Jennifer has been a Godsend since she started a few weeks ago. First, she knows the farm since she joined the picking crew in 2021. So she had tons of good ideas. Her first idea, we will figure out if it's a good one, is the daycare. She will finish her analysis by the end of January on our return home.
The second idea, which makes perfect sense is to order the chickens in batches of 250, every two weeks starting in late May. The reason is that meat chicken matures in 6 to 8 weeks. They are bred for that purpose and if you keep them longer they tend to die (mostly of heart attacks, no joke). The impact would be two-fold, first, it would be easier, and at no time would have more than 800 chickens on the farm, we would have four processing parties that would allow everyone to participate, which has been a problem in the past. It will also reduce taxing the farm's resources and reduce daily workload.
Our meat processing operations are currently working at about 50% capacity, we don't time anything right now, so at times it's higher but overall it runs at 50%. Jennifer suggested that we make a bigger effort to increase throughput by offering butchering services to other farms (that are not biological). Fundamentally, this is not an issue, it may only require increasing the size of the waiting penns where we keep the animal for up to 6 hours before processing them (I know it sounds cold, but that's the reality of farming). Because of our new planned cold storage and freezer capacity, we will be able to store more meat and vegetables than we did in the past.
Jennifer has been in conversation about acquiring more high tunnels for the farm and displacing some of our hay fields to make room for them (50x300). Because we heat with our own methane, we can use "cheaper" high tunnels that require less insulation. She is getting bids on an additional 10 high tunnels that would grow our 2024 capacity by 50%.
Jennifer also suggested that we consolidate freezers and cold rooms in different buildings since they are used for different purposes. Generally, we don't sell hanging meat, rather it is broken down (again in large size since we mostly focus on the hotel and restaurant trade). But Jennifer asked if I had an issue with small size for personal consumption -- which is what most artisanal butchers offer their farming clients. Again, she did the numbers, and the value added for us is really worth it.
In addition, she suggested that the new watering hole be accessible to ramblers, with a dedicated path, and that we plant the right grasses and other vegetation to encourage birds. There's more, we have been hiring beehives to help with the pollination of our crop (all non-root vegetables need bee pollination). Jennifer was told that our pollinator wants to retire (he's in his late 60s now), and she suggested that we buy his business, he would train some of our employees (mostly the pickers) to become beekeepers and pollinators (which means taking beehives at night from the farm to the client's fields). Jennifer said it is a trifecta; vertical integration, cut in expenses, and revenue streams from the honey and pollination.
All these suggestions occurred in the past two weeks, fully planned out. Jennifer is the best addition to the farm that we could hope for.
Note: Bees have to be moved at night because they sleep in the hive at night. Travelling at night greatly reduces the stress on the hive. Usually, we deliver a bee hive per acre of pollination. Standard practice.
Note2: its not that we don't want to provide daycare services to our employees, it is a complicated topic especially because it is perceived to be a taxable benefit. On the other hand, it was suggested that we could create a daycare as a non-profit...worth the thought and the employee pay the "expenses" of the daycare. Worth a shot if it works.
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