January 2014

January 10, 2014

Roasting a Rooster

This is a seven and a half month old Golden Buff rooster, butchered at 224 days, and let to rest for four days in the refrigerator. Three to four days is a good time to let a chicken rest before roasting, especially these chickens which exercise so much every day.

These are not birds which sit around all day, doing nothing but eating and growing fat. They aren’t crowded together cheek by jowl. What they do provide is a big story and a big taste. A chicken does a lot of living in seven months. As chickens go, it’s seen the world, traveled far from it’s roost every day, had the chance to experience romance and live a full life. At times they go so deep into the woods they can’t see another chicken. You’ll never find chicken like this in your supermarket.

January 10, 2014

Three Week Old Chicks

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At three weeks the chicks are traveling a long distance with their mother. At times she is the one who is following them as they go in search of good things to eat.

Worms and bugs make up a big portion of a chicken’s diet. They are great to have around to keep the bug population in check. But if you are growing vegetables or flower beds, you need to keep them out, or they will quickly dig up all your vegetables and flowers as they search for worms and bugs.

January 6, 2014

17 Day Old Chicks

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At 17 days of age, these chicks are spending most of the day outdoors. Their mother takes them outside at the crack of dawn in search of good things to eat. In a matter of hours, they will travel further than broiler chickens travel their entire lives. When you see how far chickens like to go in search of food, you understand how intolerable it is to raise them in densities of one chicken per square foot. With a mother, chicks enjoy a very rich life.

January 5, 2014

Fresh Liver

You’ll never find liver like this in the store. Liver from chickens which exercise much of the day, get plenty of fresh air and sunshine, is plump and dry.

When chickens are out walking all day, rummaging for food, playing, and having a good time, they are pumping copious amounts of oxygenated blood through their bodies, much like people who exercise. Chickens raised in cramp quarters and butchered at a very young age, never attain the level of health of chickens raised outdoors. And this shows in the quality of their livers.

Fried in butter, chicken fat, or olive oil for several minutes on each side, it has so much flavor that no salt is needed. In fact, you should first taste it before adding any salt. Often salt, instead of enhancing the flavor of foods, just makes foods taste like salt.

Liver is best eaten within a few hours of processing a chicken. Are there any stores which sell chicken liver from chickens butchered that day? Let me know if you find one. The next time you buy chicken liver in a store, ask the grocer when the liver was taken. If they don’t know, what does that say about their concern for the quality of the food they sell to you?

January 5, 2014

Frosty Morning

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<p>A little frost doesn’t bother the chickens. It’s a cloudless morning and the sun will soon melt the frost.</p>

January 4, 2014

Rooster Cull

A sure sign that there are too many roosters roaming about is to find hens on their roost during the day. Young roosters especially can harass hens more than the hens want.

So after you’ve caught a rooster to cull, what tools do you need to take care of him? Not many. The tools below will suffice.

Today’s cull resulted in a four pound plus rooster. But as you can see, this one has had his share of battles with other roosters.

Nevertheless, it will end up making a wonderful roast. At seven months old, it is also a good candidate for canning.

Maintaining of flock of roosters, hens and growing chicks, is nothing like raising meat chickens by the tens of thousands. The dynamics of chicken culture are complex. Hens like roosters and you often see them flirting with their favorite ones. At the same time, too many young roosters can be a pain in the ass for hens, not to mention a threat to the older ones. But the rewards are worth it. The eggs are out of this world. The variety, flavor, and texture of these chickens just can’t be found in any store.

January 4, 2014

16 Day Old Chicks

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The chicks are 16 days old today. Their mother is taking them for an adventure along a woodland stream. The lives of chicks are greatly enriched by having a mother. Large, commercial operators talk about enriching the lives of chicks, but their concept of enrichment consists of hanging bunches of string, giving them sand boxes, or hay bales as described by PoultryHub – Environmental Enrichment. Really? Is that all? Which would you rather have? Chicken which got to play with a bunch of string, or chicken which was raised by its mother?

January 3, 2014

Sharp beaks – happy chickens

Healthy chickens have very sharp beaks. They need them to peck at food, dig in the dirt, and when hunting, to kill their prey. Chickens will quickly spear and kill a field mouse. Chicken beaks are complex organs with many sensory neurons which help the chicken sense things. Sadly, most commercial hen layers are debeaked as chicks. The reason is that when chickens are crowded too close, a chicken will peck to tell the other chicken it is too close. With crowded chickens, this pecking can cause injury and once a chicken develops a wound and starts to bleed, other chickens will peck at the wound leading to severe injury and death. But all you have to do is give the chickens enough room and they won’t peck each other. The next time you buy eggs, ask your grocer if the hen that laid your egg was debeaked.

Chickens at A Man and His Hoe are never debeaked.

January 3, 2014

January Sun

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The sun is out this January morning. Chickens enjoy lots of sun. You can’t raise healthy chickens without letting them soak in all the sun they want, and letting them roam as much as they want. The next time you buy chicken, ask your grocer, “How much sun did this chicken get? How far was it allowed to roam? Did it ever get to chase another chicken around a tree, or cross a bridge over a stream? Eat a tadpole or a frog?”

January 2, 2014

Two Week Old Chicks

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The chicks are two weeks old today. Even though it’s a wet December day, their mother is taking them a long way from the cozy, dry barn where they bed down during the night. Flower beds are favorite spots for chickens to scratch, so if you are planning on getting chickens and want beautiful flower beds, you’ll need to pick one or the other. Or you’ll need to protect your flower beds with fencing.

Out at the edge of the woods, when it’s time for protection or to get out of the steady rain, the chicks will huddle underneath their mother. A little rain doesn’t stop her.