a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Category: About My Chickens

An Acre To Herself

Chickens are social birds. They like to roost together. During the day they’ll hang out together in a dirt bath and gossip and kvetch. Hens will cavort with roosters and lead them on. But they also like to get away and be by themselves. They will meander off into the woods or deep into the pasture all on their own.

I read an article in Modern Farmer by Tyler LeBlanc titled Virtual Reality for Chickens – Is this the future of free range? According to the article, Austin Stewart, a young assistant professor from Iowa State University, has designed a virtual world chickens can see by wearing a Oculus Rift headset. He’s even set up a website, Second Livestock, where he discusses his ideas of giving caged or confined animals the experience of being outdoors by wearing virtual reality headsets.

It makes me wonder if either Tyler LeBlanc or Austin Stewart have even seen a live chicken. The experience of being outdoors on pasture and in woodland, is much more than just seeing those things. It is about touching the tall grass, feeling the brush, scratching the dirt with their toes, pulling earthworms out of the ground, and hunting down a field mouse. And with headsets on, how in the world are these chickens going to preen themselves?

May 17, 2014
Iris, Wysteria, and Babies

It’s Iris and Wysteria season, a terrific time of the year to be outdoors.

It’s an auspicious day to be born. These chicks are just hours old, safe and snug with their mother. The clutch is due tomorrow so these two are on the early side.

It’s a day for making a fuss. Hazel is making a fuss, but so many hens do after they’ve laid an egg. I guess if we had something as large as an egg coming out of our butt, we’d want to talk about it too.

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It’s a day for temporary art. The alcove in the entry way is a handy place to display eggs gathered this afternoon.

May 17, 2014
Egg Art

Every day the hens lay eggs with such beauty, they are small works of art. When you buy them in a store, they are cold and lifeless. But when you gather them throughout the day, they are warm to the touch, almost hot if the hen has just laid them and left the nest. You can tell they are living things.

May 16, 2014
Egg Day – May 15

Today is Thursday, Egg Day here at a man and his hoe®. Time to pedal this week’s eggs down to Tweets Café in Edison. The subtle variety in the eggs the hens lay always impresses. You never get the idea from supermarket eggs that chicken eggs come in such a riot of shapes, sizes and colors. The relentless push to sort and standardize gives people the impression that chicken eggs are all the same, and that they only come in three sizes: small, medium, large. And that they only come in two colors: white or brown.

Reality is far more interesting than that. Not only is there a vast variety of sizes, shapes, and colors, each hen lays a slightly different egg every time. They are never identical. It almost makes you believe that they scheme about what kind of egg they want to lay the next day. The really radical hens have figured out how to squeeze two yolks inside a gigantic egg, or do they lay a double egg when they feel really lucky or are hopelessly in love?

May 15, 2014
In Thick Brush

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Mother hens spend a lot of time with their chicks in thick brush. The brush provides cover from predators and their is a cornucopia of good bugs and worms to eat in the forest floor. Chickens evolved from jungle fowl, and they need to spend a good portion of their day hunting in thick brush and forest.

May 14, 2014