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When chickens fly coop, farmer converts to storage unitsCAMERON, N.C. (AP)--Most of Darr Koshak's life has been spent raising fryer chickens. But in 2003, when Mountaire Farms decided not to send any more flocks to his 107-acre farm, Koshak had to find another way to scratch out a living. His solution: converting his six chicken houses into storage buildings. "I knew the buildings would kind of deteriorate if I didn't do something with them," Koshak said from a wood paneled office inside one of his chicken houses. Through a door adjoining his office, a cannon, a restaurant booth and chairs, a few boats and a car sat where 20,000 chickens used to roost. Litter had been replaced by gravel. The delicate smell of laundry detergent left over from heavy power-washing hung in the air. An orange Kubota tractor that, for $4, pulls loads in and out of the chicken houses, sat in a corner. "I appreciate what I got," Koshak said as he looked into a half-empty storage building. Getting his business started wasn't easy. In 1987, Koshak tired of his job as manager of a Pennsylvania textile factory. His father, Edward, had been ill and Koshak longed for the chicken farm. He bought the farm that year, and his younger brother, Dac, came to work with him at Double D Farm in 1988. The brothers spent most of their waking hours fretting over their flocks and working with the field managers, who represented the large poultry processors who owned their chickens. The field managers often would ask the farmers to upgrade equipment , sometimes at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. In 2003, Double D Farm was given a choice: raze its conventional tin chicken houses and build tunnel houses or "go black." Facing a cost of about $400,000, Koshak chose to "go black." He put up plastic tarps that are black on the inside and white on the outside over the large openings of his chicken houses, leaving only a small slit where sunlight shines through. The tarps are supposed to keep the chickens cooler and calmer, allowing them to grow larger. But they didn't grow large enough. Koshak was told if he didn't convert to the tunnel houses, he had to rank high on the poultry processor's list of top producing farmers. He missed the cut. Koshak lived off his savings, did odd jobs and sold restaurant equipment while trying to figure out what to do with the farm. At first, he considered converting his chicken houses into horse stalls and renting space to boarders. "Then I started thinking back to when I was a kid," Koshak said with a laugh. "Somebody's got to muck those stalls." He also thought about raising quail that local hunters could buy to train their bird dogs. "Then I started thinking, 'If you don't sell them all what are you going to do? Eat quail for the next three years,"' he said. His third idea came from an insurance agent, who suggested the 52-year-old farmer convert his tin chicken houses into storage space for boats, RVs and other vehicles. The agent told Koshak that some of his clients couldn't find storage for their boats because other storage businesses were full. "I felt like, after doing some research, the opportunity was there," Koshak said. "If you could ever get it up and running, it would go pretty quick." Converting the chicken houses into storage units was less expensive than his other ideas, too. After a couple loads of gravel, a security fence, some cameras and a 20,000-gallon dousing of the chicken pens, Koshak opened Stow Away Storage in late 2005. Things went smoothly until early 2006, when the Department of Transportation told him he had to take down a sign he'd erected on his land near U.S. 1. Shortly after that, Moore County zoning officials told Koshak he needed to have his land rezoned if he wanted to operate a storage business. "I thought I was doing the right thing when I initiated the whole deal," Koshak said. Before he opened his chicken houses for business, Koshak said, he took his contracts and business plans to county and state officials. He said officials at both levels told him he could open his business without filing any paperwork, so he went ahead with his plans. After getting notice from the Moore County zoning department, Koshak started going through the permit process, which was more expensive than he realized. To cut down on costs, he haggled over the type of bushes needed to screen his fence. He won a debate over whether he needed a handicapped accessible bathroom, cutting thousands of dollars in costs. He saved thousands more by doing a little remodeling to his chicken houses. "I drove a bulldozer through the center there," he said. "I hated to." To circumvent the state fire code, Koshak divided his 20,000 square-foot chicken houses into two buildings under 12,000 square feet. The code requires a sprinkler system or fire wall in any building 12,000 square feet or larger, Koshak said. His alterations were accepted by the Moore County Board of Commissioners, which approved his rezoning request in early April. "I didn't expect them to change the rules for me, by no means," Koshak said. The former chicken farmer is going through the formal procedure of requesting a resolution change, which would allow him to store vehicles outside of his storage buildings. Koshak already had agreed to store a couple of campers before he realized he was in violation of the county's zoning ordinances. Koshak shrugged his shoulders when asked whether he thought the storage business would bring in the roughly $22,500 he earned yearly as a chicken farmer. "I don't know if it will fly," he said. "It's a shot." Date: 7/26/07
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