meet your neighbors
Chickens on the Move
Photo by Amber Parham
Kent Lovell and his wife Lynn provide pasture poultry to a local farmto-table restaurant and a brewery. They also market eggs to local customers through farmers markets and social media.
By Amber Parham
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Kent and Lynn Lovell find their niche in pastured poultry Tucked between Paris and Subiaco, Ark., along Hagwood Creek, Kent and Lynn Lovell revived his old family farm using sustainable practices. A Russellville native, Kent and his wife moved to Massachesetts for their careers. When he inherited his grandfather’s farm from his mother in 2014, they knew it was time to come home and Dunrovin Farm was born. The sloped-roof frames are covered in “My brother-in-law had given me a copy poultry netting and tarp for protection from of Joel Salatin’s book on pastured poultry,” predators and weather. He has also found Kent said. Two years later they lost their placing his tractors with sides touching resupplier for pastured poultry. “We knew if duces the amount of wall space available to we were going to do it, the time was [then].” predators to break in. He will be adding at His first year was spent rehabbing his least one more tractor this year. grandmother’s old henhouse, which now “This will be our third summer so we houses their layer flock. The following are still learning.” year they started supplying eggs to neighKent recalled the first summer he had bors and their business grew. They now to carry ice to the Cornish Rock crosses supply a local farm-to-table restaurant because they would not get up to go to with eggs and meat. The couple’s meat the waterers. products are also available to the public “We lost 20 percent because of the heat.” at the Pope County Farmers Market and Now he runs the Cornish Rocks in the through their Facebook page. They also cooler months of the spring and fall and offer larger wholesale orders. raises Freedom Ranger Color Yield dur“It’s a labor of love,” he said. “We wanted ing the hottest part of the growing season. to have chicken for us and our family.” But “They are more active and they also seem through word-of-mouth and selling eggs at to have a slower metabolism, which may be the local barbershop their business grew to why they do better in the heat.” – explaininclude Prestonrose Brewery and the larger ing the slower maturation of eight to 10 clientele at farmers markets. weeks as opposed to the fast growing CorKent built all of his chicken trac- nish Rocks that are ready at seven to eight tors himself. He originally weeks. The layers are a mix of bought plans after researchGold and Black Sexlinks. ing online and talking to Kent typically orders chicks other Arkansas growers. in March and processes his Paris, Ark. “You build one, and then last batch in November. He you figure out, OK, this was staggers his chick orders so a new wrong, and this was, so you batch is ready for pasture as soon as make it work,” he said. the finished birds are on their way Ozarks Farm & Neighbor • www.ozarksfn.com
to the processor. Last year, he ran four batches and this year hopes to do five, running three tractors for the first and last and four during the middle runs. He feeds a standard flockraiser for meat birds in 40-pound feeders, along with fresh pasture. He said the laying hens are great foragers, but that he supplements them with layer ration. The chickens work and fertilize his grandfather’s old haymeadow as the tractors are moved daily by hand using removable wheels and a pull rope. This method raises the tractors up off the ground to reduce injury to the chickens. He added when the chickens are larger they may need to be moved twice a day, depending on how much litter they deposit. When his birds are ready, he transfers them to crates and hauls them to the processing facility. “I use Natural State Processing in Clinton, Ark.,” Kent said. It’s about a two-hour drive. He added that they provide a very presentable end product that appeals to customers. Processed weight is a 4 to 5 pound chicken although he says that they occasionally have had some that are 7.5 pounds and equally good quality. They offer whole birds, legs, thighs, split breasts, backs (soup packs), wings and livers. MARCH 23, 2020
