Day 3 of the Shenamdoah Valley Agriculture Tours

     On day three we attending four different facilities and farms. I really enjoyed this day it seemed to the most educational and interesting of them all. Our first stop for the day was at one of Cargill's farms where they raise turkeys. Mr Wentzell and Mr. Myer were our tour guides. We went through one of Cargill's 180 contract farms. they have twenty-two millon birds a year come through the houses. The primary market is on the East Coast but some is transported to Texas and Arizona. In one barn it can hold 23,500 birds thes are only hens due to if there are males in the houses their heads are a different color then the females and will be pecked causing them to feel ill and not eat which can kill the bird. The livability of the birds are at a 94.5%.
       The houses are kept on a choretonic controller that operates the entire building. This helps with the bird scales of water consumption, lighting, and the feed consumption. This information can be pulled up on the owners cell phone to know if any problems have occured. The CO2 and Ammonia levels are monitored, as well as, the humidity levels which must stay at a constant 60%. In the houses Space Ray Radiant Brooder heats the birds to be incubated when they are young. Nipple Line Waters are raises and lowered for the height of the turkeys through out their life span. Cargill and the farmers raise the birds from eggs and hatch them for their use. The shavings for the turkeys to rest on are five inches thick compared to other facilities that raise turkeys only use one inch. They use peanut hulls and Pine for the bedding or shavings the birds rest on. The birds get four hours of darkness a day for a rest period even though Mr. Wentzell says they are still active at that time. The turkeys have a lot of room to move around, stretch their wings and dust themselves, most imagine a turkey house to be cramped and the turkeys have no room but Cargill prides themselves with achieveing that amount of space for the birds.
     We moved from the farm to the food ingredient and food manufacturing facility. Cargill allowed us to tour the manufacturing facility, where they process 20,00 tons of turkey meat a day. They process numerous brands of turkey but they are known for Shady Brook and Honey Suckle White. The target weight for the birds are at forty pounds. 85,000 birds go through the facility a day, 20,000 of them are Toms (male turkeys), and 10,000 are heavy hens that are grade A birds, 50-60,000 are hens. The facilities are separated on the sides of the street one side is for slaughter the other is the chill/processing side. The plant is sanitized and shut down each night. The process of killing the birds is to be fixation by CO2 then hung on the line to go through the facility to be shocked, throats slit for the blood to drain, scalded, feathers plucked, and the processing of the meat can begin.
       There are three shifts at Cargill, 1200 workers are on each shift. Cargill has workers that have been there for over thirty years and the women that work there for that amount of time, the robots that process and package the turkeys receive the ladies names. Cargill has a diverse facility of 16 to 19 different spoken languages and people from 53 different countries. Cargill was built in 1950 and added onto in 1985. Most do not know that Cargill is known for more then their turkeys, they process other livestock and they manufacture high fructose corn syrup for companies such as  Coca-Cola and Pepsi. There is 90-95% of US products manufactured by Cargill and 70-75% to other countries. They are eleventh in the biggest industries in the United States and in the sales of the top ten. We visited plant 18 so on packaging there should be a p18 that will indicate its processing and you know it came from a safe facility.
       Our second farm we toured for the day was to White Oak Lavender Farm, located on White Oak Ridge in the Shenandoah Valley. Julie the owner and our tour guide informed us that she has 9,000 lavender plants and wants to grow to 12,000. Her facility is considered Agrotourism and that specific part has been open for five years. The oldest plants on her farm are nine years old. They prune the lavender shrubs in the fall, but due to the harsh winter this year she has lost more plants then ever since her average loss is ten plants a year. They harvest lavender for dry culinary purposes and for spa purposes such as aroma therapy, distill the oils as an essential oil for lotions and creams. The lavender shrubs grow up to twenty years old and there are different sizes and different colors. She has a variety of lavender plants such as Melissa that is pink and Royal Velvet that is a rich, dark purple. Lavender needs lots of sunlight, sweet soil of a pH level at 7 to 7.25, and good drainage. She does not use fertilizer for her plants.
       At her location there is a "Discovery Area," that contains a petting zoo of miniature horses, Welch ponies, quarter horses, Goats, Rabbits, ducks, chickens, alpacas, sheep and a turkey named George Washington that is over fifty pounds. The barn on the property is historical, built in 1901. To get the essential oils they distill the lavender, the process takes an hour and the first thirty minutes gives the best oils. To keep the oils you must use dark glass jars. Lavender can be used a pest determinant for insects, deer and other bugs. The purpose of the facility is to help relieve stress and anxiety also allowing people to relax.
     Our third trip took us to the Eastern BioPlastics, we toured there facility and observed some of their products. This was the first year they allowed groups to tour their facility. They have five patents. They take pride in their washing area of the feathers that they built themselves. The feathers are processed with plastics to make different products. The process begins with a fifteen minute washing which is a very important step because all biological material must be removed from the feathers. The feathers are then dried by a press and they do not want any water during this stage. The feathers are then grinded and can be mixed. The facility runs on half days and only 2000 feathers are processed a day. The plastic that is mixed with the feathers is a pellet form. The feathers are a great absorbent. They use their Granular Absorbent Pellets to absorb oil spills. They also manufacture pads that contain feathers and they also absorb oil spills. They sell their product to ports and airports for drippings from trucks and aircrafts. They eventually plan on selling to other retail stores but want to build a market place with a variety of products.
     Our last stop for the day was to the Powell farm that gave us a USDA-NRCS tour. The farm is 41 acres and the concern was water quality for their cows. Valerie from the Soil Water Conservation
 District informed us that 75% cost share of ponds or a water overflow must be fenced off to have a proper water source for cows. Thy used solar panels instead of an electric line, drilled the well and pumped to a reservoir. On cloudy days the pump will move a little slower then on a sunny day. It does not freeze during harsh temperatures for the cows to always have accessible water. They do not have a backup battery it relies only on the solar panels. There is a gravity system that has to have five to ten drop off system but Mr. Powell's is a fifteen drop system. This is not a maintenance free project! There is a ten year contract to keep the fence around the water source such as ponds and streams, after ten years they can remove the fence but after ten years of maintaining the water the farmer just leaves the fence. There is a thirty-five foot buffer acting as a filtration for runoff to go in the pond.