a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Month: April 2014

  • The Importance of Siblings

    Next to a mother, siblings are the most important relationships young chickens have. When you go shopping for chicken and eggs, the fact that chickens develop such relationships probably doesn’t cross your mind. But chicks which are raised by their mother, develop strong attachment to their brothers and sisters. So, when their mother leaves them on their own, the siblings stick together. They roost together and roam together.

    As they age, their sibling relationships get more complicated. The males and female chicks start to separate, with the males hanging out together, and the females sticking together. It’s only possible for chickens to have these sibling attachments where they are raised by their mothers and have plenty of space to be themselves.

    Siblings01
    Siblings02
    Siblings03
    Siblings04
    Siblings05
    Siblings06
    Siblings07
    Siblings08
    Siblings09
    Siblings10
    Siblings11
    Siblings12
    Siblings13

  • An Afternoon by the Pond – Chickens in Paradise

    Producing food is all about encouraging life. All kinds of life. And life is beauty, so in a way, producing food is about beauty.

    20140412-01CherryBlossoms
    20140412-04LookingIntoThePond
    20140412-06PondCherries

    So do you think the chicken you buy, or the hens who lay the eggs you eat, ever get to take a stroll by a pond on a sunny spring day?

    20140412-08RoosterByPond
    20140412-09HazelByPond

    Do you think they ever get to walk along the shore of a pond and dig for things to eat in the mud by the pond? Maybe that should be a requirement for humanely grown chicken, that they have the freedom to go digging for food on the shores of a pond. How close to nature do you want your chickens and egg layers to live? Or has this inconsequential chicken farmer gone mad?

    20140412-10HazelAtPond

  • Dinosaur Descendants

    Scientists since 1870 have speculated that birds descended from dinosaurs. In the Smithsonian Magazine article Dinosaurs’ Living Descendants, Richard Stone writes that there was a lack of evidence until a poor Chinese farmer discovered a fossilized skeleton with a birdlike skull, a long tail and impressions of feather-like structures. This discovery of bird-like dinosaurs helped paleontologists fill in blanks in the fossil record, and have convinced many, that birds descended from dinosaurs.

    Which makes me wonder if these dinosaurs were as beautiful as some of the chickens here. The feathers have so many subtle colors, and some have wild patterns that dazzle the eye

    20140412-01FeatherPatterns
    20140412-03FeatherPatterns

  • Enjoying the Sunshine

    No, there’s nothing wrong with this hen. She’s just stretching to soak up as much sunshine as possible. When hens are out soaking up the sun, they’ll stretch their legs out and contort their bodies into hilarious positions. From what I’ve observed during eight years of keeping chickens is that time out in the sunshine is a necessity. Chickens really need lots of space to lay great eggs, and they need lots of time out in the sun.

    SunbathingHen

    So how do hens in a cage-free laying barn like that pictured below get to have their time out in the sun? They don’t, and neither do most of the hens who lay those cage free eggs you see in the supermarkets.

    LayingBarn

  • Tsuneko Sasamoto – Almost 100 and Still Going Strong

    Yesterday I saw a reporter interview Tsuneko Sasamoto, a renowned Japanese photographer, who will turn 100 years old this September. In honor of her upcoming 100th birthday, there is an exhibit of her photographs at the Japan Newspaper Museum titled
    100 Years of Japan’s First Female Photo Journalist Tsuneko Sasamoto. The exhibit runs through June 1, 2014.

    As I watched the interview, it was hard to believe that the vivacious woman being interviewed had turned 99 more than half a year earlier. It made me wonder what I would be still doing at that age. Would I still be raising chickens and working the soil with a hoe? In the interview, she credited her long life to always have something more to do, to never giving up.

    Below is a video of her made October 2013 when she was 99. Even though the interview is in Japanese, you get a good idea of how active she is. It is her voice narrating the video. She was just as vivacious in the interview I saw yesterday.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wXohfgZKVk?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360]

    About Tsuneko Sasamoto in Japanese and that page translated into English