THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 3, 1995 TAG: 9505020112
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JODY R. SNIDER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ISLE OF WIGHT LENGTH: Long : 111 lines
THEY ARRIVE IN AN air-conditioned school bus - 40,000 at a time - to spend 48 days as couch potatoes.
But the peeping fuzzballs will leave the farm on tractor trailers, destined for supermarket meat cases and East Coast dinner tables.
This is chicken farming in the '90s. And it's the routine at Charles and Peggy Roff's chicken farm in Isle of Wight County - ``all in, all out,'' as Charles Roff describes it. ``The days of raising a few chickens on the farm are gone.
``This is big business.''
Indeed. In 1993, Virginia chicken sales soared from $202 million to $371 million - surpassing even beef sales, $333.3 million in 1993.
Figures for 1994 are unavailable, but for each of the past five years, Virginia chicken production has grown 10 percent, said Jim Lawson of the Virginia Agriculture Statistics Service in Richmond.
Nationally, Americans ate 38 pounds of poultry in 1988, compared to 47 pounds in 1993, Lawson said. And, he said, the increase is expected to continue.
That's the kind of growth the Roffs expected when they began farming for Perdue in 1979. They built the houses and provided labor. Perdue provides day-old chickens, feed, heat and a sure market.
Roff said he invested $200,000 in the two chicken houses, paid for in the first six years of operation. If all goes well during a typical year, he said, he makes $48,000.
But, he cautions, ``That's only if you're doing what you should be doing.'' He said contracts are ``the only way you can make it. . . .
``If you had 50 chickens on your farm, you couldn't market them for what you can market your chickens under contract. The hog industry is headed in the same direction.''
A grower gets about 33 cents per pound, and chicken has sold for as little as 49 cents per pound in the supermarket.
Roff said a chicken farmer typically spends two hours a day in each house, checking equipment and making sure the chickens don't get overheated. The remainder of the day, electronic feed and water systems nourish the flock.
``You make couch potatoes out of them,'' Roff said, ``and that makes their meat more tender because they're not running around making tough muscles.''
Waste from the farm is tested for fertilizer value and applied on land at rates corresponding to crop needs.
Ernest Beltrami, one of Perdue's largest farmers - 220,000 birds in three locations in Franklin - agrees that consumer demand has set the stage for statewide and national growth.
``Between now and the year 2020, it's predicted that chicken will be the No. 1 meat on the national dinner table,'' Beltrami said. ``National consumption is predicted to grow another 5 percent this year. And exports will grow by 12 percent. The reason: It's cheap, and it's a healthy meat.''
He used himself as an example. ``I have an ulcer,'' he said. ``When I eat chicken, it doesn't bother me. If I eat a hamburger or steak, it bothers me. And, as a consumer, that makes a difference to me.''
And, apparently, to a lot of other people.
In 1993, broiler production became the No. 1 commodity in Virginia, accounting for almost 18 percent of total cash receipts, said Robert T. Bass of the statistics service.
``At $371 million, that's the first time that broilers by themselves have surpassed cattle and calves as the top commodity,'' he added.
Nationally, beef reigns - $39.4 billion in sales. Chicken brings in $10.4 billion, Lawson said.
Lawson said one reason for Virginia's growth in the chicken industry is that growers are using plants used to process turkey during World War II.
``We were the `turkey capital of the world' during World War II,'' he said. ``That's no longer true, but many of the plants are still here, and now they're being used to process chickens.''
Another factor, he said, is Virginia's proximity to many of the nation's large markets.
After 16 years in the business, George R. Bailey of Suffolk knows what it means to baby-sit 32,000 chickens.
When he started, he was also farming 850 acres of crop land. Today, chicken farming is his mainstay.
``It's the best business I've ever put my money in. I sold 150 acres of my land because the cost of running equipment was so high. But the future of chickens looks good.
``Babies are being born every day. They have to eat something. And chickens are one of the best things you can eat.''
To Roff, raising chickens is a lot like raising kids.
``If you can keep them from getting strained and stressed out, they grow up to be something. You get out of it what you put into it.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo on cover
Chicken farming in Isle of Wight County...
Staff photos by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Charles Roff...
A grower gets about 33 cents per pound, and chicken has sold for as
little as 49 cents per pound in the supermarket.
The temperature in the chicken houses is a steady 80 degrees.
ABOVE: Peggy Roff checks on chickens that are ready for market. In
1993, Virginia chicken sales soared from $202 million to $371
million - surpassing even beef sales, $333.3 million in 1993.
LEFT: A chicken farmer typically spends two hours a day in each
house, checking equipment and making sure the chickens don't get
overheated. The remainder of the day, electronic feed and water
systems nourish the flock.
by CNB