A snow day at A Man and His Hoe. Two Black Bresse hens aren’t sure what to make of it. Fortunately, the snow will be gone tomorrow.
Does Your Chicken Have Hock Burn?
Earlier this year I was examining chicken at a Whole Foods store and reading about the way they grade chicken. They have 5 grades of chicken and depending on the grade they tolerate from 0.5% up to 15% of a flock to have hock burn. Hmm, I thought, what is hock burn?
I discovered that
Hock burns are marks found on the upper joints of chickens and other birds raised on broiler farms. These marks are where the ammonia from the waste of other birds has burned through the skin of the leg, leaving a mark. Many meat processors now remove these marks as they discourage customers. Hock burn normally does not surpass 15% of a flock, according to poultry industry standards, but independent studies have found incidents of hock burn more common. Researchers at the University of Cambridge found that hock burn could be identified in 82% of chickens sold in supermarkets. (Wikipedia)
I was aghast. What farmer would ever raise chickens in such dire conditions that parts of their bodies get burned because they are sitting in so much shit! How can the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration allow chickens to be raised in such filth? And these deplorable conditions are so prevalent that even chicken sold at Whole Foods has hock-burn.
You will never find hock burn in any of my chickens. For one, my chickens are out and about all day running through grass, pasture, garden and woodland. Two, at night they sleep high above the ground on roosts. The straw and hay under their roosts is cleaned regularly. Their thighs are never in a situation where they would be sitting or standing in piles of shit. Chances are good that chicken you buy in supermarkets, even high quality ones like Whole Foods, is chicken that is wallowing in so much shit that it’s thighs are getting burned. Do you really want to buy and handle such meat?
Today Consumer Reports posted an article, The High Cost of Cheap Chicken, about the high levels of bacteria, including antibiotic-resistant bacteria, on most chicken sold in supermarkets. This isn’t surprising considering the deplorable conditions under which most chickens are raised. Also most chickens are fed feed containing antibiotics, increasing the likelihood that bacteria on these chicken farms will develop resistance to antibiotics. None of my chickens ever receive antibiotics. They forage for a large percentage of their food eating grass, bugs, earthworms, berries, and other delicious food they find. I supplement their diet with certified organic grains. According to the National Chicken Council
In practice, most chickens stay close to water and feed, which is usually located within the chicken house.
I’ve never had chickens that stay close to water and feed. Even if I dump out buckets of grain in the chicken yard, my chickens will feed on it for a few minutes and then move on to explore the brush, gardens, and woods. Perhaps the reason chickens on your typical chicken farm don’t venture far from food and water is because they don’t have acres of brush and pasture.
It means that the price of my chicken is exorbitant compared to other chicken, however you will be hard pressed to find more humanely raised and contented chicken.
New Chicks Hatched Today
[wpvideo 9ixku7Qg]
These chicks are just a few hours old. I usually do not let the hens hatch chicks this time of year, but I made an exception for this hen. For 21 days she has been incubating the eggs. Tonight, when it got dark, I moved her and her chicks to a quiet spot in a small house in the covered chicken yard so she won’t have to worry about any rain or snow. She hatched these chicks in a dog house out in the open. Tomorrow or the next day when she takes her chicks out of the house, she’ll have a private yard for her chicks, and then in a few more days, when she is ready, she will take them outdoors to explore.
If you turn the volume up, you can hear the deep, clucking sound she makes as I reach underneath her. That is the call hens make to warn their chicks that danger is nearby.
And this is what the eggs look like after they have hatched. Normally the hen or other chickens would eat these.
December isn’t the best time for hens to hatch chicks. Usually when hens go broody this time of year, I replace the eggs they are sitting on with wooden eggs. That way they will keep sitting and eventually give up trying to hatch the wooden eggs after four to six weeks. I’ve discovered that if you remove the eggs and leave the hens with nothing to incubate, they can become quite upset at losing their eggs. They go through a period where they are clearly distressed. The nearest I can describe it is that they go through a mourning period. This doesn’t happen if I let them go through a full brooding period and let them give up trying to hatch the wooden eggs.
Does it really matter taking this much care over chickens? It does to the chickens. Compared to our complicated lives, chicken lives are simpler, but they aren’t mindless creatures without feelings and desires. They are more than animal robots. Each hen has her own style of mothering. Each chick has its own personality. When you purchase one of my chickens, it has lived the most natural life a chicken possibly can.
The Benefits of Having a Mother
It’s a cool December day, but that’s no problem with a chick who has a mother. This picture was taken around noon when the mother hen was resting in the dust. All morning she’s been taking her two-week old brood far and wide to feed. When it’s time for a rest, the brood always has a warm place to snuggle under her feathers.
Is it worth it to take the time-consuming method to raise chickens this way? I often read comments from people who say, “We’re just going to eat them. Who cares how they are treated.” My response is, precisely because we’re going to eat them, it matters more than anything how they are treated. Food is not just something we consume for pleasure. Our bodies take what we eat and turn it into the energy and raw materials needed to recreate the cells of our bodies. The cells that make up our bones, hair, eyes, skin, muscles, internal organs, everything that makes us are constantly dying and new cells being made from the food we eat. Every 30 days or so, our bodies recreate all the cells of our skin. Many of the cells in our bodies live only a few days to a few months. Our bodies recreate our livers every year to a year and a half. The quality of the food we eat determines the quality of our bodies.
When chicks have a mother, it’s only a matter of days before they get to adventure outside and explore this wonderful world. Hatchery chicks need to wait two to four weeks until their feathers have fledged and they can tolerate the cold on their own. Chicks with a mother always have a warm mother nearby to warm them up when they get too cold. And at night, they can sleep in the dark without having to sleep under the constant light of a heat lamp.
Raising a Clutch – The Value of a Mother Hen
Until Madeleine secretly hatched a clutch of nine eggs under a porch in May 2010, I was content to purchase baby chicks and raise them.
When they were just a few days, she brought them out to explore the big wide world.
It didn’t take long to realize that a mother hen offers a lot to baby chicks. Not only does she show them where to find food and water, she provides a warm place to take naps. You don’t need any heat lamps when you have a mother hen. You don’t even need to get starter scratch. A mother hen will crack larger grains for her brood, and if given the freedom to roam outdoors, she’ll dig up plenty of bugs and worms for them. Chicken farmers who raise broiler chickens on pasture don’t actually let their chicks outdoors until they are four weeks old. By using mother hens, my chicks get to be outdoors enjoying the sun, pasture, woodland and creeks within a few days of hatching. They also are often outdoors at the crack of dawn, and stay out until it starts to get dark.
And she keeps careful watch over them as she takes them around.
By the time the chicks are two weeks old, they are running all over the place. It takes a lot of work for a mother hen to keep her brood together.
Chicks are very curious and love exploring new places.
Here they are at three weeks.
And by the time they are a one month old, Madeleine is ready to set them free.
Her mothering done, Madeleine takes a well deserved stroll through the woods.
After watching all the care Madeleine put into raising her brood and how much her chicks loved having a mother, I decided that as much as possible, I’d leave the chick rearing to mother hens. The next time you pick up your chicken in your grocery store or farmers market, ask if it was raised by a loving mother.
How fast does a chick grow?
So how fast does a chicken grow up? Here are some pictures of Lucy and Sunny. Sunny hatched October 14. Usually hens hatch clutches of 6 to 15, however once in a while we have hens who end up with single chicks. With the weather getting colder and wetter, I try to keep hens from hatching clutches after September, but sometimes hens surprise you.
Here is Lucy and Sunny on October 15. Sunny is just one day old.
By November 9, Sunny is nearly fully fledged.
Here the two are on November 23, Sunny is nearly six weeks old. Many broiler chickens weigh 4 to 6 pounds by this age and are ready to be processed
And here is Sunny on November 30, almost eight weeks old. She has at least another four months to go before she is fully grown.
Next week, Sunny will be two months old. Its about the age at which hens stop raising chicks and let them be on their own. Since Sunny is an only chick she will most likely hang close to her mother for another month or more. Chicks with siblings have an easier time leaving their mothers. They’ll hang out together and form a clique that lasts a long time. Without siblings, single chicks take longer to develop their adult friends.
And here is Sven, our Swedish Flower Chicken rooster. He has a very impressive crow.
Early winter sun and new chicks
None of the chicken you buy at your favorite store ever get to spend time in the sunshine with its flock. Chicken you buy in stores are almost always hens, and not a single one ever got to flirt with a handsome rooster.
And you won’t find a single chicken for sale which ever got to spend time with its mother. Does it make a difference? It does to the chick, and having a mother gives the chick a great deal of comfort. There’s always a warm place to sleep at night and to take mid-day naps. And mother is always there to protect it.
Normally I don’t let broody hens hatch chicks this late in the year, but this year there are several determined hens. This is a two day old chick stepping outside to catch up to its mother.
And out in the woods is a scarecrow – not to frighten off any crows, but to stop any coyotes who venture too close. I recently saw a news report about scarecrows from around the world. According to the report, in Mongolia scarecrows are used to ward off wolves from flocks of sheep. So we’re putting up scarecrows in the woods to protect our chickens. Our two guard dogs do a great job, but there’s no harm in assisting them.
