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Hayden Farms Featured in Documentary Series on Amazon Prime

The show Regular Heroes is a weekly docuseries on Amazon Prime that highlights essential workers and is narrated by celebrity guests. Perdue Farms submitted the names of Daniel Hayden and his wife, Danielle to Amazon for what they thought would simply be an interview. Little did they know that they would soon become one of three subjects in the sixth episode of the show. While our country faces the COVID-19 pandemic, food and agriculture continues to be an essential and life-sustaining industry. This episode gives a peek into how hard farmers are working to ensure that Americans are able to find nutritious food on store shelves.

Perdue nominated these Daviess County, Kentucky farmers as their cattle and poultry farm has evolved drastically in the past four decades to include top-tier beef genetics and innovative poultry barns. In 2018 they built four new broiler chicken houses. One of these state-of-the-art barns became the first in the U.S. to include a viewing room. The viewing room is an extension of the control room, which is placed in the middle of the barn. Visitors can enter the large control room and find a seat to experience the ins and outs of a modern poultry house without risking biosecurity of the flock. Four large windows allow visitors to easily see all of the controls as well as the 30,000-chicken facility.

Daniel and Danielle are both in their early 30’s and they are in the process of taking over his parents’ farm. The Amazon filming crew informed the Hayden’s that they wanted to see the farm, the chickens and follow the couple around to see what life was like during the pandemic for essential farmers.

As the crew got to know Daniel and Danielle over the 5-day stretch of filming, they learned a lot about their lives and got to see what genuine, hardworking individuals they are.  

On the final day — “reveal day” — the Hayden’s received a big surprise from the crew. The first gift was a year’s supply of N95 masks. Daniel had informed them that their farm workers have used them inside the poultry houses daily for years, but that the masks have been hard to come by due to the pandemic. The second gift was a pair of family belt buckles to represent the generational aspect of the couple taking over ownership of his parents farm.

The final gift was perhaps the most meaningful. Amazon is providing the financing needed for the first round of fertility treatments for the Hayden couple, who have been trying to work through unexplained infertility for the past three years. With this help, they’ve already been able to meet with a doctor in St. Louis as they search for ways to grow their family.

To learn more about the innovative Hayden Farm or to schedule a farm tour, visit the Hayden Farms website here.