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.
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.
-
Enjoying the Sunshine
-
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 -
How Things Grow
The next time you are enjoying a salad or cutting greens in the kitchen, look at the greens and ask, “How long did it take for this leaf to grow?” Here is how much arugula grows in a month. The leaves are now large enough to pick and use, though it will take another month for the arugula to make a nice salad.
-
Where Chickens Like to Live
This is what chickens at a man and his hoe® roam through this time of year. The trilliums and bleeding hearts are up and blanket the forest floor. Various fruit trees will be blooming through May. As the flower petals fall, they provide the chickens with a feast.
A forest is a perfect place to raise chicks. The high canopy and undercover provide protection, while the thick layer of decomposing leaves and branches provides a feast of organisms to eat. For chicks with a mother in this lush environment, every day is jam-packed with adventure.
-
New Pullet Egg and Cherry Blossom Snow
This time of year, every day is full of surprises. This morning I discovered a pullet egg. When hens first start laying eggs, they lay tiny eggs. You’ll rarely, if ever, find them in a store, but they are beautiful and make very cute fried eggs.
The flowers are still drifting off the cherry tree and blanketing the ground like snow. There are more petals than the chickens can possibly eat.
The mint is now growing vigorously.
And the salmon berries are in full bloom. Come late June and early July, the orange-salmon colored berries will be ready to eat. They are best eaten in the afternoon on sunny days, after the sun has warmed the berries to perfection.
