"Gleaning" at the TLC Ranch
At TLC Ranch in the Salinas Valley, Jim Dunlop and Rebecca Thistlethwaite raise chickens for eggs and pigs for meat. They raise both without cages, moving the chickens and the pigs every couple of days from place to place in their pastures, so that the pigs can break up and fertilize the soil and the chickens can have fresh forage supplements to the commercial feed and vegetable left-overs they get. Look like pretty happy critters to me!
A myriad of "gleaning" practices contribute to their little operation, from picking up leftover vegetables from nearby organic farms to feed the animals, to scrounging for cast-off farm machinery, to cobbling together information and practices from all kinds of farm operations to see what works and is profitable for them. The chickens also glean, of course. They scratch through the piles of vegetables, leaving only the onions, which eventually sprout, producing green tops that the chickens do like and will eat on their next pass through that portion of the pasture. The chickens also take advantage of the work of moles and gophers in the fields to find insects, grubs, and worms. And they tear down the compost piles, gobbling the nutritious bits and turning the rest back into the soil.
It's a nice mix of higher and lower tech farming. Sun-powered electric fences are easily moved with the animals. Old flatbed trailers bought cheap from cotton farmers in the Central Valley getting out of the business get turned into movable roosts/nests for the chickens and on-demand water trailers for all of the animals. They buy used feeders from bigger ranchers who upgrade their equipment. A couple of brothers from Mexico who had been diary farmers bring lots of practical experience in animal farming. A 3-year-old livestock guardian dog wanders the property and has cut predation to almost nothing, chasing off foxes and coyotes and leaping at the swooping hawks and owls. They've started irrigation to increase pasture growth, trying to get as many perennials to grow to avoid planting as much as possible. ( And they're near a creek that has flooded their lower fields, so they've got to be ready for that.)
They rent the land because the way strawberries and other crops are being grown on very marginal land has kept land prices very high. They take their pigs to land needing bioremediation (usually after destructive farming) to help clear the plastic and other debris and to start the soil back toward health.
Here's their current website with nice descriptions of the folks and how they treat their animals: TLC Ranch.
Jim and Rebecca used to breed both chickens and pigs (and may again), but have simplified their approach over the years. They used to raise chickens for meat, too. (Thus, the "Tastes Like Chicken" meaning of TLC in their name, now the more familiar "Tender Loving Care".) Here are a couple of links to stories about TLC a few years back when they were trying to operate in a bit different way:
They try to find not only what works, but what's easy. "If it's not easy, you're not going to do it ... or at least not very often," says Jim. It's got to be cheap enough, too, to make a profit. So they're constantly reading, talking with other ranchers and farmers, and trying this and that. Gleaning whatever it takes from wherever they can find it ... and then sharing with others.
See also, Sustainable Agriculture
Partially Funded by the California Council for the Humanities, UC Santa Cruz, and INTA - TrainingWeal.