Poultry barn owner, Adam Hladky, right, talks with those who attended his poultry barn open house Aug. 15.
Farmer Adam Hladky is now a proud owner of four poultry barns in Seward County.
Hladky and Lincoln Premium Poultry’s Jessica Kolterman hosted an open house Aug. 15 to show off Hladky’s new poultry barns, located between Staplehurst and Utica in the northwest part of Seward County.
“I signed up to be a grower,” Hladky said. “I thought it looked pretty good and I thought my daughter, it’s a good project for her.”
Hladky said his 8-year-old daughter, Brielle, has helped with the barns from picking up nails to asking a lot of questions.
“She wants to name them (the birds) all. She’s pretty excited and I like giving a kid farm experience,” he said.
Hladky’s process started four years ago when he first heard about the project. He said there was not many people going to meetings to support the project so he wanted to show up and be supportive.
“I think people who originally supported it didn’t realize they needed to come out and do so,” Kolterman said.
After the project received more support it was officially time to kick it off in Nebraska.
“It was definitely coming to Nebraska. They started signing up like Adam did and saying ‘do you want to grow chickens for us?’” Kolterman said.
Hladky had the choice to be a breeder facility or a broiler facility.
“I chose broiler because I want the manure,” he said.
Kolterman explained that breeder houses do not produce as much litter as the broiler barns, and Hladky wants to use the manure for fertilizer.
Kolterman said having these poultry barns in Seward County could possibly improve soil as well as the economy.
“You’re probably going to have an investment of around $30 million from these farm families building poultry facilities in Seward County,” she said.
The eggs will come from Big Knot Farms LLC, a breeder farm in Staplehurst. Once ready they will be hatched in a hatcher in Fremont and then brought back to Seward County to Hladky’s broiler farm.
The chicks will spend 44 days at Hladky’s before being sent to a processing plant back in Fremont. From Fremont they will be sent to Costco with the excess, such as the feet, being sent to other countries. What Kolterman calls the blood and guts, or rendering product, will be sent to Darling Ingredients in Wahoo.
Hladky’s barns have feeders and water that can be lowered and then raised to accommodate the height of the chickens. Kolterman said the barns are fully computerized so Hladky can keep track of how much food and water the chickens are receiving.
Hladky’s barns need a few more pieces of equipment before his birds come in on Sept. 17.
