Raising a Free Range Farm
Carsen LaPierre March 5, 2018
For the past five years, local New Hampshire farmer and computer nerd, Chandler Cloutier has been one of my best friends. Throughout this time, I’ve come to learn that he runs a farm that is of the free range farming lifestyle. I have also visited this farm quite a few times and seen how the animals live and are treated in a free range setting. Even though I have known him for all this time, I still didn’t quite know how he ran his farm and what involved raising free range cows and pigs. Knowing Chandler though, I had assumed that the animals were in a place where they grew loved and cared for. So I asked him, to learn for both myself and for the reader, and to see from a more personal view, how free range farming truly is.
How long have you been farming?
I’ve been farming for seven… six or seven years I would say.
And how would your day start normally, as a farmer?
So it’s usually, wake up at 6:30 which is… painful, to say the least. Especially as a teenager, ‘cause you stay up all night and then you gotta get up at 6:30 and you go feed the pigs, usually you do a quick morning cleaning, and then you’re good for a couple of hours.
Then school and all that?
Yeah, then school. During the summer it’s different. But like um, you know, during the school year we go down and feed and then I go off to school; during the summer it’s we go down and feed and then we kind of got two to three hours before we go and clean the barn and do all that stuff.
Um, how long does feeding, cleaning, and maintaining of the farm take?
Feeding in the morning takes probably about half an hour, um. Cleaning in the afternoon takes about three hours… um, then after cleaning in the afternoon, so let’s see, we’re at a total of about three and a half hours right now. And then feeding at night takes about an hour but that’s just the pigs.
That’s just the pigs?
That’s just the pigs. So that’s about a total of four and a half hours just pigs when it comes to cleaning and feeding. Uh, then the cows we feed the round bales so we do about three round bales every two days and I usually take about forty-five minutes or so.
What is your favorite part of farming?
My favorite part is uh, definitely the animals. I love my piggies so…
PIGGIES!
I love my piggies, I love my cows um, 140 acres of pretty much hay fields and stuff so it’s fun. There’s a lot to do.
Least favorite part?
Uh, the times that it takes and the lack of time that I have to do anything other than homework and farm work.
Right? That sucks. Um, how much on average does it cost to buy feed for all the animals?
Uh, not 100 percent sure ‘cause that’s usually what my step-dad does. He usually buys the feed and stuff. But I… ah man, it’s usually 1200 dollars a ton for pig grain.
And how many times do you buy that like, a month or a week?
Uh, usually per week. Yeah it’s usually a ton a week. ‘Cause we have actually, it’s one of the biggest pig farms in New Hampshire so...
I know the answer to this but I still gotta
ask you, which animal is your favorite and why?
Does that include, wait pigs or any animal?
Like, which one is
your favorite on the farm?
So like dogs and cats too? Or…
I mean it can?
‘Cause if we’re including dogs and
cats I definitely love my puppy.
Diesel!
Chandler (Right) with Diesel (Left) - 2014
Yeah, my Diesel puppy. And my fur baby, my Puss Puss kitty. But for pigs it’s Penelope, and for cows it’s Suzie.
Is it just you that maintains the farm or do you get help?
It’s me, my mom, and my step-dad. Just us three. And it’s just them while I’m here at Plymouth so they kinda, actually downsized a lot when I left.
What did that involve?
So like, originally we usually have, about around Spring time, 150 to 200 pigs and they had to downsize to probably 75 or so.