Day 2 - Sunday, October 20th
Field day session (held at the Groce Family Farm located near English, IN). Lunch will be provided by
Darby and Luke during the on farm session free of charge. It will contain all local ingredients, including
some of Groce Family Farm's pastured poultry, local fruit, local bread and more!
8:00 - Meet at farm (snacks provided)
8:30 - Begin walking tour: The Groce Family Farm story, overview, farm values, context and more.
8:50 - Walk-in freezer, managing inventory, packing CSA shares, farmers market setup
9:10 - Poultry brooder: Systems, equipment, pros and cons of hoop house design. Heating, ventilation,
indoor overflow/pasture area.
9:30 - Tree systems overview: Design to fit your context including shade, profitable crop, family fruit,
nut, medicine, livestock feed, mulch, microclimate, etc.
9:45 - Pigs in the woods: Lite, portable and profitable.
10:35 - Grass-fed cattle: Grazing dynamics, equipment. How we manage higher stocking rates.
Experience renting land, utilizing contract graziers, cutting hay, buying hay. Cash flow considerations.
11:30-12:30 – Lunch: All local including fresh made bread, local fruit and chicken salad with Groce
Family Farm chicken!
12:30 - Sheep: Fencing, parasites and predators and market - what it takes to manage them all. Working
with netting. Pros and cons and scalability. Why we scaled them up and then down and where they fit
now.
1:15 – Open cell grazing chickens: Why and how we got started in our system. Why we continue to use it.
Regrets, lessons, scalability, risks, solutions, predator questions.
1:45 - Ducks: Why they are so great if you have processing and a market. Actually easier to raise and
harder to kill than a chicken.
2:15 - Turkeys: Profitability, scale, how we found our niches with wholesale and retail. Grazing behind
netting.
2:45 - Walk back, final questions, discussion, feedback.
3:00 - Workshop over, however anyone who doesn’t need to leave can come check out the chicken
system on the other farm two miles East. This is a new joint venture we are testing with another local
farmer growing for us.