Deb and I rode up to the chicken farm this past Friday, and you know, we really enjoyed stopping in there.
We stopped in at the complex and saw a few people we’d really not seen in years. We enjoyed seeing them, and the amazing part to me was once again…how time does fly! It had been since October of 1995, when Dad sold the complex to Hillandale Farms, since I personally, had set foot in that building.
Since then, the complex has been sold once more…this time to Cal-Maine Foods, a very, very, very large company, and from what I’d heard, and from what little I saw the other day, they are a well-run group! I was impressed.
Leslie, who I trained under and eventually who I ran the complex behind after he went to work for another company, was back on this complex. It was good seeing him and we had a good visit.
Leslie’s been in the chicken business between 45-50 years and knows it backwards and forwards. He’s a great guy, and back in the day was a tough ole knocker. I’d talked about Slick in a previous article, and he started a fight with Leslie at the complex many, many years ago.
Here’s the article on Slick, and it’s not about their fight, but has a couple really funny stories about Slick.
Well, Slick was tough as lighter knot himself, and the man wasn’t scared of anything, I mean absolutely nothing! Ole Slick had one tiny, little drawback to that mindset though…he couldn’t fight worth a flip! As I said, he wasn’t scared of man, nor beast, but when it come to using his fists, he was sorely lacking in that department.
I just mentioned that Leslie was one heck of a nice guy, and he is. But for some unknown reason, he just rubbed Slick the wrong way. I never knew what it was, but after the confrontation between those two, let’s just say that the Slickster came to admire and RESPECT Leslie more than he’d ever have dreamed possible. To make it short…Leslie bout killed him!
Not in the literal sense, but in Slick’s mind at the time, from what I heard, I think Slick thought Leslie WAS going to kill him.
Slick kept telling me, Dub, I’m gonna whip him. I’d say Slick, why do you feel that way? He’d just tell me that he didn’t like him, that’s all. I told, and told, and told Slick that he’d better leave Leslie alone, and that he’s a pretty stout feller, but no, ole Slick was gonna whip him, and sure enough…he tried him out!
I was back in the houses reading the daily charts from each house, which was the number of eggs, feed and water consumption, mortality if any, etc. I look up, and here comes the plant manager just a hollerin for me to get back to the plant because Slick and Leslie were fighting.
I ran back to the plant, run inside and it was quiet, the, you could have heard a pin drop quiet. One of the ladies that worked in the plant told me that Slick had walked up to Leslie and just took a punch at him. She said Leslie stepped back out of the way and Slick tried to hit him again.
At that point Leslie pounded on the Slickster! She said he punched him out of the plant, turned left into the office area, then beat him into the breakroom. She said that Slick then through his arms around Leslie, hugged him, and then started hollering, “I love you Leslie, I love you!”
I almost fell in the floor laughing because first of all I’d tried to warn Slick numerous times that in fact Leslie would hurt him. Secondly, it was funny because if I’d been in a fight, and won or not, I never told the man I was fightin that I loved him afterwards! After having a good laugh, I went to find the two of them!
Slick I found first, mainly because the bathroom was right across from where the fight had ended up, and just as I thought, this was exactly where Slick was…washing blood off himself.
I said, “Slick, I told you couldn’t whip him! Man… how many times did I tell you that?” He just looked up and said, “I know you did Dub, I just wished I’d a listened!”
Leslie looked like a spring chicken, not a mark on him. I said are you alright Leslie, and he said he was fine. He was huffin and puffin a little, then told me, “Dub, I sure hate that that happened. I said you lying scoundrel, you loved it didn’t you? He just grinned and sheepishly smiled and said that yea, I guess I did. We both just rolled! I guess it’s a man thing!
The next day though, Leslie came into the plant with red streaks running up his arm from his hand. I then saw a gash on one of his knuckles. He told me the gash was from Slick’s teeth when he’d popped him one time. I told Leslie, you better go to the Doctor my friend, you’ve got blood poisoning. So he did and spent three days in the hospital. They performed surgery within a couple hours of his arrival.
What’s funny is Slick had seen Leslie leave out, and asked me where he’d gone. Well, ole Slick looked liked he’d been sortin panthers after their fight anyway, and I told him thast Leslie had gone to the hospital.
Slick looked at me in disbelief and said, “The hospital?? I wish somebody would have told me he was headin to the hospital, shoot…I’d a rode with him! I just cracked up!
I couldn’t talk about the complex without telling that story. To me, that is part of the complex. Actually Leslie and I laughed about it while we were visiting!
I asked Leslie how everything was going, and he said just fine. They were averaging packing around 240 cases of eggs per hour, which is the 30 dozen case. Their production was way down, as they’d just gone through Easter week, and that, Christmas, and Thanksgiving are the three big weeks of the year, and you want to be in full production during those times.
They were in the process of molting a few houses, and moving some older birds out, but had still packed 28,000 dozen the day we came by. It’s been a LONG time since I was involved in that business, but I’m guessing that they were at half, or a little over half of their full production capabilities.
The whole setup is amazing. Again, the eggs are never touched by hand. From the chicken, until it’s in the case, in the cooler, a human hand has not touched those eggs!
At full production, they’re sitting with 720,000 birds, and eat about 12,000 pounds a day, PER house. They produce about 42 tons of manure daily. The houses are two story, with the birds on the top floor. The manure goes to the bottom floor, and is caught in concrete walkways with curbing running the length of the houses.
The manure is taken out daily, every day, with bobcats, and put on holding pads. From here it’s picked up by trucks and hauled where needed. Not too awful long ago, no one wanted to use the chicken manure on their pastures, because it smelled…just like chicken manure.
Then commercial fertilizer went sky high, and those people that were thinking it smelled, began to realize after the fertilizer went so high, that shoot, that stuff didn’t stink anywhere near as bad as they’d first thought! The benefits from the manure versus commercial fertilize are numerous as well.
Leslie took me back to the cooler and shipping area where I saw Bulmaro. This was the first time I’d seen him since 1995 as well. I really enjoyed seeing him. He worked for me for a number of years.
We’d always had a USDA Inspector on site since the complex opened up. It was manned, again each day, by a USDA inspector checking for quality, cleanliness, and supplying the USDA approved stamps needed.
The very same guy was there, ole Paul. It was good seeing him as well, and honestly, the man had not changed one bit! He looked good.
So, Deb and I had a great visit at the plant and will be visiting them again. Next time, we’ll try to get there while they’re processing, and film some for you guys to see. If you’ve never been around one of these complexes, it is really, really interesting to see firsthand!
We had gone to film Shane spreading manure in the pasture, but they’d just had a breakdown on the manure spreader so we missed that. I tell you though, Deb has spread many a ton of chicken manure right by herself, when we were working at the farm or the ranches. She used to tell me that she sure took a lot of s… off that job!
I have got a video to share with you today of the outside of the complex. We hope you enjoy it!
Thanks for coming by to see us, and you all have a great day!
God Bless!
Dub and Deb