Beth Tillery

161 Pilgrim's Rest Road

Mckee, KY 40447

Farm partners: The farm is owned by Beth and Doug Tillery.   Beth is the primary farm operator.

Years in commercial operation:   29 years; 18 years milking dairy cows, raising pigs, and growing tobacco.   Started alternative farming enterprises in 1990; started raising laying hens and pastured broilers in 2003.

Total acreage:   260 acres

Acres used for poultry production:   5 acres

Number of broilers raised per year:   600.   Beth has been increasing her production by 200 birds a year since she started raising broilers in 2003.

Poultry breed:   Cornish rock cross

Production season:   End of April until middle of September

Processing:   SS Enterprises      www.aboutssenterprises.com

Acres for other production: 40 acres for hay, 40 acres for pasture, 1 acre for flower production, 2 acres for gourds and pumpkins, 2 acres for berries, and 180 acres for managed timber production through the Timber Improvement Program of the US Forest Service.

Production other than broilers: free-range laying hens for eggs, direct market vegetable garden, fresh cut and dried flowers, ornamentals, blackberries, blueberries, grass fed beef, and milk cows.

Farm overview

Beth and her husband, Doug, met when both were agriculture students at Eastern Kentucky University.   In 1977, after they graduated, they moved to Mckee to take over the family farm where Doug grew up.   When they bought the farm from Doug's father, the farm had 50 milking cows, 30 brood sows, 10 acres of tobacco, and about 260 acres (both owned and rented) that they used to grow hay and grain for the animals.   They continued running their farm in this manner for 18 years.   By the mid-1990s, hogs were no longer profitable and milk prices had not increased for over ten years.   The only profitable component of their farm was the tobacco.   Every year, Beth and Doug relied on profits from the tobacco sales to pay the farm bills.   In 1995, a hailstorm devastated the tobacco crop just prior to harvest.   Instead of selling the farm, Doug and Beth sold off some of their assets, including the cows and the hogs.   Doug took a factory job about 80 miles away and Beth tried to resurrect the farm.

Fortunately, around this time, the Tillery's became aware of the Third Thursday meetings at Kentucky State University.   These meetings highlighted enterprise development and sustainable farming practices, with an emphasis on practices appropriate for small-scale, resource poor farmers.   It was during these meetings that Beth first met Joel Saletin and learned about pastured poultry production methods.   Soon afterwards, Beth became involved with Community Food Alliance and then attended her first Southern SAWG conference.

Beth credits her interaction with the Community Food Alliance and Third Thursday with her being able to keep her farm viable.   She also credits these organizations with restoring her self-esteem.   As a conventional farmer, Beth felt that everyone she dealt with — bankers, extension agents, mild cooperatives, commodity buyers, and especially government agencies— put small-scale farmer down and blamed them for not being more productive or not using the latest technology.   Lenders particularly encouraged farmers to “get big or get out.”  

By the time the hailstorm forced Beth and Doug out of the commodity markets, they felt ashamed and that the failure of the farm was “all their fault.”   However, through their interactions with various sustainable agriculture organizations and other farmers who were being successful using direct marketing practices, Beth and Doug were able to build up their self-esteem and build back the farm.  

In the future, they hope to make the farm profitable enough so that Doug can leave his factory job and come back to the farm.

Raising chicks

The Brooder:   Doug Tillery built a brooder that is 4 feet wide x 4 feet long with solid wood sides and a removable top.   This brooder box is set on the floor of an old children's playhouse that a neighbor was planning to burn.   The playhouse is 10 by 10 feet, has solid wood sides, a shingled roof and an entry door large enough for an adult. Beth placed a sheet of linoleum flooring on the floor of the playhouse.

The brooder box is set in the center of the playhouse floor.   Wood shavings are placed across the entire floor of the playhouse since the brooder box does not have a floor.   Instead, it has short legs on the corners that are just long enough to allow the chicks to squirm out from the brooder and into the area of the playhouse outside of the brooder. This design allows the chicks to stay warm within the brooder when they are still small or on cooler days.   It also allows them to move away from the heat as they get larger and on warmer days.

To protect newly-hatched chicks from getting chilled on the first 2-3 days of their lives, the area between the short legs is closed off.   This protects the chicks from breezes and keeps them at the optimal brooding temperature of 90 o .   As the chicks get larger, they spend more time outside of the brooder box.   Beth also unscrews the heat lamps, one at a time, to decrease the heat and get the chicks acclimated to outside temperatures.   Finally, near the end of the three-week brooding period, Beth opens the door to the playhouse to allow the chicks to peck and graze in a fenced in area outside of the playhouse.

Feed and water:   When Beth transfers the day-old chicks into the brooder, she takes each chick and pokes its beak into the water to make sure that it drinks.   She does this because the chicks are dehydrated when they arrive.   Also, dipping their beaks helps the chicks learn where the water is.   To help the chicks learn to eat during their first days, Beth scatters feed on selected areas of the floor within the brooder box.   Once the chicks learn how to eat and drink, Beth places the feed initially on the edges of the brooder, then she moves it into the playhouse area outside of the brooder.   This helps to prevent the chicks from contaminating their food and water.

The starter feed Beth uses for her chicks contains 21% protein and contains ground corn, soy meal, feed grade limestone, Achey mineral, and distillers yeast.

Raising birds on pasture

Chicken pens:   Beth has 6 chicken pens that contain 25 birds each.   Each pen is 8 feet wide x 12 feet long x 1 foot high.   The pens have sides of wire hardware cloth with a 1 by 1 inch weave.   The roof is made of framed sheets of tin.   One half of the pen is covered with a tin sheet that is permanently nailed down.   The other half has a hinged, framed tin sheet that serves as a door that Beth can use to get access to the birds. The pens also have a hinged door on one of the sides that allows the birds to move in and out of the pen.  

Beth and Doug have been experimented with various methods for placing a permanent or temporary tarp on the pens.   They are working on developing a method so that the tarp can be easily lowered to protect the birds against cold temperatures and rains, then easily raised in clear weather.   Beth hopes that with a better tarp arrangement she can extend her poultry production season.

Pasture management:   When the chicks are first transferred from the brooder / playhouse to the chicken pens, the side door of the chicken pens is latched shut and the birds are kept within the chicken pens for 2-3 days.   After the third day, the side door is opened and the birds are allowed to wander around a 100 by 100 foot pasture area during the day.   At night the birds return to the chicken pen and the door is closed to protect them from predators.

Beth uses an innovative fencing practice for her 100 by 100 foot pasture.   She initially considered using an electrified chicken-netting as a fence.   But, the cost of chicken netting was prohibitively high for her small operation.   So, she used her “hillbilly ingenuity” to design a low-cost fencing system.   She bought 100 foot rolls of flexible, orange, plastic, construction perimeter fencing.   To give the fence shape and sturdiness, she took tobacco drying sticks left over from when she and her husband grew tobacco and wove sticks vertically through this flexible fence every 5 feet.   Then, she took additional sticks and wove them horizontally through the bottom of the fencing.   She uses additional sticks to support this fence.

The first pasture area Beth uses at the beginning of the poultry raising season is the inter-row area between the blackberry rows.   These row middles are planted to a combination of clover and ryegrass. To graze her birds on these narrow strips, Beth places the chicken pen at one end of the row and sets up her flexible orange fence to keep the birds on the row middles and out of the blackberries.   By grazing her chickens in this area, Beth takes advantage of this open space while also providing the blueberries with nutrients and improved soil quality.

After having her chickens graze the blackberry rows for about 2 weeks, Beth moves the chicken pens into her pastures, which are seeded to a combination of clover, orchard grass, and alfalfa.   Each year, Beth sets up (how many?) 100 x100 foot paddocks bounded by her orange flexible fence. She places one chicken pen within each paddock.   Each day, Beth moves each chicken house to a different place within its paddock. At the end of the week, she moves each house to a pasture that was not used by chickens during the pervious week.   During the time that there are no chickens on the paddocks, Beth may graze one or two cows within the paddock, or cut the pasture for hay.   Every year Beth moves the poultry grazing area to another area of the farm to better distribute the nutrients from the poultry manure.

Food.   When the chicks are 3 weeks old and put on pasture, Beth switches from a 21% protein starter feed to an 18% protein feed.   The grower feed contains ground corn, soy meal, feed grade limestone, distillers yeast, “Achy” mineral and calcium phosphate.   Beth makes feed available free choice and uses an old tractor tire split vertically as a feeder.   She makes no attempt to protect these feeders from the rain since the birds like to eat wet feed.

Poultry production throughout the season:   Beth raises four batches of 150 chickens during the production season.   She schedules a start for each batch every four weeks.   Each batch of birds is in the brood house for 3 weeks followed by 7 weeks on pasture.   During the middle of the growing season, Beth is simultaneously managing chicks in the brooder and birds finishing on pasture.

Predator control:   When the birds are out of the chicken houses and free range feeding in the 100 by 100 foot paddocks, they are highly susceptible to being attacked or eaten by hawks.   To protect the birds from hawk attack, Beth ties her black Labrador dog out by the chicken pen.   The dog does not disturb the chickens, but barks loudly when hawks come by, effectively protecting the chickens from attack.

Beth also recommends using roosters for predator control. Roosters serve as excellent protectors for Beth's flock of laying hens.   Long before Beth can see a bird in the sky, the roosters will sense the presence of a predator and call the hens into a safe area.

Business management

Processing:   On farm processing is illegal in Kentucky.   The only processing USDA inspected processing plant in Kentucky is SS Enterprises.   It is ** miles from Beth's farm. To ensure that the birds arrive at the processing plant healthy and with minimum loss of weight, Beth does not transport her birds to market in wire cages.   Instead, she places hay on the floor of a cattle trailer and places the chickens in the hay.

Marketing:   Beth sells her pasture-raised poultry at the Lexington Farmers Market and to two restaurants in Lexington.   As a long-time member, and current president of Community Farm Alliance, Beth is passionate about building relationships between farmers and consumers. She established many of her marketing connections through her work with Community Farm Alliance.

Risk areas identified and addressed

Beth identified the main risks associated with pastured poultry production as

•  The young chicks getting chilled – the solution being to have an effective brooder that provides enough heat and protection against cold and breezes.

•  Protecting growing birds against cold and rain while they are on pasture – the solution being to build a roof frame on the top of the chicken pens so that she can put a heavy tarp over the entire chicken house during the rain, but have the tarp not smother the birds or be placed in such a was as the rain runs back into the pen.  

•  Protecting the birds against heat in summer.   Beth has a wooded area on the edge of the pasture.   During hot weather, she moves the chicken houses into this shady area to protect the birds against becoming over heated.  

•  Access to slaughtering facilities – SS Enterprises has been very helpful for small-scale farmers.   Prior to this facility being built, Beth had to take her birds to Missouri for processing.   The SS Enterprise processing facility, in Bowling Green, was built with partial funding from Phase 1 Tobacco Settlement monies.   Since this facility is designed to serve Kentucky farmers, producers from this state get a discount on processing their birds while producers from other states do not get this discount.