Agriculture Innovation

PHOTO COURTESY OF HAYDEN FARMS

Hayden Farms timeline

IN STEP WITH TECHNOLOGY

written by Devinn Winkleman

Hayden Farms leads the way in agricultural innovation

When Daniel Hayden bought Hayden Farms in Whitesville from his father, Martin, he wanted to do more with the property than just raise chickens and cattle. He wanted to transform it into a company that innovated in agriculture. He did so with his wife, Danielle, by building the poultry education center — and the results have led to Hayden Farms becoming a notable leader in agricultural innovation.

The center features a glass wall built into the side of a chicken house so that visitors can see how the chickens are raised. This idea came from his wife after Perdue Farms granted him the opportunity to build four more chicken houses in 2017 on top of the four he initially owned with them. (The Haydens have raised chickens for Perdue for nearly 25 years.)

“And that turned into a classroom essentially attached onto one of the chicken houses with essentially a glass wall inside of it to where you can see directly into the chicken houses,” he said. “And alongside with it, we’re going to build what we call an education center, which is a separate building, where we can host groups for presentations.”

The Haydens have also innovated the farm by incorporating the latest

1983 1997 2000 2016 2018 Jan. 2020 June 2020

Hayden Farms is established by Martin and Joan Hayden, who raise cattle and grow tobacco

14

Hayden Farms begins raising chickens for Perdue Farms Joan and Martin Hayden start the Daviess County feeder calf project program, which is among the most successful such programs in Kentucky Joan and Martin’s youngest son,

Daniel, purchases the family farm and becomes the farm manager Greater Owensboro Hayden Farms opens its poultry education center Daniel Hayden joins the State Board of Agriculture Daniel Hayden is featured on the sixth episode, “The Farmer, the Mechanic and the Bus Driver,” of Amazon’s “Regular Heroes” documentary series

technology. Each of his chicken houses is controlled by a computer that’s linked to the internet.

“I can control everything in those chicken houses just from my cellphone, just as long as I have internet access,” Hayden said.

If anything unexpected happens, such as a slight temperature change, the computers will alert him with full details either through a text message or a phone call. He then can use an app to monitor the full range of data of each of the chicken houses, such as how much food and water they’ve consumed to how much electricity each house is using.

The resulting education center has attracted visitors from nearly 30 countries to the farm in Whitesville to see the curious masterpiece.

Such innovations were not lost on Perdue; when Amazon approached the company looking for a farmer to highlight in its 2020 documentary series “Regular Heroes,” Perdue knew just who to recommend.

Hayden called his appearance on the show “a very humbling experience for me. I hope I represented my community and farmers well. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

But these innovations aren’t a stopping point for him or the farm, because he’s constantly trying to learn new ways to better himself and his business through continual education. That includes attending poultry and cattle educational events, being active in the Kentucky Cattlemen’s Association and reading the latest research from the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service.

“As a farmer, we try to continually learn” Hayden said, “not just from our own experiments that we have at our own farm, but experiments that are more broad that are done with more funding to have more accurate data produced and harvested, so that we can make an accurate and good decision when it comes to management practices.”

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