All cooped up in the Golan

What would a Friday morning be without a stop at the local chicken coop?

So, after I got Hadas off to nursery school - actually, Chave took her there this past Friday - I went down to the chicken coop to visit the Moshav's chief chicken farmer. Do they have a special name?

I took Natan with me. He loves animals. And Friday morning is our special bonding time. Hadas used to have this time slot with me, but now she's older and has school. Soon, it'll be Yair and me.

But before we got down to the chicken coop - BAK - I stopped off to fill my car up with gas.

Now isn't this a charming picture. I know I've talked about filling up Golan style, but seeing is believing. This is what I see every time I go to the "gas station."

Okay, the car has a full tank and I drive down to the chicken coop.

The picture to the right is the new coop (with a Thailand flag I believe), but I will get to that in a bit.

I parked the car - and since there are only two people managing the place, there was plenty of parking. Then, I "snooped" around to find the guy in charge. He told me that I could visit, but it's not like in the States where you set a time and place to meet. But I figured he'd be in the office; so into the office I went.

Sure enough he was there analyzing data with a computer program that had a 3D view of the chicken coop. Here he could monitor the zones to make sure everything was running smoothly. He told me that they've been on computer for 20 years now. See, I told you the Golan farmers use the latest tech. Then we went into the coop.

Here they raise chickens for poultry meat. They get chicks and have them for approximately 40 days. This run was 45 days and he let me in because it was the end of the run. Normally, they don't go in because they're afraid of passing diseases onto to the chickens.

So, he took me into Coop #1. AKA home to 20,000 chickens!

That's right, 20,000. And if you think that's a lot, get ready for the new chicken coop. It's going to host 35,000 chickens!

Still empty, he took me into the brand new chicken coop to see what it looks like pre-chickens. Food travels down one line (the yellow and red circular dishes) and water is brought to the birds via the red ladles-like spoons. Of course, these feeding lines go down to beak level once the chickens are brought in. Everything is computerized.

After the tour, he told me to check out the river (above) and then I saw a great site: cows grazing atop the hill. Don't you think this is a great picture?

So our Friday morning field trip finished and I went back home to get Chave and Yair - we went to Qatzrin. Oh, but on the way, we saw our friend the cowboy.

All in a Golan morning.

BAK.