Chicks on Brown Rice, Hens on Green Corn, Sun on the Floor

How does Cho house chickens and raise chicks so the feed is cheap and the house has no smell?

Livestock begins at 1:37:25 with slides: a 3-D drawing of a pen with airflow arrows, a long chicken pen with bamboo behind it, chicks on brown rice, a chick-rearing slide with bamboo in the brooder. At about 1:59 Cho draws the feed plot on the flip chart ('1.8m', '910株', '1800kg'). From 2:05 the layer-house slide shows hens on a straw floor under an open skylight.

• Chick starter — Cho: brown rice is the first feed. The yolk carried in the belly feeds the chick for 3 days. After day 3 give 'mother's milk', egg yolk (interpreter: boil it and shred it), with bamboo leaves. Later lots of greens 'like a cow'; in Hawaiʻi, corn leaves.
• Homemade yeast from grapes — Cho: buy burst grapes, put them in a container, cover, leave 7 to 8 hours (interpreter: about seven), stir, take off the skins and keep the flesh: that is the yeast. No sugar, no quantities.
• Fermented green-corn feed — Corn at two months (about 1 m 10 cm), cut whole with the young ears, chopped small with a chopper; add IMO4, lactic acid bacteria (Protectors, LAB) and the yeast; ferment. No quantities given.
• Feed plot (as drawn, and as checked) — Cho: one pyeong, 1.8 m × 1.8 m, corn at 20 cm spacing, 2 kg per plant. He wrote 910 plants (then 900) and 1,800 kg, enough for 9,000 chickens at 200 g. The audience's check: 9 × 9 = 81 plants, so about 162 kg per cut.
• Layer house — Skylight that opens; openings at chicken height, 36 cm; wire mesh instead of walls; partitions 36 cm high; soil floor with rice straw. House plans from CGNF Hawaiʻi.

1. Sun on a sheet-iron roof pulls fresh air through the pen

   The hot air under the roof expands, gets light and flies off; the hotter it gets, the faster fresh air comes in. Floor moisture and smell blow away. Cho's patented design; blueprint fee, 30% to CGNF Hawaiʻi.

   ▶ 1:37:29 From the slides

2. A skylight puts sun on every part of the floor at least once a day

   Bamboo forest behind the pen. No smell, no flies. German scientists and company heads asked for exclusive rights for Europe; Cho refused: farmers only.

   ▶ 1:40:45 From the slides

3. A hatchling's first feed is brown rice

   Vets and livestock nutritionists say it will kill them. Cho: these chicks eat well and grow well.

   ▶ 1:45:10 From the slides

4. A Hawaiʻi farmer with 15,000 chickens: IMO4 alone, no smell, no disease

   He visited that day. His report, as Cho tells it.

   ▶ 1:47:28 As spoken

5. Brown-rice chicks grow intestines about twice as long

   Longer digestion, so the hen can eat what was never counted as feed and still lay; feed costs drop.

   ▶ 1:49:29 As spoken

6. The yolk in a chick's belly is 3 days of food

   Chicks from the hatchery won't die in those 3 days without feed.

   ▶ 1:51:05 As spoken

7. After day 3: egg yolk with bamboo leaves

   Bamboo leaf has the toughest fiber of the green leaves; raised on it, the birds later eat softer greens and their chlorophyll easily. Raise them to eat grass like a cow.

   ▶ 1:51:42 As spoken

8. Corn grows 1 m 10 cm in two months; cut it then

   The interpreter first said 2 m 10, then corrected herself.

   ▶ 1:54:13 As spoken

9. Chop the green corn, add IMO4, LAB and yeast, ferment: top-quality feed

   Whole plant, young ears and all; don't pick the ears.

   ▶ 1:54:41 As spoken

10. Grape yeast: burst grapes covered 7–8 hours, skins removed

    Cho said 7 to 8 hours; the interpreter said seven.

    ▶ 1:55:18 As spoken

11. A grown chicken eats 200 g of feed a day

    The basis for the feed plot.

    ▶ 1:57:20 As spoken

12. A 1.8 m square of corn at 20 cm holds 81 plants, about 162 kg, not 900 plants and 1,800 kg

    Cho's board: 910株 (then 900) × 2 kg = 1,800 kg = 9,000 chickens. An audience member: 1.8 m at 20 cm is 9 by 9, 81 plants. The interpreter changed 910 to 900 and the room's point was never answered. 81 × 2 kg = 162 kg. Even 1,800 kg would be one day's feed for 9,000 birds.

    ▶ 2:01:21 Written on the board

13. Hawaiʻi is warm all year: six crops of corn, and the feed bill drops below half

    'Six times' was not interpreted; 'per year' is not clearly heard. Use a chopper.

    ▶ 2:02:28 As spoken

14. Wall openings sit at chicken height, 36 cm, so fresh air meets their noses

    A grown hen standing with her head up is 36 cm.

    ▶ 2:05:36 From the slides

15. The sun crosses the whole floor once a day; the ultraviolet sterilizes it

    Through the open skylight.

    ▶ 2:06:29 From the slides

16. Wire mesh, no walls; partitions 36 cm high. At 30 cm the hens see each other and fight

    ▶ 2:06:56 From the slides

17. Rice straw carries gochogyun (hay bacillus), which breaks down the droppings by evening

    Morning droppings are gone by evening. Scratching sinks them into the soil floor, where they turn into feed: about 30% of what the birds eat. No flies, no smell.

    ▶ 2:09:49 As spoken