Polyface Farm Summer Internship: Week 15

Reader Contribution by Kristen Kilfoyle
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Monday, September 8th

This week, I was assigned to move broiler shelters. As I write these blogs, I feel like I’m always writing about moving the broilers, so if that seems to be the case and I’m being boring, I apologize. I like moving broilers though. The birds are comical and they love getting new grass, so now that I can actually move their living quarters without needing a Gatorade after, the process is pretty painless.

I spent most of the rest of the day with Eric, our apprentice manager, and fellow intern Brandon. First, we took a trailer load of piglets to one of Polyface’s rental farms to put them out into their first pig pasture. One of the fun parts about this assignment is that part of fulfilling your job responsibilities involves sticking around for a bit to watch the piglets to make sure they are settling in and are learning where the fences are. It was pretty gratifying (and amusing) to watch 50 piglets sprint around their new paddock through the tall grass. After lunch, we did the not so glamorous job of taking the Polyface trash and recycling to the town transfer station. Watching people throw out fully recyclable items into the trash bugs me… but such is life. We made up for those wasted recycling opportunities by stopping at an organ factory (the instrument, not body parts) and a local woodworking shop to pick up wood shavings they were looking to get rid of. We use the sawdust in the brooder and under some of the rabbit cages and these businesses are happy to have someone come and take it away.

Tuesday, September 9th

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