Job Opportunities
Apply Now for 2025 Farm Hand Position!
Job Description:
Are you a passionate, dedicated farmer who is exited about regenerative agriculture and wants to integrate into the Sequatchie Cove Farm team as we continue to improve our production methods and grow our Pasture Raised Egg and Grass fed Lamb operations? Then this could be a great opportunity for you! This is a physical and sometimes dirty job that requires frequent heavy lifting and handling of farm materials and livestock out in the elements rain or shine. Working with livestock requires being very attentive to details and also understanding that various livestock have various specific needs, and the understanding that working with live animals means lack of proper care can mean their health or sickness and even life and death. Organizational skills are also important in order to help manage egg inventory, weekly order quotas and have a general idea of how the many moving parts of the farm fit together. This position requires availability to work 5-6 days per week totaling 30-40 hours. Starting at $15/hr pay increases with experience.
Farm Hand Responsibilities Include:
Completing morning tasks before chicken chores begin. Morning tasks vary day to day and usually consist of rotating our flock of sheep and moving portable fencing to set up future paddocks. Frequency of pasture rotations depend upon the time of year, which area of the farm the animals are in among other factors. Mornings start either at 7 or 8 depending on schedule.
Depending on the day, farm hands may be expected to work independently in the mornings after proper training.
Completing chicken chores alongside the rest of the farm team. The field work portion of chicken chores requires feeding our flocks of laying hens, providing them with fresh water, and collecting all of the eggs from each flock (9:30 am-10:30 am)
After feeding hens and collecting eggs, all of the eggs need to be sorted for sale. This includes washing dirty eggs, sorting out any cracked eggs, and sorting eggs based on size (medium or large). Eggs go into cartons for retail sale or flats for restaurant wholesale. (10:30 am-12:00 pm)
Farm hands will need to keep up with all required recordkeeping. For example, recording walk-in cooler temp daily, recording separate daily egg counts for each flock of hens, recording any dead hens found in the field and more.
The ideal candidate would have experience driving a tractor or a willingness to learn tractor skills in order to help with moving laying hens through pasture and complete other farm tasks for which the tractor is needed.
Afternoon chores include feeding the laying hens a small afternoon snack, cleaning their water troughs and gathering afternoon ground eggs. Farm hands will also have to feed and water the pigs and may have to check on our sheep flock and give them fresh water too. All afternoon ground eggs will also get washed and left overnight to be sorted during the next day’s egg chores. (1-1.5 hours in the afternoon between 12 and 3 pm)
There may be other afternoon tasks and inflaming projects such as fencing, coop maintenance, cleaning nesting pads etc. depending on the time of year and what else may be going on at the farm.