We have the following tools and equipment available for use by county residents on restoration sites and other land management areas. 

Important Change: Due to rising costs, we must now charge a low rental rate for use of each piece of equipment (as outlined below). 

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Shovels & Pruners (Not Pictured)
Have a large job and need several shovels and/or pruners to do the work?  TCD can help!  We have several of each to help out with those bigger projects.
Cost: $5.00 (can include multiple quantities) per use, for up to one week per occurrence.

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Chicken Processing Equipment now available! 

Small poultry producers and home farmers in Thurston County now have extra help delivering their birds from yard to plate. Beginning this week, new poultry processing equipment will be publicly available for rental from the Thurston Conservation District. This is welcome news for many who process their birds on-farm for commercial, market, and personal use.

 

Current regulations allow farmers with fewer than 1,000 birds to process them outside and sell them directly to customers. But equipment to help everything run smoothly is prohibitively expensive for many small producers, who may only need to use it several times a year.

 

To help overcome this barrier, project partners received a grant from Heifer International earlier this year. The award provided match funding for a collection of equipment that includes everything needed for processing up to four birds in under two minutes. The grant is also funding a series of poultry processing workshops this summer at farms in Thurston, Mason, and King county. Activities and additional fund raising for the grant have been a joint effort between the South of Sound Community Farmland Trust, WSDA Organic Program, WSDA Small Farms & Direct Marketing, The Evergreen State College, Homegrown Pastures, and the Mason Conservation District.

 

Local poultry farmer Melissa Barker has been one of the lead organizers responsible for bringing this much-needed service to the area. In addition to being a member of the SSCFLT Board of Directors, Barker raises birds at her own farm and is Manager of the Organic Farm at the Evergreen State College. “Publicly available poultry processing equipment is going to help diversify local farming and make more local meat available in Thurston County,” says Barker. “It will also help small producers increase their economic viability.”

 

The processing equipment has been donated to the Thurston Conservation District, where it will be available for public rental on a first come, first served basis for a small service fee. A similar program has proven very popular in Mason County, where poultry processing tools are available for rental from the Small Farms Program, run jointly by the Mason Conservation District and WSU.