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These chicks are seven weeks and still have a ways to go before they are independent. Many broiler chicks have already been butchered by the time they are this old, and most only have another week or two before they are off to market. These heritage breed mix chicks are many months away from the dinner table.
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Staying Warm
Staying Warm Staying Warm -
Edison Bird Festival
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It’s early February – time for Edison’s Annual Bird Festival in the one and only village of Edison, Washington.
Edison Bird Festival
Where else in the world is there a festival which rollerbladers dressed as chickens racing down the main drag? It’s a short two and a half block long race and what a blast.
Edison Bird Festival
After the race, it’s time for the “Be the Chicken!” Chicken Parade. Many people bring their chickens and walk them, carry them, pull them in carts through town.
Edison Bird Festival
It was cold, clear day, perfect weather for a winter festival. If you missed it this year, make plans now to be in Edison next February.
Edison Bird Festival -
Guard Dogs
Guard Dog If you are planning on having chickens roam free, it makes a big difference if you have guard dogs. Good ones will detect coyotes venturing too close, chase off raccoons, hunt down opossums, and keep the hawks and eagles away.
Our two guard dogs are fearless. Working as a team, they chase coyotes far off into the woods. The chickens get along with the dogs so well that some of the chickens lay eggs in their dog houses. The dogs love that.
The dogs also sometimes break up roosters which get into a fight.
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Good Food
Luscious Eggs Good food makes all the difference in the world. And when it comes to eggs, it’s impossible to produce good eggs by the millions. To produce an egg as round and bright as the sun, a hen needs good food, plenty of exercise, lots of time outdoors in the sun, fresh earthworms, bugs, field mice, grass, seeds, berries, in other words, a rich and varied diet. She needs to be able to gossip with other hens, cavort with roosters, run through the woods and pasture and have a great time.
It’s not possible to do this on an industrial scale. Once you start crowding hens together, the quality of their eggs drops precipitously. But the industrial food producers don’t care about the quality of the eggs they sell. They won’t tell you the date they gathered the eggs they are selling. They won’t let you see the insides of their farms. Imagine that, a farmer who won’t let you see how they produce the food they expect you to eat. In fact, many of these industrial farmers want to make it a crime to show the public how they operate! They want to label as terrorists those who show people how their food is produced! How radical an idea is that? See Ag-gag laws. They only care about their profit margins. So hardly anyone ever gets to savor the texture and flavor of these full bodied eggs. It’s your food. You are the one putting it in your mouth. You have every right to know precisely how your food was made.
When you cook with these luscious eggs, the difference is startling. They fluff up easily. They make billowy soufflés which never fail. Fried eggs which taste rich and creamy without any salt.
But we live in a system which is consumed with making things as cheaply as possible, not with making things as good as possible. As a result, most people have no idea how spectacular a thing as simple as a chicken egg can be. And in an economy when everything is treated as a commodity, the individual differences between eggs is not allowed to be recognized. As far as the industrial food producer is concerned, one egg is the same as every other egg, and the eggs which cost the least are the best. But you and I know that this is as far from the truth as possible.
You won’t find eggs like this in the supermarket. You need to go find a local farmer who is as fanatical about the care and happiness of his chickens as you are. That’s where you’ll find perfect eggs.
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A Cold Day Doesn’t Stop These Chickens
Late afternoon This was taken this evening, looking out from the door to the chicken yard. It’s a cold day, barely above freezing, but that doesn’t stop the chickens from venturing far and wide.
The New York Times had an article today titled The Seeds of a New Generation by Michael Moss, describing corn farmers in the Corn Belt who are starting a movement by turning part of their corn fields into fruit and vegetable fields. According to the article:
The success of this movement, still in its toddler stage, could affect more than just the farmers. Field corn, bolstered by subsidies and corporate research, now dominates American agriculture and constitutes much of what we eat in processed foods. A turn toward locally grown produce would lessen the dependency on California (now plagued by drought), slash carbon emissions from trucking, make produce available to more people, increase its appeal through freshness and perhaps even lower prices.
These farmers are finding they can earn much more per acre growing fruits and vegetables than they can growing corn.