On September 9^th, the class took an exciting trip to Miss Georgie Cartanza’s poultry farm! After working in the poultry industry for nearly 20 years, with eleven years owning her own poultry farm, she had a wealth of knowledge to share with us. She owns four different chicken houses, with about 37,000 chickens in each house (almost 150,000 total chickens!)! On top of that, there is only one other worker who occasionally helps with the farm operations, so she’s raising that many chickens practically on her own!

Luckily the chicken houses are top-of-the-line, with an assortment of computers, machines, and equipment that makes her life much easier. Nowadays, almost everything is automated: there are computer systems to regulate the temperature, humidity, food, water, and practically everything else you could imagine within the house! This allows her to check in on her chickens from anywhere via her smart phone, and helps diagnose any potential problems there may be. We were lucky enough to get a tour of one of the chicken houses so we could get a firsthand look at the computers, feed systems, and a whole lot of chickens.

One thing that I found most fascinating was the inside of the chicken houses. I always imagined a chicken house would be loud with the clucking of the chickens, flapping of wings, and movement of equipment; and most of all I was expecting it to be smelly. But it was honestly the opposite! The chickens were very relaxed, it was surprisingly quiet (almost peaceful), and the airflow provided by the large fans made it so the smell was not an issue!

Ms. Cartanza ended the tour with some words of wisdom about the real world: being a good worker, having good communication skills, and always keeping a positive attitude will get you far in life!