NASHVILLE, N.C. — When you think of a farmer, you don't think of someone growing eggs per se, but one family in Nash County knows exactly what it takes to build a farming model around raising hens that can stand the test of time and disease.
Century farms are nothing new to North Carolina — generations of farmers have worked the soil from the mountains to the coast, but adapting the agricultural model to meet today's demands takes grit and perseverance, as Trey Braswell, the president of Braswell Family Farms, knows well.
“We sell about 165,000 to 175,000 tons of feed a year,” Braswell said. “We're making bulk feed for all the animals that are feeding the world, but more specifically feeding North Carolina, Virginia and the mid-Atlantic region.”
Braswell Family Farms is one of the largest operations in the state, but it didn't start that way nearly 80 years ago when two brothers went looking for an extra source of income to help their large family get by.
“We started when we bought an old grist mill outside of town where we ground corn for cornmeal using the power of water,” Braswell said. “So we went from cornmeal to feed to actually producing some eggs, and then in the late '90s we actually started packaging and distributing eggs.”
He joined the family company in 2008, taking over from his father in 2017 and continuing to adapt in an ever-changing industry.
“We're all farmers, whether it's grains or pork or chickens and everyone that works here is farmers because everybody has a place in that process,” Braswell said. “Whether it's feeding the chickens, it's collecting the eggs, it's getting the feed out to them, being out at 2 in the morning to get eggs to the grocery store in time.”
Because of the spread of avian influenza, Braswell's hen operation is doing all it can to prevent outside exposure for its birds.
And as more and more people decide to have backyard chickens, Braswell said the potential impacts could extend far beyond a single chicken coop.
“They could be making choices at home that might impact the food supply for the majority of people, because if they're not vaccinating and sheltering their birds and things like that, they could be the source of spread,” Braswell said.
Poultry is one of the top agricultural industries in the state, and North Carolina is consistently in the top 10 states in the country for number of egg-laying hens. According to the North Carolina Poultry Federation, in 2020 there were 9 million hens laying more than 7.5 million eggs every day.
The feed industry and commercial hen operations go hand in hand, but the early generations of the Braswell family could never have imagined their tiny mill becoming the industry leader it is today.
“My great uncle was one of the second-generation members and he just died last year, and it was amazing for him to see where the business has gone because of really the blood, sweat and tears of those folks before us,” Braswell said.