The real Polyface Farm...how love affects the beauty of the land

guys a video you're about to watch is all about Polyface farm in Swope Virginia that's near Staunton Virginia if you want to get on your Google Maps and check it out I encourage all of you to go online and watch some videos about Polyface farm after you get done with this one there's so much wonderful information here there's so much that I could share with you but I won't have time to go through every single thing so what we're going to do is take you around and show you some of the buildings and we're going to try and get an interview with somebody here at Polyface farm and talk to them about how wonderful this place is and we're gonna take you around and show you some of the lesser-known stuff some of the stuff that nobody else is showing on YouTube cool hey folks this is Josh Downey rich farmer welcome to the farm blog today we are rolling out farm stock 2018 first day of farm stock 2018 is right now you're here we're rolling off the farm we're gonna go straight to Polyface farm up in Swope Virginia that is near Staunton Virginia and central Virginia about a three-hour drive and then we're headed to New Jersey to see one lonely farmer so come along today we're gonna have some fun let's take you around the van and show you how weary stickered it some of the things that we did to the van is we put a new sticker right here and we put something for truckers up here we support American truckers trucking industry is what keeps our nation fed so here's our sticker we got our Facebook and our Instagram thing on there back here we have nationwide - or farm stock 2018 so folks I hope to see you out on the road let's head up to Polyface farm and get off this farm and I'm really really not too happy about leaving my farm behind but at least I get to take my wife all right [Music] well guys I don't think we're gonna get out this way this is not a good sign last night we had a huge storm and a giant oak tree fell off in the road what in the world not a good sign day one minute one tree in the road it's gonna be an adventure folks thank goodness we have a bug-out trail that's funny we're gonna get stuck this man spins and gets stuck on anything we got it on the road boom alright guys so we're way out in the country here we are in Swope Virginia we're on a country road there's no traffic that's why I'm filming and talking to you here we are gonna tell you a little bit about the area where Polyface is located so it's a really hilly area it's the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and there isn't a lot of topsoil per se there's a lot of rock so basically what you need to know about the reality behind the location of Polyface farm Polyface farm is set in a beautiful beautiful place that has about this much soil over top of solid rock this is something that's important for you to know because the Salatin family up here at Polyface farm has worked really hard to not use chemical fertilizers and only use natural ways to bring back the topsoil on their farm can't tell you how happy we are to take you guys along on this road trip please take the time pound that like button subscribe to the channel and share these videos on your other social media outlets like facebook share this stuff we want to share this trip with everybody it's awesome this road is rough it's a little rougher than the roads of the Stoney Ridge look at this beautiful field stone barn that's so pretty not SuperDuper impressive on the sign but this is where we're at Polyface thank you google little wooden bridge here we'll probably run into some fun folks out here pretty excited guys all right so we're out in front of poly faces farm store here and you can come here and buy their pork their beef I think they have lamb also they've got sausages they've got chicken they've got all kinds of yummy yummy stuff so they sell right to the public here if you want to ride up to this farm once again we're kind of in central Virginia let's go over here and I'll show you a really interesting innovative farm concept so right in here is a big ol rock to keep the port-a-john from blowing away so if you've been on the farm blog long you've seen our new Salatin style PVC chicken tractor and these are the original chicken tractors that were designed by Joel Salatin to move their chickens on pasture now there are no chickens in them right now but the livestock guard dogs are still here and the livestock geese guards are still here check them out so those two geese kind of raised Cain up here and helped protect these birds these birds are still vulnerable to predators settle livestock guard dogs and loud squeaky honking geese or what help protect the chickens cool all right so straight from Polyface farm let's talk about their chicken tractor this is their chicken tractor or mobile chicken coop I believe it's 16 by 16 it holds I think 100 Birds if I'm not mistaken that's 1.6 square feet per bird moved on pasture every day so you can see they have them lined up and they've been basically moving them out on pasture every single day and I think they harvested them somewhere around 2 weeks ago you can see how green and nice and luscious the grass is here no smells no flies no nothing this top comes off this cage and it goes on here and then this top goes right here and these are the types of feeders that they're using at Polyface they're a heavy-duty metal feeder over here very similar to the PVC ones that we have so I'm actually standing inside this chicken tractor and these are a little bit different design than ours our next coop that we build will have an aluminum roof on it and we're also going to provide some sort of insulation now you can see the height of this is about two feet high a lot of folks are fussing and freaking out about the temperature inside of our coop because the birds are so close to the tent well ours is six inches taller than the actual ones here on Polly face and the Polly face birds do great so these guys have done the research smart smart people smart people and now here we've got some ducks so they've got ducks on pasture they're just out of your challenge out on grass honey watch out there's a big pile of poop right there yep don't step in that and we want to smell it for 5,000 miles so kind of just like our place except for the grass is a whole lot higher so they're moving them on taller grass and we're moving a moment we've been moving them basically around our yard to show you guys that you can do it on a small scale but I guess these are laying hens yep they're laying hens I think that might be a I don't know guys tell me what breed of chickens these are here's what they have for moving the coop you basically grab this handle and it's a pretty interesting concept it's just a wire it reaches around the bottom you grab this handle it's got some pipe on it and you just pull and move the coop and they've got a PVC pipe homemade chicken feeder you might have to try and make one of those on the farm this is their watering container which is very complicated and ridiculously awesome it just runs down to a dripper pretty cool I think when you run through tens of thousands of birds like this you just don't have time to make everything super duper pretty these things are probably beautiful when they first built them but they're like little rickshaws now all right we're walking up here to some sheep and lambs we've got a livestock Guardian dog right here and some pretty sheep and lambs are out here on pasture and they're using this premiere one fence it's kind of the industry standard for electric fencing for moving these critters so these are sheep these are probably face sheep just chilling out so the awesome reality behind Polyface farm here is this ain't no petting zoo this is a real farm with real animals and this is real food and this is really the way to raise your food so the take-home message for all you guys if you've never heard of Polyface farm you've never heard of any of this stuff there are some really cool concepts on how to take care of your land and take care of your animals and do the best that you possibly can and raise good food okay so we're over here at one of their hoop houses here on Polyface this is compost and sawdust and wood all sorts of fun stuff there we've got laying boxes that are built up on stilts so the laying hens will go into this hoop house in the wintertime when it's too cold for them to be out on pasture and the heat from the composting material will keep them warm enough and keep them laying all year round pretty awesome this one looks like one that they're actually growing a garden in and I guess wants the garden kind of Peters out they'll let it grow up rad we're gonna take you guys around and show you some of the stuff that you don't see in the flowers and butterflies channel about Polyface farm so there's a big old stack of wood like extra wood scrap wood any kind of wood no wood goes to waste because they're always building stuff and repairing fence posts and stuff like that there's a guy in here building a cart to put feed on right here our spare fence post and these guys mill all their own wood and we'll go up there and see the sawmill here in just a minute we're walking down here to the barn where the bigger raider is okay folks so we're in a hay barn this thing is probably 35 feet high there are feed troughs right here so when they get ready to pull hay off feed falls into the feed troughs which is really cool this area will be where they put the cows in the winter time and this place will stack up with manure all the way up to here as its stacking up with manure they throw corn out on the manure later on after the cows move out they move the pigs in and the pigs get in here and they call it the pig Raider so the pigs will get in here and turn the compost so instead of just putting straight manure on the farm they have the pigs come in and turn the compost and it gets to working and it provides a warm place for the pigs in the wintertime rad over here we got a batch of pea eggs looks like we've got hey piggies a few of all ages in here it's a great old big feeder water and they keep lots of bedding on here so and you can see all this is built up for bedding so guys the reason we're here at Polyface farm is to check out what they do and how they do it they raise pigs they raise cows they raise poultry they raise lambs they take the manure they spread it back on the land they use a lot of deep deep vetting they've got woodchips over here so they're constantly in a turning phase of compost and manure and land restoration and that's what we want to do on our farm we want to have the Polyface of North Carolina this barn right here is entirely full of woodchips for bedding carbonaceous matters in here are a couple of manure spreaders we need a manure spreader on our farm that's that big this is where they keep their baby chicks they must have got a delivery of baby chicks and this is their brooder house really cool everything here at Polyface farm recycles itself everything is in a constant motion of recycling and restoration and building here on the farm it's super duper impressive if you ever get a chance to come to Swope Virginia get on your Google machine there and look up Polyface farm look up Joel Salatin look up some of this farming practices the way that Polyface is doing it is what we're shooting for on our farm with our own little twist it has me and missus Sunny Ridge are gonna work our way into this building and see if we can get an interview with one of their interns it's a really really special thing that's internship that they offer here at Polyface farm I can't leave without meeting somebody and talking to them this is grace grace I'm Josh okay so grace is here on Polyface farm doing a summer internship is that right okay so how long is a summer internship is that four Polyface the internship is five months from okay now you a college student now or that's cool okay and I'm just trying to pursue farming and I want to be a farmer so all right I'm here to polychaetes to learn how to farm so she's finding her way in life which is awesome awesome so tell me what we have in the back here I've already walked people around and showed them but what is this right now we're growing tomatoes and we've got corn growing in some of them and gourds and pumpkins and we just use it all here on the phone now is this for well what will go in here next chickens going here next they're pigs go in here next yep so in the winter we convert them into shelters food for the animals okay because it's too cold for them to stay out in the field right and we leave all the vegetation here for them to eat and break down and turn into a compost cool that way later so the basis of Polyface farm is manure compost woodchips manure compost woodchips yes and movement moving animals all the time constantly moving animals in a symbiotic nature with the land to help build the land back that you destroy because animals destroyed the land right I mean what a lot of people don't understand is that pig gets fat because that pig is taking something away from the land so in order to put that back into the land public face mixes in a what is it a wood chip now let me ask it we're getting ready rained on them we're actually getting rain we're getting soaked we're running in ready this is one of the wonderful things about shooting outside on TV on YouTube so the next thing I want to ask you is how did you find out and what gave me the idea that come here to Polyface farm to do an internship where did you find them on the Internet yeah yeah so I we started farming when we isolated in the suburbs quarter acre lot and we want to factor our chicken so we started look for and then my dad wanted to know you're moving them around everyday so a new plot of land so they were getting it all to pee and disgusting yeah my I was like oh there's gotta be a planning because you this large scale and she looked it up on the internet found Joel Salatin barn we learned all got it now I was like oh I want to I want to be a farmer so nice so tell me what the most or tell everybody what's the most valuable thing that you've learned step up here what's the most this is putting her on the spot I just walked in and said hey come on let's go interview so what's the most valuable thing you think you've learned here at Polyface farm during your internship I want to say are the most valuable thing I've learned is just the relationship that you have with people that you're working with with the animals with the ground and just learning to mold those relationships into like that brings life and brings health and beauty yeah so that you're surrounded by it awesome how many people are here so we have eight interns this year and we have three apprentices and the apprentices were interns last year gotcha yeah so not only getting the farm to work but getting along amongst each other in a symbiotic relationship really not saying oh here comes Johnny and he always leaves a mess in the kitchen so you guys kind of shack up you guys kind of all live together yep and we form really tight bonds and friendships and we all work together and it's so rewarding to come and today and eat a meal together and just all be thankful for each other and for all the hard work but and we get to sit back and look at what we accomplished it's really beautiful nice something really special Polyface farm Swope Virginia days like summer storms the winter where is there is a time for us to wonder when time is our green [Music]