Shell proclaims statewide 'Poultry Month' at Hayden Farms

There was a good amount to celebrate at Hayden Farms in Whitesville on Sunday.

The Eastern Daviess County farm, which raises cattle and chickens, held its sixth annual "Fall Market at Hayden Farms," which featured multiple local vendors, family activities, food, live music and more.

Daniel Hayden, owner and operator of the farm, said the event — which was "a dream" for his wife, Danielle Hayden — has consistently seen growth in both the number of booths on-site and the crowd.

"(Danielle) started out with three vendors and 75 people showing up. ... She just wanted to bring people out on the farm. She wanted to show what we (have) going on," Hayden, 35, said. "... The next year, it turned into 1,800 people and 30 vendors ....

"Now we're a strong 70 vendors of local businesses (and looking to) give them an opportunity to sell and market their homemade blood, sweat and tears and passion poured into the things they like to produce," Hayden said.

This year's event featured new additions including inflatables, a bubble tent, a "touch-a-tractor" station and face painting.

But Hayden, a second-generation farmer, finds the event also serves as an occasion to show visitors how the farm operates.

Particularly, tours were offered to one of the farm's four chicken houses on the property — giving people a chance to see how the birds are raised through large glass windows located inside the control room, which acts as a dedicated viewing room.

"... We take advantage of (this) opportunity by showcasing what farming is all about," Hayden said. "We're not a show farm; we're a functioning farm, and we want to show that to the people that show up here, too."

Hayden said the family farm started in 1983 under the direction of his parents, Martin and Joan Hayden, in Knottsville with a focus on tobacco and a commercial calf operation before "furthering our farming operation, with minimal risk" with the meat processing and poultry farming company Perdue coming to the area in 1997.

"Dad, being the earlier adopter that he is, signed on for that," Hayden said. "We started growing our first chickens back in '97, and in '98 we built our second set of chicken houses."

After Hayden graduated from Murray State University with a degree in agriculture business in 2011, he came back to run the farm — which has since expanded to Whitesville — along with emphasizing public outreach initiatives with his wife about the operation.

This includes the four chicken houses that were built on the Whitesville property in 2017, which contain 31,000 broilers in each unit.

"(We're) trying to involve the community so that they can actually see what kind of passion and work go into the food that they go buy ...," Hayden said. "... My wife and I devised a plan that, if we got the opportunity to build houses again, we wanted to put (in) a classroom; we wanted to approach it as a glass wall approach to poultry farming ....

"We can bring people into a room that sees directly into the chicken house that is like every chicken house out there, but not (risk) the biosecurity of our chickens by having that glass wall in between the chickens and the people from (the community)," Hayden said.

The initiative, which also included building a separate education center through the Kentucky Agricultural Development Fund, has attracted folks from beyond the Commonwealth.

"We've had 32 different countries and 18 different states through this operation since we began," Hayden said.

And on Sunday, the farm's viewing room became the site of Kentucky Commissioner of Agriculture Jonathan Shell signing a proclamation to declare the month of September as Kentucky Poultry Month.

"We're pretty excited about our poultry industry as one that doesn't get quite the recognition that a lot of others do. It's kind of an unsung hero in Kentucky agriculture," Shell said. "It's one of the largest industries that we have (and) one of the largest commodity producers, but it's also one of the largest drivers of agricultural products beyond just the chickens.

"(We think about) all the farmers that are here that are growing these chickens, all the farmers that grow the grains to feed the chickens, the truck drivers and all the ancillary supportive jobs that go along with that."

Shell, who has been in the position since January, has known Hayden for some time and touted his efforts.

"... We're really proud of Daniel Hayden and the work he does as a farmer (and) being an advocate for agriculture," Shell said. "This viewing (room) is really interesting ... and it's a great asset that we have so that he can bring in school groups and people from outside agriculture and see what we do and how we do it, to show the care that we take in these animals and in our livestock."

Beyond discussing the importance of poultry, Shell finds it vital to inspire the youth to get involved in the overall field.

"The next generation — our young people in the state — is what's going to be the future of agriculture," he said. "What we're trying to focus on from the Department of Agriculture is how do we get more education beyond just high school. We have 'Ag in the Class(room)' in high school, we FFA — (but) how do we get that into our middle and elementary schools?"

Shell said the department is working with Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman's office and the Commissioner of Education Dr. Robbie Fletcher to create a dedicated 'Ag Week' that will be intertwined with students' respective curricula.

"... Everything (the students) learn for that week is going to be based around ag — so if it's ag math, it would be one chicken plus two chickens equals three chickens (and) it can get as complicated as volume metrics and geometry," he said. "It just goes back (to the fact) we need more advocates; and so the more that we can understand and get our young people educated in it, the better off we're going to be in the future.

"We've gotten so far removed from people being on the farm — not just one generation removed or two generations, but we're now three and four and five generations removed from the farm (with) folks that don't remember grandpa or great-grandpa or grandmother that was on the farm actually raising livestock animals," Shell said. "The more we can educate people that corn doesn't come from a can (and) that it comes from a farmer, the better off we're gonna be."