Build the Coop Before the Chicks: Gus's Hard Lesson

2:11:54 Oh, you raised meat birds. Yes. So please stand up and tell your story. So it was in April of this year we were in Korea. The story actually goes, Master Cho visited us on Oʻahu, did a workshop, I believe it was in January? February, early part of the year. And we had these torrential downpours, just pounding rain. We were supposed to do farm tours, and we actually ended up canceling two farms,

2:12:39 or two places to visit. But we did visit with Stephen and his farm in Waialua. And when Master Cho arrived, it was like, I guess similar to how Moses parted the Red Sea. The clouds opened up, we had blue skies, and we were actually able to visit and see all of Stephen's farm. And I think it was either the next day or a few days later that I called from Stephen and he said, Hey, Master Cho called me up, he wants to see me in Korea next week. He wants me to come to Korea and he wants to teach me about raising chickens. I was like, oh, but I don't want to go by myself.

2:13:17 He said, don't worry Gus, we go. But Steven and both myself needed some time to get together so it was April. We were there and for two weeks we had an intensive program in Korea. Probably the most hands on and the most detailed information. I've been studying Master Cho's work for a long time but his information that he provides you for chicken raising is down to the day. They'll tell you how much feed they need, how much water they need, how much space they need. It's a very set prescription for both meat birds as well as layers.

2:13:56 So we came back and the first thing we did was order our chickens. It forced us to not just talk about it, to do it. And one of the first things we learned was, or one of the first things I learned was, you need to do it exactly the way Master Cho says to do it. But until you do it, you don't realize what he really tells you. So one of the big things that he emphasized in the class was don't start until you have everything in place. So right there we failed because we started, we didn't have our feeders made, we didn't have our housing set, we didn't have our feed set up.

2:14:31 So that was the biggest lesson, have everything in place before you start. But having gone through the training with Master Cho, having had the experience of actually taking chicks out of the box that were day old, putting them onto the ground with brown rice gave me the confidence and courage to try again. I swore off chickens: mongoose, dogs, even my own children. Can't even trust them to collect eggs. They never make it to the kitchen. They break. So I said I'd never raise chickens again. But after doing the workshop, I tried. I learned a lot.

2:15:09 We're going to be doing another round of chickens just to keep going along. And hopefully try some broilers as well. I'm sorry, some egg layers as well. So the way Master Cho teaches broilers, it's a short game. Get them up to size quick. Layers, it's a long game. So your feed, your housing, how you care for them, and even how you think about them is very different. So it's a different strategy for raising broilers as opposed to raising egg layers. But if you can, Master Cho writes about it a little bit in his book. He says, you know, when you start a farm, you start with chickens.

2:15:50 It's not really discussed a lot, but it is written if you read his literature. So if you're just starting off with a farm or you already have a farm and stuff isn't working out, I would suggest starting with chickens. Yes. You raised them and then you sold them? We gave away to the people who had been supporting our farm. Uh, they didn't sell them. He says they gave them to the people who helped their farm. You didn't calculate how much you spent? But surely that had a [cost] too, no?

어, 팔지 않고요. 자기 농장을 도와준 사람들한테 줬대요. 근데 그것도 [비용이] 났을 거 아니냐고.

2:16:39 The cost of production? Yes, we did. So compared with the usual way in Hawaii, how much did the raising cost differ with natural farming? He's asking a question: how much difference between the conventional way to raise meat birds and the natural farming way, the cost difference. Have you ever thought about that? We actually can't get that information. We were really fortunate where there's another chicken producer on Oʻahu, a little bit more conventional. So side by side we got to see what our chickens look like using the natural farming method and also seeing

그럼 하와이에서 일반으로 하는 거하고, 사육비하고 자연농업하고 얼마나 차이 나더냐?

2:17:25 what a conventional commercial fed chicken looks like. Both in terms of how they're cared for, living, their living conditions, all the way to the slaughtering process. So part of the deal that we had worked out where we would come help you on your farm with your chickens and you'd allow us to also get up to speed. So we're really fortunate to have that opportunity to be able to see the chickens both inside and outside and compare them with the way Master Cho teaches us versus a straight commercial chicken tractor, commercial fed, commercial fed chicken with commercial feed.

2:17:59 So we can't get the data to compare. Uh, that, well… the ordinary conventional way and the way you did it… You don't need to have tested it. In your own feeling, was natural farming easier? So in your opinion, that natural farming is more comfortable and easy compared to conventional? There is a little bit of a learning curve because in terms of the information that's available, there's a lot of information available for how to raise chickens conventionally. The information that Master Cho shares though, it's here.

어, 그거 저기… 그 보통 관행으로 한 거하고 자기가 한 거하고… 안 해봐도 돼요. 본인이 느끼기에 자연농업이 편했더냐?

2:18:46 So for the difficulty for me in certain situations would have been, okay, I have a question. I can't just get on the phone and talk to Master Cho about it. I've got to wait for opportunities like this to be able to present the questions. But I can tell you at least from a, or actually from many points of view, but from a smell point of view, from a cleanliness point of view, from a looking at just the general well-being of the chicken as it was living, down to taking a look at the actual intestine size, the size of the gizzards,

2:19:22 amount of fat that they had when we eviscerated or cleaned the chickens. There is no comparison. There really is no comparison. He says there's no comparison. [The chickens were] very clean and healthy… and no smell. How many chicks did you bring in, and how many died? When you brought the chicks, how many chicks did you bring and how many chicks died? Okay, we started with 100. I took 50, Steve took 50. And when we finally slaughtered, we had close to a 70% mortality rate. So only 18 chickens made it to... What?

비교가 할 수 없대요. 너무 [닭이] 깨끗하고 건강하게… 냄새도 없고. 병아리 몇 마리 가져와서 몇 마리가 죽었냐고.

2:20:07 What? Uh oh, you're gonna get hit, girl. You should have told me. We know why it happened. Oh, you know why it happened. He says they ordered 100 birds. Stephen took 50, and he took 50. Steve had a lot better rate than I did. I had a 70% mortality rate. Stephen did much better; his, 70% died. Raising them all properly takes a lot of work… (unclear)

100마리를 주문을 했대요. 50마리는 스티븐이 가지고, 50마리는 얘가 가졌는데, 스티븐은 훨씬 더 좋았는데, 얘 거는 70%가 죽었대요. 다 제대로 기르는 것은 수고가 많은…

2:20:53 What was the reason? Many reasons. The biggest reason, I found out, was my fear. So something imaginary that didn't even exist, well somebody told me they do exist, it was the mongoose. So if you ever raise chickens that have to deal with mongoose in Hawaii, they're vicious. Not like they kill to eat them, they just kill to kill. So we've had numerous times previously where mongoose will break into the chicken coop, not even eat the chicks, they just slaughter every single one.

2:21:22 So where I was stuck was, what we saw on the conventional side, what they did was they just ran an electric tape around their entire facility. I went out, got the electric fencing unit, but they didn't have electric tape at the feed store. So I went back, I went back, I went for three weeks and they never bought any electric tape. And by the, yeah, so if you order it online, you can potentially, but we do like to support our local businesses. So what ended up happening was they were in too small of a space based upon the amount of space they should have been given to grow.

2:21:58 So part of it was they were crushing each other because they weren't allowed a proper long space. The problem is there are mongooses here. He says they come and kill the birds rather than eat them. It's true. I've had that experience myself, so I'll tell them about it, the rats too. I'm going to help you with that. Because we have lots of mongoose and not only mongoose, rat problem. So you cannot use regular chicken wire because rat can go through.

문제는 여기 몽구스가 있거든요. 그게 와서 잡아먹는 것보다 그냥 죽인대요. 진짜 그래요. 그래서 내가 그런 경험이 있어서, 쥐도, 그런 거 얘기해 줄게요.

2:22:50 So you need to use a stronger wire, square, small one because of those problems. It's called hardware cloth. Yeah. So also, you need, because of the rat, they make a tunnel underneath. They can come in. Even I had a skirt, because of this regular chicken wire, they just rusted and disappeared. So what I did, I had to even put the wire on the floor. I had a skirt and then I could prevent the mongoose and the rat coming into the coop for a while. Yeah, right. But I used a regular chicken wire.

2:23:39 Time goes by, it just deteriorates, it disappears and then starting to have same problem. So when you build a chicken coop, you need to have a stronger wire. Also, you need to put the wire on the ground. Another way to look at it, if you look at the pictures here, we don't see this in Hawaii, but we saw it in Korea. It's actually a house within another structure. So there's a layer of protection. It's not just, boom, they break into the wall and the coop is ready. So there's a layer of protection. It's not just, boom, they break into the wall and they're in the coop.

2:24:16 I don't know if you can, you can't really see it in here, but on the other side of this wall, there's another, some type of fencing, some type of unit. So there's another just barrier that the predators would need to cross over into. So if you have the funds and the materials to build that type of structure, by all means, that will solve your problems. So people like this killed the chicks that had finally been given a life. So the poor chicks that were born, because we didn't know how to take care of them properly with the housing, that's where those things happen. So you're a bad guy.

그러니까 모처럼 태어난 병아리 인생을 [이런] 사람들이 죽였지.

2:25:03 No, because we didn't expect, we don't have experience, we didn't expect that problem with the mongoose and the rat. So now we know. Well actually, three, four weeks prior to even getting chicks, I was trapping mongoose, getting two to three a day. And up until raising the chickens, I still, I could kill one, trap one, at least one a day. Consistently, now. So they didn't die from disease? No, there's no sick chick. He says none of them died of sickness. Then they died from poor management. [This guy is the thief.]

병 걸려서 죽은 건 없대요. 그러면 관리를 잘못해서 죽은 거지. [이놈이 도둑놈이야.]

2:25:48 No, sir, that's not it. He's not a thief. This happened because he didn't know. Then not knowing is what makes you the thief. Because I was trying to protect you. Because we didn't know. But because you didn't know, you are the thief. It doesn't make sense to me. But that's how Korean people talk. Sorry, not a good job. No, no, no, not good. Anyway, but it's okay. Suppose it were your own wife you were keeping. Would you build the house so she gets eaten, or would you build it solid?

아니요, 원장님, 아니에요. 이게 도둑놈이 아니라 이건 몰라서 그런 거예요. 그럼 모르는 게 도둑놈이지. 만약에 자기 부인을 갖다가 기른다고 생각했을 때, 부인이 먹히도록 집을 짓겠어, 아니면 단단히 짓겠어?

2:26:45 Let's say you want to protect your wife from the mongoose. Would you build a strong house or just a so-so house? That's what he is asking. So-so house. Build it as a sturdy house. Then they die because there isn't enough love. Because he didn't have enough love for the chicks, That's why this happened. Raise them so they don't die.

튼튼한 집으로 지어야지. 그러면 사랑이 모자라서 죽는 거야. 그래서 이 일이 일어난 거예요. 죽이지 말라고 길러.

2:27:31 From now on, don't kill your chicks, and take care of them well. Good work. Raised the natural-farming way, if the facilities are set up properly, when 100 chicks arrive not a single one dies. They all grow well. Once you have a right system, right housing, not even one chick dies. [So in natural farming, chicks don't die.] So in natural farming, you don't have any problem with the chick dying.

수고했어요. 지금 자연농업으로 기르면, 시설만 제대로 갖춰 놓으면 병아리가 100마리 왔다 그러면은 한 마리도 안 죽어. 다 잘 [커]. [자연농업에서는 병아리 죽는 일이] 없는 거야.

2:28:16 So most important thing is before you order chicks, you need to prepare everything. So you prepare the chick facilities, get everything done, and only then put the chicks in. Everything, their housing and make secure all that. You need to do that first. That's the most important thing to do. Steve, how many of your chicks died? Not even 10%, I guess. [unclear] ... more than 10%. Oh, wow. Of 50, 36 lived, he says. How did your chicks die?

그래서 병아리 [들어올] 시설을 준비하고 다 해 놓고 병아리를 넣어야 돼요. 50마리에서 36마리가 살았대요.

2:29:02 Were they sick? From the swine seminar, we were giving them fish. We were cooking it. And when Master Cho said that animals can die, and the face can turn kind of bluish-purple, that's kind of how all mine died. They just kind of started to die. He says he cooked fish and fed it to them. And when they died, he saw their faces had turned [blue]. They died from eating animal [protein].

생선을 이렇게 [삶아서] 줬대요. 그런데 죽을 때 보니까 얼굴이 [퍼레졌대요]. 동물[성] 먹고 죽는 거예요.

2:29:49 Oh, that is protein intoxication.