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    Plucking Great Times: An Informal History Of Tautau Chicken
    Plucking Great Times: An Informal History Of Tautau Chicken
    Plucking Great Times: An Informal History Of Tautau Chicken
    Ebook144 pages1 hour

    Plucking Great Times: An Informal History Of Tautau Chicken

    By Jim Ryan

    ()

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    About this ebook

    This is not intended to be any type of Pulitzer Prize style of document but a set of notes about the three decades or so that we were involved in the poultry industry from the late 1960s through to the early 2000s. It is hoped that future generations may get some understanding of the evolution of the industry that we stumbled into! Consumption of chicken per head of population the time we started was about 2.5kg per person per year. In the 2000s it was about 35kg per person per year and still increasing. At the same time there was a dramatic improvement in livestock performance through genetics, feed and environment. When we started it took about 65 days for a chicken to grow to 1.7kg live weight and consume about 3kg of food for every kg of liveweight. (FCR). Now a 2.7kg chicken can grow in 37 days with a FCR of just 1.55 - nearly half of 40 years ago!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJim Ryan
    Release dateJun 26, 2018
    ISBN9780463132104
    Plucking Great Times: An Informal History Of Tautau Chicken
    Author

    Jim Ryan

    Jim Ryan is a chartered civil engineer with a passion for the outdoors, who has had several successful guidebooks and two works of fiction published. Jim's approach to guidebook writing is not simply to take the reader to the destination, but to provide them with a total experience. Geology, flora and fauna, the natural environment, and the folklore and history of the locality are very important to him. Jim splits his time between summers in Cork, Ireland, and winters in Nerja, Spain. He has been climbing the mountains of Andalucía for over 20 years. This guidebook is his way of repaying Nerja and Andalucía for many years of pleasure; his share of the proceeds from its sales go to local charities in Nerja.

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      Book preview

      Plucking Great Times - Jim Ryan

      Plucking Great Times:

      An Informal History Of Tautau Chicken

      Jim Ryan

      Arrowtown

      June 2018

      Plucking Great Times:

      An Informal History Of Tautau Chicken

      Jim Ryan

      Published by Paradox Publishing at Smashwords

      Copyright 2018 Jim Ryan

      Smashwords Edition

      License Notes: Thank you for downloading this free eBook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied or distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoy this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com. Thank you for your support.

      Table of Contents

      Foreword

      Tautau

      The Factory

      Staff

      Processing

      Equipment

      Technology

      Our Products

      Our Customers

      The Factory Shop

      Industrial Relations and the Union

      Bureaucracy

      Bounty Park

      The Tegel years

      Sales and Marketing

      Financial

      The Directors

      Poultry Industry Association New Zealand – PIANZ

      The Lindsay’s

      Foreword

      This is not intended to be any type of Pulitzer Prize style of document but a set of notes about the three decades or so that we were involved in the poultry industry from the late 1960s through to the early 2000s.

      It is hoped that future generations may get some understanding of the evolution of the industry that we stumbled into!

      Consumption of chicken per head of population the time we started was about 2.5kg per person per year. In the 2000s it was about 35kg per person per year and still increasing. At the same time there was a dramatic improvement in livestock performance through genetics, feed and environment. When we started it took about 65 days for a chicken to grow to 1.7kg live weight and consume about 3kg of food for every kg of liveweight. (FCR). Now a 2.7kg chicken can grow in 37 days with a FCR of just 1.55 - nearly half of 40 years ago!

      Apologies for any omissions or inaccuracies but the stories and events are what happened and they are not in any set chronological order. Also, have gone off topic a few times!

      Jim Ryan

      Arrowtown

      June 2018

      Tautau

      The name Tautau was derived from the Western Southland, New Zealand, farming town of Otautau. The name was totally accidental after someone slurred the name Otautau during a brainstorm to come up with a name. It was 1968 and the four local farmers (Bill and Norris James, Alan Broomfield and Jim Ryan) formed an informal group called Tautau Industries to raise turkeys.

      Initially 400 day old poults were imported from Australia and brooded in insulated rooms that each of them had adapted inside implement and wool sheds. After about 6 weeks the turkeys were transferred to specially built mobile sheds (that each one of them built) to enable them free access and shelter out in the lush pasture. The term free range had yet to be invented but that’s what really was happening.

      Special formulated pellets were sourced from Nichol Brothers in Invercargill. At the time I was the Western Southland correspondent for Radio New Zealand so any incident from the other three was soon pubic knowledge. One night one of their sheds blew over and if I recall they started the story with something like turkey turnover!

      At 21 weeks the turkeys were ready for processing and Invercargill butcher Ron Simpson had a small (and probably not entirely legal) processing plant at his Dee Street shop. Other times the Norris and Ag James, Hamish Road woolshed and cowshed became makeshift processing plants. The frozen turkeys were then sold to local butchers and delicatessens. Soon Barnes Oysters carried out the processing in their offseason.

      In 1969 Country Calendar heard about this group of Southland Farmers and sent down a 4 person camera team over 4 days to film them. We were a little reticent to revel too much but a very social evening at the Avenal Hotel with the crew put paid to that! A few weeks afterwards a very very nervous group gathered around a small black and white TV at Alan and Jean Broomfield’s to watch our performance.

      In 1971 Tautau purchased the Mossburn Enterprises eel processing building that was in the former Nestles Condensed milk factory at Underwood. We formed a company, Prestige Meats Ltd and butcher Ron Simpson operated it for a short time but this was less than satisfactory. After his departure there was some discussion among the four farmers about how to handle things from here. As I had the smallest farm I agreed to commute to run the company and eventually sold the farm in 1972 and moved to Invercargill.

      The Factory

      This was initially owned by Nestle for making Highlander condensed milk. When that closed down in 1964 Bill Thompson and Bill Walker purchased the total complex and Southland Wheat Driers occupied a large portion. Our portion of the buildings were used by Mossburn Enterprises for eel processing and there were large tanks used to hold them when we purchased the building in 1972.

      We purchased water (via a meter) from Thompson and Walker via the huge old original supply from a very deep wall and steel tanks set high above their roof. It was of very marginal quality and eventually we put our own bore down right close to the road entrance and as far away from any potential underground

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