every day is a good day
The Swedish Flower Chicken is a landrace chicken that developed in Sweden. Landrace is a breed which has developed over time by adapting to the natural and cultural environment in which it lives.
Swedish Flower Chickens are colorful birds. No two are alike. Here are some links to other places raising these incredible birds:
Do searches of “Swedish Flower Chickens” or “Skånska Blommehöns” and you’ll find many more stories and images of these wonderful chickens.
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Each chicken is unique. Each chicken has its own face, its own personality. You can see their personality develop as chicks. Among siblings, there are outgoing chicks, quiet ones, curious ones, timid ones. As they grow, their personalities develop and in some cases change. Have a flock of chickens and you’ll never have a boring day.
It doesn’t seem like January. The sun has been out all day and the chickens are having a great time. When you see how the chicks enjoy hanging out with their mother, even hopping on her back, isn’t it obvious that every chick deserves a mother?
Modern agriculture is all about efficiency. What is the least amount of feed we can give these chickens to raise them in the least amount of time to maximize profits? What is the least amount of money we can pay workers? What is the cheapest way we can ship this food? Those are the driving forces behind filling supermarkets with vast quantities of food. It’s not about maximizing your life and happiness.
But we are going to be on this planet for millions and millions of years to come. We need to expand our viewpoint and instead of running madly in a system driven by this quarter’s profits, we need to envision a system that will endure for millions of years and maximize happiness for everyone and everything, even the animals we raise. We are all interconnected in ways we can’t even imagine. Energy flows from one living thing to another. If you think about it, we are all just recycled chicken shit. The chickens eat the grains, the grasses, the berries. Their shit fertilizes the fields to grow incredible carrots, cabbages, and other vegetables. We eat those, so in a sense we are just eating recycled chicken shit. It all goes round and round. We all need to be healthy and happy, including the plants and animals we eat, to carry us through another million years.
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Chickens are born knowing how to take dirt baths, but when they get to learn this behavior from their mother, they sure enjoy it.
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Chickens are always looking for great places to build a nest. Yesterday I heard a white Bresse cackling by the side of a ten foot tall stump. I climbed up to the top and found a nest with eight eggs. Just one of the eggs was hers, the white egg. The mystery to uncover is what other hen has been laying eggs up there.
