Compass Tools are designed to help growers improve on-farm decision making and financial farm planning. A new and improved Livestock Compass spreadsheet is now available for meat and egg producers on CIAS’s Compass Toolbox website.

Begun in 2005 by Mike and Deb Hansen in central Wisconsin, Good Earth Farms
includes five operations that sell nearly all of their certified organic meat through the internet.

Wisconsin is seeing a renewed interest in planting cover crops to prevent soil erosion, retain or add nutrients, reduce pest pressures and accomplish other goals.

Farmers who are considering starting or modifying poultry operations have a new resource available. Poultry Your Way is a free, 124-page book that profiles a […]

Enterprises like pastured poultry can add to farm income with careful financial planning. CIAS has developed a spreadsheet to help farmers make financial and management […]

Can you make a living raising pastured poultry on a large scale? “Yes, but talk to farmers who’ll give you their whole story, including their failures, before you begin,” one producer participating in a 2000 Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems (CIAS) survey advises.

A common way to raise pastured poultry involves putting 75 to 100 three- to four-week old meat chickens in movable pens during the growing season. These floorless 10′ by 12′ by 2′ pens are moved daily by sliding them along the ground, providing fresh pasture. Chickens also receive a grain-based ration. At 8-14 weeks, the chickens are butchered and sold to consumers or restaurants.

Farmers wishing to capitalize on the trend of increased consumption of white meat can consider raising chickens. But for many, a conventional commercial chicken operation’s […]