Cargill

Farm Tour:

There are 180 contract farms with Cargill which equals 22,000,000 billion turkeys. The barns are 63 ft. x 704 ft. and each barn holds 25,500 birds in each house. To make each pound of turkey it takes 2 pounds of feed. When the birds are first brought in they are placed in conventional ring systems and there is 400 birds per ring. All of the houses are equipped with automatic waters and feeders. The birds are given the entire house to roam at 6 weeks old and considered mature at 13 weeks. They use generators as back up electricity. They run heat, lights, circulation fans, and the automatic waters and feeders. They keep the humidity below 60%. Every house has an alarm system that goes off if the temperature gets too low or too high or if there is a power outage. Each building cost $550,000 to compete and the farmers are set up on a 15 year plan. The temperature decreases as the turkeys age and with tom turkeys they bring the temperature in the house down much faster. There is 5 inches of litter put down in the house at the start of the cycle and before entering the house everyone must step in a powered for of bleach that works better than the liquid. The turkeys are started on a 30% protein feed and are given their vaccinations at the hatchery and then further vaccinated through the water. The toms are sold to a company in North Carolina. The hens will kill a tom if they are mis-sexed at the hatchery. They get 4 hours of darkeness a day. There are shock wires above the feeders and waters that keep the turkeys from roosting on them. They compost the litter at the open end while the turkeys are contained to half of the barn during the first 5 weeks and all new litter is placed at the brood end of the barn. They use pine shavings and peanut hulls for bedding. Every 6 cycles the litter is replaced completely. There is a 95% survival rate and there are only 4 antibiotics that they are allowed to use on the turkeys. All employees and growers have to go through welfare training. On average the babies are $1.30 each from the hatchery.

Processing Plant:

There are two main brands made at this processing plant (P18), Shady Brook and Honey Suckle White. The plant is 70 years old and the plant manager has been with the company for 39 years. There are 800 farms that the plant receives birds from and the furthest one is in North Carolina. The plant processes 20,000 toms a day and the target live weight is 40 pounds. They process 10,000 heavy hens a day and that target live weight is 23 pounds. They process 50,000-60,000 small hens a day and the target live weight is 15 pounds. There are 19 different languages spoken at the plant and people from 52 different countries. There are USDA officials on site along with a doctor for all emergencies. The hens are killed with a 49 volt shock and the toms are given a CO2 stun.

This was one of my favorite tours of the entire e-term. Everyone always makes it seem as though processing plants and poultry barns are cruel facilities but that was not the case. The workers were all professional and made the process very humane. I liked being able to see the entire process first hand and not having to go off of the assumptions. It was also reassuring to know that anyone harassing a bird (alive or dead) was terminated immediately.

Eastern Shore AREC

At this research facility we learned many different things about the eastern shore area. They have large operations in vegetables, nurseries, grain, and cotton. There are 15-20 different crops commonly grown. There are many graduate students that take courses on campus and work on their field studies during the summer. Mark Reiter is the nutrient manager, Steve Rideout is the plant pathologist, Dr. Henry Wilson is the weed science specialist who just retired after 46 years. 80% of the farms in Virginia are K Cl deficient. The research facility has 226 acres total, 100 acres are tillable and 2 acres are organic. In the lab they use a microscope the most to preform plant pathology and most of the research for the plant pathology is done by a technician.

They use certain selective media for certain pathogens. They also have a colony counter to count bacteria. There is also a rapid test  that has a dip stick reader. There is a soil fertility lab also at the research facility. They can run a soil test for farmers like Virginia Tech does but the research facility only does it for research purposes. They have a -80* freezer to freeze cultures instead of trying to keep them going until they are needed. There are no plant material or soil in the molecular lab (Clean Lab). They use a field mapping system derived from Helena that send an electrical current from one probe to the furthest two outer probes.

Soil samples are taken from the different soil textures that are taken every second. Kyle Sturgis is a Helena representative. Helena is a chemical sales company that also scouts fields and takes soil samples. They use GPS and satellite imagery.

This was a very informative tour. It gave me the opportunity to talk with Kyle about a possible job after graduation as well as prospective grad school field studies. I really enjoyed hearing about the different crops that were grown on the eastern shore.

The Institute for Advanced Learning and Research

Dr. Barry Flinn gave us a tour of the Institute. He is the Sustainable Renewable Resource Supervisor. At the Institute they use a knowledge base approach including mechanical engineering, polymers, motor sports, and agriculture. The Institute houses the Piedmont Governor's School, adjunct facility from Virginia Tech, and Ph.D students research. They have done many research projects including high value horticulture/forestry crop and bio based product development as well as development and genetic enhancement of biofuels and bioenergy crops. They did research on tomatoes, day lilies, strawberries, azaleas, hellebores, goji, impatiens, and miscanthus.


The Institute makes all of their own media and it goes through the autoclave. They also have a smart table that takes pictures everyday of each plant to make a growth curve. They can analyze the data from the smart table without being present.





They work in partnership with Dan River Plants. Dan River Plants has been open 8 months now and have so many orders they are struggling to fill them. They sell plants in stage 2-4 to customers.

Seeing all of the different variations at both labs was very interesting. Also getting to see the start to finish product was neat. I enjoyed seeing their greenhouse and the new technology, especially the movable tables that you can push and they will roll to the other side to make an aisle where it is needed.

Hammock Dairy

The Hammock Dairy is a 3rd generation dairy in Chatham, Va. They currently have 700 head but are looking to increase to 1,200. They own all of  the land that they use for crops. They have 800-900 acres for corn silage and double crop with Marshall Rye, Oats, or Wheat. Mr. Hammock uses vertical tillage when necessary but tries to no-till as much as possible. They sow round up ready corn and B.T. corn.

They like to have a 5 year return on investment at most but would like to have a 2 or 3 year. He doesn't agree with the digester at the Vanderhyde Dairy. Mr. Hammock put in center pivot irrigation systems last year but did not need to use them. He also put in a 10 acre pond that took two years to pass regulations and required many permits. The pond cost $35,000. He says that having irrigation is better than having an insurance policy. They are currently participating in a study with Virginia Tech to see population rates of different varieties of corn. To plant each acre of corn it costs between $300-350. He can feed 1 cow off of 1 acre for an entire year and averages 12 tons per acre. There are 12 full time employees on the farm not including Mr. Hammock and his younger brother.
In the milk parlor they pre-dip, then strip the cows, and finally wipe the cows down and this process allows 1 minute of let down time for the cow before they place the milker on. They can milk 100 cows in an hour with 3 employees. They milk 3 times a day and are typically milking 21 out of the 24 hours each day. They started a coop with several of the other farmers in the area and it now has 14 members and they ship out 26 loads of  milk every day. They have the highest quality milk in the U.S. and the higher the quality the longer the shelf life is. The coop also sends 25 loads of milk a week to a Mexican Cheese Plant. In April Hammock Dairy made $27/ 100 wt. and in May they sold 1.5 million lbs of milk. They scrape the barns 3 times a day and change the bedding and clean waters twice a week. They are currently in the process of switching from sawdust to sand. While we were there we did get to see Mr. Hammock pull a calf also.

The Hammock's operation is very neat to see how they feed all of their cows off of their own land without having any extra expense from renting land. It was interesting to see how different dairy farmers think and see the different tasks associated with each different farm if going into an agriculture field where you are required to work with the farmer on a day to day basis. There are somethings that I saw/heard that I did not completely agree but everyone has their own opinion and their own way of doing things.

Valley Bee Supply

Valley Bee Supply is the only store front bee keeping facility in the state of Virginia. However, there is a big franchise company in Chatham, VA. They manufacture most of their wooden equipment.

They use one of 7 machines in the world to make the drawers. They say the reason for so many colonies collapsing is because of systemic pesticides (nicotinoids). Honey bees are not native to North America, they were imported in 1620 at Jamestown. There are several different breeds of honey bees. The African bee is more protective over hive and more presistent. In most hives there is one queen, 200 drones, and 50,000 worker bees which are sterile females.

21 days after an egg is laid it becomes a worker bee unless it is fed royal jelly for the entire pupal cycle which creates a queen bee. The hives should be checked once a day and they should look for the queen as well as eggs, larva, and pupa. They harvest the nectar and evaporate out the water to make honey. A box full of honey will weigh about 90 pounds. The bees wax is secreted from underneath the abdomen then the bee chews it up and spits it back out. Honey can not be fed to children under the age of 1 because there are botulism spores present which can effect the child's immune system. The hives are made out of white pine. They sell the pieces separate, assembled, and painted. The black combs show the eggs and larva better than the white combs.

They sell their products online and through ebay to all of the U.S. including Hawaii. The government does not have much involvement in bee keeping so there are not many regulations. They offer a bee keeping class on Saturdays and Fred teaches a class at Blue Ridge Community College. The business was opened 3.5 to 4 years ago with a start up cost of $10,000. They now have an inventory of over $500,000 and there is an increasing number of bee keepers in the area since they opened.


This operation was interesting especially the finances with only starting out with $10,000 and now having an inventory of $500,000 in only 4 years. This company is a well known company and it did not take them long to become well known. Although this is not something that I would like to make a career out of it is amazing to see how it is done and how the bees work together and honor the queen.

Eastern BioPlastics

Eastern BioPlastics is a company that uses chicken feathers to reduce the amount of plastic used to produce certain products. The president is Sunny Myerhan. First they pick all of the heads and other body parts out of the feathers, then they wash the feathers to get all of the blood off of them because if the blood and other bio-solids are not removed the feathers start decomposing very quickly. The feathers are then dried to less than 1-2%. The quill is the hardest part to cut up and grind. Each feather is washed for 15 minutes. The company is bio based but not compostable. On half days they go through 2,000 - 2,500 lbs. of feathers. The pelleted products have more feathers per 100 weight than the flake products. Feathers don't burn so it is better to have building products that termites don't eat. The extruder melts incoming plastic and adds in additives and feathers. The flakes are similar to oil dry (absorbent pellets). They are good for oil spills in water because the feathers are lighter than water and oil is on the top of the water. Having too much moisture in the feathers before they are processed pockets of steam will be created. Once the feathers are pelletized they are cooled off as quickly as possible with water, the pellets are then dried off as soon as possible to at least 5% moisture or less. All of the water is recycled and reused. They can make 4,000 lbs of plastic pellets in one hour. They make pads from feathers alone after they are cleaned and they are used to soak up oil. Pads are cleaned and reused (reclaimed), the pellets are not. They do not want the oil absorbent to be biodegradable because the oil will leak back into the soil if placed in a land fill. The company is selling to large businesses and to the port right now but hope to market their products once they get a larger variety of products. The products have been tested in local shops though. They have 5 patents on their products.

Back Home at the Farm

Gary and Lynn Hess own Back Home at the Farm. The farm has been in the family since 1959, which at the time the farm was a cow calf operation. Then in 1978 they had a wholesale greenhouse. In 1995, shrubs became a retail operation on Route 11. They do not do landscaping but they do stay open for Christmas sells. They now have 100 brood cows and participate in cross fencing and self watering projects. They are a seasonal greenhouse/agro-tourism business that house a 6 acre corn maze, a 60 foot underground slide.

They have many field trips from pre-k to 1st graders and more tours in the fall than the spring. There are about 5,000 kids that come through each year and over 25,000 people each year. This is the first agro-tourism farm in Rockingham County and needed a special use permit to start the business.


With the field trips the students wanted a pumpkin patch more than the corn maze. They grow 9-10 acres of pumpkins each year and still have to buy in more pumpkins. They have begun to do more online advertising and less advertising on the radio and in the newspaper. Each year they have a different maze design and is designed by a company out of Utah. It was very hard to find insurance but once they did find some it costs them $3-4,000 each year just for the company. They report each accident in case anything becomes of it.

This was very interesting to hear about and the slide was sooo much fun! Ferrum really needs one! This is a way for people to continue to do what they love but make money at the same time.