Friday, April 8, 2022
CapitalPress.com 9
Survey helps flood district crews steer
clear of brown trout spawning beds
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
Alexandre Family Farm
Bernabe Luna collects eggs from a chicken coop on the
Alexandre Family Farm near Crescent City, Calif. The Al-
exandres turned a small project for their kids into a ma-
jor business that produces 20,000 eggs a day.
Family activity hatches
into full-time egg business
By CRAIG REED
For the Capital Press
CRESCENT CITY, Calif.
— A chicken-and-egg proj-
ect to give their young kids
something to do has turned
into a major operation for the
Blake and Stephanie Alex-
andre family over the past
decade.
Alexandre Kids Eggs has
grown from a small 4-H and
FFA project with 150 chick-
ens laying eggs that were sold
at the local farm market to
30,000 chickens laying daily
about 20,000 eggs that can
be found on the refrigerated
shelves in about 500 stores,
including Costco and Whole
Foods.
“It’s a special story so
we’ve been keeping our label,
Alexandre Kids Eggs,” said
Christian Alexandre, who is
now 30. “I now have two kids
myself and we live on the egg
ranch.”
Blake and Stephanie Alex-
andre, owners of Alexandre
Family Farm, are fourth gen-
eration dairy farmers.
With the help of their five
children, they’ve blended the
chicken-and-egg
business
into the farm. The dairy and
egg operations are certified
organic. The farm, by focus-
ing on the health of its eco-
logical system and not just on
high yields, has also earned
regenerative status as verified
by the Savory Institute.
Sons Joseph and Chris-
tian Alexandre and daughter
Vanessa Nunes became full-
time employees of the ranch
after each earned degrees at
Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo.
Joseph Alexandre works
on the business side, Christian
oversees the outside manage-
ment and helps with sales and
marketing, and Nunes works
in sales, marketing and pur-
chasing supplies. The parents
are also involved with man-
agement and finances.
“It was all about raising
kids,” Blake Alexandre said
of bringing chickens onto the
farm. “We raised our kids to
work hard, to understand the
farm, the soil and the pro-
cess and ultimately to con-
nect with consumers. It’s been
successful.”
When the Alexandre kids
were in middle and grade
school, the family visited
Pennsylvania and saw a Men-
nonite family with a mobile
coop and chickens. Blake and
Stephanie Alexandre saw an
opportunity for their children
and upon returning home,
purchased some chicks. A
hay wagon was turned into a
chicken coop.
While in high school,
Christian Alexandre turned
his chicken-and-egg work
into a FFA project. The proj-
ect won state and national
poultry proficiency honors.
In 2011, the FFA student was
named a California State Star
Farmer and he and his proj-
ect were one of four national
finalists for Star in Agribusi-
ness honors.
Through the years, there’s
been a couple design changes
for the coops as the chicken
population has increased, but
now 60-by-35-foot coops
are on sleds. The hatchboxes
within the coop have an arti-
ficial turf floor that slopes
slightly so the laid eggs roll
down to a fabric belt. The
conveyor belt can then be
cranked, carrying the eggs
toward a collection point.
Outside
each
coop,
a chicken netting fence
encloses about an acre of pas-
ture, keeping the chickens in
and for the most part keeping
predators like coyotes, rac-
coons, opossums and skunks
out. Each paddock contains
about 3,000 chickens.
Each Tuesday and Friday,
the coop, fencing and chick-
ens are moved to the next
acre. Each of the ranch’s 18
coops rotate over 12 to 15
acres of pasture.
“It’s a pretty efficient and
protective system,” Christian
Alexandre said.
Grazing
around
the
chicken paddocks are dairy
cows and calves. Christian
Alexandre explained the dairy
animals like to graze grass
that is 8 to 18 inches tall and
then the chicken paddocks
are moved onto the grazed
ground where the birds like 2-
to 6-inch tall grass.
“The cows are free range
and the chickens are pasture
raised, moving behind the
cows,” he said.
Blake Alexandre said that
“going the extra mile” in pro-
viding for the chickens “has
produced an extra special
egg” that has developed a fol-
lowing of consumers.
“We produce some of the
highest priced eggs, but our
chickens are on green pasture
and get organic feed,” Blake
Alexandre said. “It’s all very
natural, we aren’t artificial.
“It’s a project that turned
into a major business,” he
added.
A cooperative effort has
helped crews clearing por-
tions of the Boise River avoid
damaging spawning grounds
for brown trout.
Boise River Flood Control
District No. 10 maintenance
crews avoided about 200
brown trout spawning areas,
called redds, over a 16-mile
stretch this winter as they
cleared flow impediments
ahead of irrigation season.
The district, with Boise
Valley Fly Fishers and the
Idaho Department of Fish and
Game, last fall identified the
redds and marked them using
GPS technology. Volunteers
scouted the river looking for
them.
The district received rec-
ognition from the other part-
ners in late March as mainte-
nance season ended.
“It was a successful proj-
ect because they missed
99% of the redds by know-
ing where they were,” Troy
Pearse, Boise Valley Fly Fish-
ers conservation director, said
in a release. The workers,
who often drive heavy equip-
ment into the channel, “bent
Troy Pearse
Brown trout caught and released on the Boise River.
over backwards to make sure
they didn’t harm the redds
while doing winter mainte-
nance work.”
Pinpointing brown trout
redds is important because the
species spawns in fall to pro-
duce fry that emerge in early
spring — the same time dis-
trict maintenance crews are at
work. Brown trout make the
spawning beds of small-di-
ameter gravel.
Art Butts, Fish and Game
southwest region fisheries
manager, said the department
appreciates the partnership.
“We’ve come a long way
in the last 10 years when
it comes to managing the
Boise River in a sustainable
way,” he said.
The district at the start of
last year helped add gravel
in some areas of the river to
benefit fish. Pearse said in an
interview that the recent work
to mark brown trout redds
should increase fry counts,
which are often down in
low-water years. Snow-water
equivalent in the Boise River
Basin tracked about one-third
below normal in late March.
The district removes
debris and makes repairs
before flows increase for irri-
gation and other uses.
Crews in low-water
years can cover more river
miles in the service area,
which runs from Garden
City to Caldwell.
The work is performed
under permits from the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers and
Idaho Department of Water
Resources, and a memoran-
dum of understanding with
the state Department of Envi-
ronmental Quality.
“We work with partners
on the river,” district Proj-
ect Manager Mike Dimmick
told Capital Press. “It’s easier
when folks join hands.”
Pearse said protecting
trout and habitat are critical as
population growth increases
fishing and other pressures.
Naturally reproducing brown
trout dominate a river stretch
in the service area.
Central Washington Agricultural Museum reopens
By SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN
Capital Press
UNION GAP, Wash. — The Cen-
tral Washington Agricultural Museum
— one of the largest museums west of
the Mississippi devoted to agricultural
history — had its grand reopening last
weekend.
All exhibitions and buildings are
now open for the first time since 2019,
when many of them were closed due
to COVID-19.
The museum, founded in 1978,
was designed to collect and showcase
the agricultural heritage of the Yakima
Valley and Central Washington.
The newest exhibit is the Young’s
Cabin — a small, white building that
once housed the farmworkers who
worked in the region’s orchards and
on the farms. The exhibit tells the his-
tory of the cabins, one-room wooden
structures that were manufactured
from the 1930s through 1950s by
Young’s Lumber Co. of Yakima, a
company founded by Fred J. Young
in 1932.
The cabins were built on skids and
were easy to move.
Farmers and orchardists across
Central Washington bought hun-
dreds of the small cabins to serve as
migrant and seasonal worker housing
during that era. Prior to the inven-
tion of Young’s cabins, according
to the museum, farmworkers gener-
ally lived in cars, tents or temporary
camps.
The museum also has 33 stations
on 15 acres. Other highlights include:
• A farm equipment yard with 150
antique tractors and more than 1,000
pieces of historic machinery.
• A replica of the 1908 Keys
Homestead, a historic homestead that
belonged to a dairy family.
• The Amos Cabin built in 1917, an
example of a pioneer cabin.
• The Lindeman Building, with
historic equipment and tractor-related
exhibits.
• A working 1930s sawmill with
demonstrations.
• The Olde Yakima Letterpress
Museum.
• A demonstration of how farm-
ers used horsepower before the steam
engine.
The museum will also resume
hosting events, including Union
Gap’s Old Town Days and Civil War
Re-enactment.
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