Port Townsend poultry farmer looking to expand
Published 1:30 am Saturday, June 6, 2026
PORT TOWNSEND — Now in her fourth year as owner-operator of Port Townsend-based Mollayo Farm, a poultry operation which raises chickens and turkeys, TK Trocano says the work she loves could not succeed without the support of her community.
While building her business has required different forms of support, Trocano is the sole employee of the operation, which produces 1,000 high-quality, pasture-raised meat birds annually.
That number includes three rounds of chickens and a round of turkeys leading into Thanksgiving.
Ordering chicks happens in the winter, with Trocano raising 300 at a time. The chicks will stay in a brooder, a warming house which simulates time spent under a hen’s wing, until they grow their feathers, which takes about three to four weeks. Then they’re moved into one of three chicken tractors.
Trocano pulls the tractors, rectangular structures which house 100 chickens, with a 4-by-4 Kubota RTV, which she purchased with grant money. The tractors are moved daily, birds inside, allowing the birds to graze on new grass.
The birds also have organic feed available at all times.
Mollayo Farm is based on 5 acres of Natembea Farms, a 97-acre piece of land in Port Townsend city limits. Along with Mollayo Farms, lessees include two market garden operations, a flower farm, a native plant nursery and a sheep co-op.
Chickens are harvested in the spring, summer and fall. The next harvest, which will take place at the end of the month, is not yet sold out. Chickens, which must be picked up on the property within 48 hours of being processed, can be ordered at tinyurl.com/mr2f6kpf.
When she started the business, Trocano quickly realized she would also have to process the birds. Processing starts the night before, when Trocano pulls the birds’ feed to reduce the mess they make the following day. Also, she captures the birds into chicken crates the night before, when they are calm.
On processing days, Trocano hires help, who work at stations.
After the birds are dispatched, they are moved to a scalding station set to a precise temperature to loosen the feathers, followed by an automated plucker lined with rubber fingers that spins the carcass clean. Finally, workers remove the internal organs and place the chickens into an ice-filled chill tank to rapidly cool the meat for food safety.
Trocano noted she has sold out of birds every year so far. Many are repeat customers, a testament to the quality of the meat, she said.
“I was shocked when I started eating my chickens,” she continued. “The chicken has really beautiful yellow fat on it, and the meat, if you break it down, it’s so red, not in a bloody way. It just looks very rich.”
Trocano said her husband Sam Trocano’s spatchcock-style preparation is her favorite. Trocano also recommends keeping the bones to make a delicious broth.
Mollayo Farm started on River Run Farm in Sequim in 2023. When Trocano moved to the Olympic Peninsula in the mid-2010s, it was to work at River Run, where she worked four or five seasons. Her work spanned a number of responsibilities, including field crew, harvest manager, greenhouse production and managing Seattle farmers markets.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Trocano moved to Driggs, Idaho, to work on a farm raising pigs, laying hens, sheep and goats. Her work revolved more heavily around livestock during that time.
“I realized that it fit me a bit better to work with livestock,” she said. “It made more sense and felt a little more intuitive to me.”
Poultry seemed like an easy way into raising livestock because they have a quick turnaround and pretty low upfront investment, she said.
After she moved back to Sequim and built a small suskovitch-style chicken tractor on a friend’s property, Trocano started by running two rounds of 30 birds to test the waters.
Trocano assessed that there were very few people producing pasture-raised poultry in the area and that it was likely a good niche market to enter.
The trial taught her that she needed to acquire carpentry skills and learn to process the birds herself, as there were no other local options available. She subsequently enrolled in the carpentry program at Peninsula College while she launched her business.
Anna Bunk and Noah Bresler, owners of River Run Farm, had field space available and said she could use it. Her first year was a success. She raised and sold 120 chickens.
Trocano moved to Port Hadlock to be near her now husband, Sam, in 2023. Having met Devon and David Pablo Cohn, owners of Natembea Farms previously, a conversation with a Port Angeles farmer led her to reach out to them again, and that eventually resulted in her basing her operations on the property.
Trocano has partnered with three other Olympic Peninsula farms — Centerstone Community Farm of Sequim, The Sawtooth Ranch of Joyce and Hidden Penny Farm of Port Angeles — to install a processing facility at Moonlight Meat Processing in Sequim. The group recently won a $40,000 state Department of Agriculture grant, which they used to purchase a trailer and outfit it with processing equipment.
They still need to raise about $30,000 to finish the project, which they hope to do by the end of the year. A GoFundMe page can be found at tinyurl.com/35hkp69e.
The group also will hold a fundraiser at Lincoln Park Grocery, 1500 W. Lauridsen Blvd., Port Angeles, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. July 4, and it plans to hold another fundraiser later in the year.
The processing trailer will allow Trocano to move from the annual limit of 1,000 meat birds to a maximum of 20,000 — a much higher number than she expects to produce. It also will allow for her to sell her meat products at farmers markets, to restaurants or through wholesale channels while keeping inventory on hand rather than being legally restricted to on-farm pickups within 48 hours of a harvest.
The group plans to rent the facility to others in need of a processing space, like a shared commercial kitchen, at some point in the future, Trocano said.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.
