We bought a plucker just because of the number of birds we're doing. It does save a little time, but if you're only doing 20, 25 birds at a time, it's really not a huge time saving, especially if you got maybe a couple of other family members or friends helping you out and stuff.

    Nicole: Sure. Is there any other tips and tricks for people that need to know for processing their own birds?

    Will: The big thing is, at least for me, like I said, is the animal welfare. So trying to figure out right where you need to cut early on is critical. So one of the best things I could say for people wanting to do this is find somebody that does it. Like I said, it took us a while to figure it out on our own.

    Will: I would just look around and see if there's any local farms that are willing to... They either do farm days where you can come out and help butcher or I've seen other farms that they'll actually have set days where you can bring your own chickens and then you can help along with them. Or there's also a lot of different organizations that do classes.

    Will: So definitely I would invest in getting some hands on experience with somebody that knows what they're doing. Because to me, like I said, doing it the right way for animal welfare purposes is huge. We've done it, like I said, to the point where they don't feel a thing. I mean they're out cold almost immediately. That's what you want. You don't want them hurting and all that stuff because I feel like we owe that to the birds at least to really do that properly. So that would be the number one thing.

    Will: And then it's easy to skimp on the equipment. Like I said, if you realize that this is something you want to do on a regular basis, go ahead and put a few more bucks into getting higher quality stuff because it makes your life so much easier. It really does.

    Will: And then something I don't have to worry about because we're out in the country, but I've seen people that do this in the city, is maybe make sure some of your neighbors are aware that you're going to do it. I've heard horror stories where the neighbors come out to mow their lawn.

    Nicole: Oh, no.

    Will: They see that and they freak out because it's not what they expected. Who knows what goes through some people's minds?

    Nicole: Sure. Yeah. Maybe do it in the privacy of your backyard.

    Will: Yeah, exactly. I know you have an area that either is more secluded or just let people know what you're doing ahead of time. I think a little prevention goes a long way towards having smoother relations with neighbors, especially if they're not good to begin with necessarily. Because the last thing you want is your neighbors thinking you're doing some sort of weird voodoo or something. Especially because it's not a normal thing, especially in an urban setting, definitely want to make that apparent to those that might be concerned.

    Nicole: Yeah. Don't understand the farm to table thing.

    Will: Yeah, exactly. I mean going with that, too, you definitely do want to know what your local regs are for city and HOA and stuff because you might live somewhere that doesn't allow that stuff, and last thing you want to do is get into it and then get in trouble and have a big fine that you got to take care of, too.

    Nicole: Sure. Do you offer any of those open farm days or processing days on your farm right now?

    Will: Not right now. Hopefully in the future we will. I haven't quite figured out how we're going to get that all set up and everything properly. We're still getting some of the infrastructure in place to have more people helping us, too. We only have two tables and it really is not a lot of room for a ton of people.

    Will: Hopefully down the road we will. But yeah, for at least the processing side, there's not really a lot of people we can bring in right now. But we do do select days on volunteering for some of the other stuff we do. We usually announce those on our Facebook page so we can... It gives at least a few weeks notice for anyone that's in the area that wants to do those.

    Nicole: That's cool. So people that do want to find you and find more about your farm in those open days, so you said you have Facebook. Where else can people find you?

    Will: Yep. Facebook is our main one. That's what we started with, and it's Vogel Homestead or Vogel Homestead Farm. Hopefully by the time this comes out, we'll have our website set up. We're in the process of doing that right now, but that will be vogelhomestead.com

    Nicole: Okay. Yeah. We'll put all the links to everything and then if the website is not done when this goes out, we'll put the link in when it's ready to go so that people can find you there.

    Nicole: Well, thanks for sharing the information with us and telling us some more information about what we would need to do to get started with processing our chickens and some of the things that you do there on your farm. Hopefully we can have you back again soon to talk more about some of your gardening and your sheep and things like that. So thank you so much for joining me today.

    Will: Oh, absolutely. I love sharing this stuff, so I'd love to come back and share some more of what we're doing.

    Nicole: Definitely. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much for listening to Backyard Bounty and we'll see you again next week.

    Announcer: Thank you for listening to Backyard Bounty, a podcast by heritageacresmarket.com. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, please email us at [email protected] Also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube @HeritageAcresMarket. All the links mentioned in this podcast will be included in the description. See you again next week.

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