Benjie and Cathy Stalcup, live at the end of a very interesting road, with trees that greet you with smiling faces, as you drive up the lane. At the end of the road it opens up to a very neatly kept, peaceful view of a poultry farm that Benjie runs, while Cathy works in town as plant manager of Hanes Brand, Inc. “We have been farming since 1986,” she stated, “we started with 70 acres in the beginning. Benjie and I decided that instead of moving with the company we both worked for, we would put in a laying house,” said Cathy. “I worked the laying houses for about 2 years for Tyson, while Benjie went to work helping in the start up of the rendering plant,” she replied.
It was later, that Cathy went to work for HBI and Benjie quit his job and came back to work the farm. They added a second house in 1992, along with 140 acres, and then in 2000 added another 140 acres. In 2001, the couple decided to change from layers to broilers, so they retro-fitted the houses to broiler houses. Cathy said smiling “the laying houses were so time consuming with me working, that changing to broilers gave us a little bit of a break and time for other things.”
When Cathy and Benjie decided to change over the chicken houses to broilers, they were going to update the houses with whatever they needed. “We put in nipple drinkers, and my suggestion on these, if you have well water is you need to put in a filter and a chlorinator. It will make a huge difference in the weight of your chickens. We also put in a computer that has an alarm system, it also runs the feed, and the dimmer switches on the lights. Controling also the temperature and the cooling, we added the alarm to the house so if anything does go wrong we will know right away,” said Cathy. “Or it will call mine or Benjie’s phone it is a wonderful thing, unless it quits.”
“After about a year Tyson wanted more improvements,” said Cathy, “they wanted the static pressures in the houses to be right, so we insulated the roofs and added black out curtains and a generator that starts automatically if the electric goes out. They used to supplement you for these expenses, but not anymore. If you keep making the upgrades though, you can get closer to the top, which in turn will get you more money for your chickens.”
The poultry industry has triumphed through difficult times and Benjie and Cathy are another spoke in the wheel that aids this industry in providing consumers with a quality product.
