Bryant Madren is a pastor who has also been growing poultry for six years. You may have seen him on his wife’s YouTube channel, The Farming Pastor’s Wife. In this video, Bryant takes the stage to share two major hacks he uses on his poultry farm.
“I spent about $2 million here on my farm getting it the way that it is,” he told Allen. “Anything I can do to protect my investment, or to make my investment more valuable if I were to liquidate it down the road, it’s always the best option for me.”
1. Jig for Laying Drip Lines
When Bryant first built his houses in 2016, he didn’t implement any drip lines or erosion control. Water coming off the grade at the end of house one and house six cost him $17,000 to re-grade and put a little rock down the drip line. “That cost me because of my lack of experience.”
Since then, Bryant’s philosophy has been: “Do it right the first time, and do it right as soon as you can.” Once he was eligible for a USDA NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) grant for erosion control, he used it — and built a jig to spread the rock.
Erosion isn’t only cosmetic. Water can seek back under the foundation and create challenges inside the house. Once that seepage starts, it’s hard to correct.
NRCS wanted 12 inches of coverage on both sides of the drip line. Bryant’s rock comes out about 30 inches from the wall, five inches thick instead of the required four. He didn’t want them measuring low spots, and rock settles. A little buffer.
He made the jig because dumping a bucket and raking by hand is fine if you’ve got seven, eight, nine, ten people. On a one-, two-, or three-man show, it isn’t. He thought of it like a box blade: gravel in the front, even out the back. Five-inch C channel on the bottom, a four-inch C channel welded as a wiper. Dump the rock, pull up, 30 inches wide, five inches thick.
He also wanted landscaping fabric underneath. He added a roller on the front of the jig. His wife drove the tractor; he and his son ran two skid steers — drop the rock, she pulls up, fabric rolls off, weight of the rock holds it.
His NRCS guy, Randy Blackwood, encouraged him to patent it. Bryant was toying with that idea when they filmed. “Poultry farmers around the country could benefit from it.”
2. Bryant’s Compost Shed
His integrator contract requires a way to dispose of dead birds: incinerator or compost. An incinerator costs money every time you run it. Natural decomposition is free — a few dollars of shavings and litter to get the temperature right.
NRCS grant money for a shed like this typically waits until you’ve been growing three years. The contract still required a mortality plan on day one. Inspired by his nephew’s stack house, Bryant bought two 20×20 carports ($1,500 apiece) and built four compost bins underneath them with his brother, brother-in-law, and a couple of nephews in one Saturday. About $5,500–$6,000 in 2016. He used that setup five to six years.
In North Carolina, you cannot leave litter outside unsheltered more than 14 days. The compost side worked. The litter side didn’t — sell birds in January and you’re hard pressed to get it on the field. He had to cover it and wait for dry weather. “That’s a bear.”
Once he qualified for the NRCS grant, he built the facility in the video: about 42–44 feet wide including the apron, 180 feet to the ends of the concrete, roughly 160–165 feet inside. Litter and birds. He has a small cow-calf operation — about 50 mama cows, and he bales about 700–750 rolls a year — so he needs that litter for forage. Birds went out the day before they filmed; they were in the middle of crusting.
A young man he knows with an incinerator spends about $1,500–$2,000 per flock. Five flocks a year is about $10,000 a year. Over five years that’s about $50,000 in diesel. Bryant spent about $6,000 to start and waited for the grant.
If you’re thinking about poultry growing or you’re a small farmer just getting started, you don’t have to go and finance everything to get started. You can be innovative and make some things happen on your own.
Questions?
If you have any questions for Bryant, reach out to us and we’ll help you get some answers. You can reach Allen Reynolds at allen@southlandorganics.com or by calling 800-608-3755.
Full video transcript
Hey, I'm here with Bryant Madron, and Bryant, thanks for taking time with us today. Alan, glad to be here, man. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. I want to focus a little bit today on, I come across a lot of growers and, man, growing chickens, you got to get creative. That's right. That's all I'd like to talk about, this drip line. Tell me two things. Number one, why, I see a lot of growers don't do this. So why would it be important, and then maybe kind of ease into what you did do, make it a little easier for you. Okay, one of the challenges, whenever you build poultry houses is the mass area that you've got a grade, sometimes you've actually got cut in the front, fill in the back, or you've got cut in the back and fill in the front. And so, between your end houses, there's a lot of soil un-stabilization, and I experience the same thing. When I first built these houses back in 2016, I did not do any drip line, any erosion control. And on the end of house number one, on the far side, and on the end of number six, where the water came off and hit that grade, it cost me $17,000 to have that re- graded and to put a little rock down the drip line. And now that cost me because of my lack of experience. And so once I was available for the NCRS grant money to help with drip line erosion control, I built a little jig to help put this rock out. And so, hopefully this will control the erosion around the houses. Another reason is because if you have erosion problems, water can sometimes seek back in under the foundation and create challenges inside the house. And I just wanted to avoid all that, so that's why I did what I did. Yeah, I've seen girls, or at least come in and go, "Hey man, I don't know what I got. I got an issue, but I got wet up against the floor." And then they find out later, "I got seepage coming up under loose dirt coming in." I also think to me, it looks nicer too. Yeah, and once that seepage began to happen, it's hard to correct. So my philosophies do it right the first time, do it right as soon as you can. And NCRS made this available and made it happen. But you can look down the edge of that house. I don't know what you can see on camera, but you can look down the edge of the house. And it comes out about 30 inches from that wall. And so it's coverage. NCRS wants 12 inches, both sides of the drip line coverage. And so it just works out great. And it's very, very simple to do, a little time consuming. But I spent about $2 million here on my farm getting it the way that it is. And so anything I can do to protect my investment, or to make my investment more valuable if I were to liquidate it down the road, it's always the best option for me. The reason I made the jig is because first off, we came out here and attempted to just dump a bucket of rocks and rake it out by hand, which is okay if you've got 7, 8, 9, 10 people helping you. But if you're a one-man show or a two or three-man show, this jig works best. So what I did, I just began to think about it. And the concept kind of came out the way a box blade works. So you can take a box blade and gravel goes in through the front and according to where the height is, it can come out evenly out the back. So what I did was I measured off the house the width that NCRS wanted, okay, so I created a box. And then in the back, I used five inch sea channel on the bottom and then across the back of that five-inch sea channel, I welded a piece of four-inch sea channel that was a wiper. Okay. And so you would dump the rock in and as you pulled up, it would wipe this rock 30-inches wide, five-inches thick. Now you may think, well, NCRS only requires four-inches, why did you do five? Because I didn't want them to come out here and measure and find low spots. Sure. I wanted to have a little extra to make sure that I met their satisfaction. And some of these rocks do settle, so I created myself a little buffer and a little barrier for down the road. Now something else I did as I was building the box, I thought, "How am I going to get the fabric?" Because I wanted the landscaping fabric under that. So what I did was I created a roller on the front of this jig and then you pull it down, you pull the fabric down and you pull it under. And as you, the weight of the rock holds the fabric as you pull up with the tractor, I've got, I had a roller that would roll the fabric off. And so when you pull up, you dump the rock, you pull up, it rolls the fabric off, and it's really well. My wife would drive the tractor, my son and I were running two skid steers, would pull up, dropped the rock, she would pull up, and you can see it just worked really well. Nice. And so my NCRS guy here, Randy Blackwood, has encouraged me to get this thing patent. He thinks that poultry farmers around the country could benefit from it, so I'm actually toying with the idea of getting this thing patent. So we'll see. All right. Now I also want to go move back to the composting shed. Let's go take a look. Let's do it. All right. All right, Brian. You've been growing for six years. Yes, sir. It's three years, as I understand before, NRSCS. You got to be a girl for three years for NRSCS, it'll give you money. Right. But your contract says you got to have composting shed, you got to deal with it . Yeah. But if you've got to wait for three years, you can. You've got to have it now. Right. What'd you do? I love your idea of what you did. Well, with the contract with the integrator that I grow for, there's a stipulation that you have to have some way to dispose of dead birds. And so they give you two options. You have an incinerator or you've got composters. Well, the challenge with an incinerator, when I built this farm, money was tight. I'm frugal. I like to watch every penny that I've spent. So I get online. I begin to price composters. But there was something that I didn't like about the idea that every time I disposed of my integrator's birds, that it was going to cost me money to burn the fuel to get rid of those birds. Yeah. I didn't like that idea. So the idea of natural decomposition just really spoke to me that that would be free, wouldn't cost me anything. It cost me maybe a few dollars for some shavings and then some chicken litter as you layer it in there to get the temperature right for them to decompose. So I've got a nephew that grows chickens that has a stack house similar to this one. And so I went over there and I looked at his compost boxes to see the sizes and how they were built. And so on this very spot where this shed sits right now, I bought two 20 by 20 carports. And underneath those carports, I built four compost bins identical to these back to back square boxes and it cost me back in 2016, I spent $1,500 a piece for the carports. And then I spent, that would be about $3,000 and then I spent about another $2, 500 to $3,000 for the material. And I built those compost bin boxes, me, my brother, my brother-in-law and a couple nephews came out here on a Saturday and in one day we built that whole compost beginning facility for me. I worked great, I used it for about five to six years and then I qualified for the grant. Now one of the challenges I had during that time period here in North Carolina, the law is you cannot leave litter outside unsheltered for more than 14 days uncovered. So I had to compost side working but I didn't have the litter side really under control because once litter came out of the house, I had to get it up and spread it. So the challenge is in North Carolina, if you sell your birds in January, you're going to be hard pressed to get it on the field. So there was a couple times I had to cover it and spread it and wait for dry weather. That's a bear for me. So I knew that once I qualified for the NCRS grant to help assist with this compost and litter shed that I won't take advantage of that. And I did. This one here, if memory serves me correct, I think it's 42 or 44 foot wide, including the apron to the ends. I think it's 180 feet to the ends of the concrete apron. And so the actual inside square footage I think is 160 or 65 long. And so it works really great now for my operation. I'm able to self-contained. There's some litter you probably saw on the backside over there. And because right now we're in the middle of crusting. My birds went out yesterday. So we're in the middle of crusting and putting that litter there. So when the end of February, beginning of March, gets here, the optimal time for me to spread litter on my cow pastures. I have a small cow-calf operation of about 50 mama cows. I bail about 700 rows, 750 rows a year. And so I need to utilize that litter specifically for my forage operation and it works really good. And so I kept costs down, built that temporary situation. I knew those composters originally were going to be temporary. And when it was time to build this, I took it up. And hey, I did the math and I know a young man that's got an incinerator and he spends about $1,500 to $2,000 per flock. And if you grow five flocks a year, that's about $10,000 a year. And if you add that five years, I saved myself $50,000 in diesel fuel, but I only spent $5,000 in the beginning. So if you're thinking about poultry growing or your small farmer just getting started, you don't have to go and finance everything to get started. You can be innovative and make some things happen on your own. You can also probably tell that Bryant is a pastor. That's why I haven't had to talk much in this video, which I like. So it's good. But hey, I've enjoyed it. Thanks again, Bryant. Yes, everybody. Anytime. Anytime. And I'm maybe, I will filter. If you got any questions, you know, I'm not going to be able to answer much on them. I've got to build a jig or those kind of things, but if you got any questions, I'll forward them on. And mine will probably be more than happy to help us out and so anything. Sounds good, man. All right. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something from it. If you got any other questions, we can help you with allen@selflandorganics.com or 1-800-60-83755. Until next time. (upbeat music)
