So that’s what a branch looks like inside the trunk of a tree. It penetrates deep into the center of the trunk.
Rachel does not want to be disturbed when she is on her nest. Svenda just takes it all in stride.
Five Blossoms
Five open blossoms is what it takes for the meteorologists in Japan to proclaim that the cherry blossoms have bloomed in a city. In each city, there is one tree which is declared the reference tree, and when five blossoms on that tree have opened, a declaration is made that the cherry trees have blossomed in that city. There are even reference trees in waiting, just in case the reference tree dies.
We had more than five open blossoms on our reference tree here at a man and his hoe®. So I declared yesterday that our cherry trees were in bloom. There are still many buds about to burst open. A few more sunny days, and our reference tree will be in full bloom.
Speaking of sunshine, chickens love sunshine. They can spend hours sunning themselves in the warm sunshine. You’ll see them turning on their sides and lifting their wings to really air out.
Dinosaur? Look closely into a chicken’s eyes, and it’s not difficult to see that birds are what dinosaurs evolved into. A chicken’s beak is a formidable weapon. It’s a good thing they are much smaller than us.
How long has that rock been there? The moss knows.
And what is this? A rooster sitting on a nest? I’ve read that roosters will sometimes sit on a nest to let hens know that they’ve found a good place to lay an egg. Sven spent more than an hour on this nest this morning. At times he even got up and clucked like a hen. He did entice one hen to sit on the nest, but she didn’t stay long enough to lay an egg. Maybe he’ll have better luck tomorrow.
Counting Eggs and More
Tomorrow is egg delivery day. Most of the eggs are used by Tweets Cafe, but some are destined for retail sale. Those cartons get special treatment so that when customers purchase them and open them, they get a nice surprise with a varied collection of eggs.
Billy is no longer the top rooster. His position has been usurped by younger, more vigorous roosters. During the day, he keeps to a quiet part of the farm where the other roosters don’t venture much. He does have the company of many hens, which keep him happy. Here he is with Niji-hime and Imelda.
The sun came out, and this hen spread her body against the warm pavement to soak in the heat.
The skunk cabbage, lysichiton americanus, are up. They do smell like skunk, though not nearly so strong, though sometimes when there is a breeze blowing from their direction, you wonder what has died. Lysichiton camtschatcensis, the variety which grows in northern Japan and far eastern Russia has white blooms.
This time of year, there is so much happening. The arugula I planted last week is up. Much of the arugula you find in restaurants this time of year comes from the deserts of California. On a recent field trip to Charlie’s Produce in Seattle, I learned that due to the warmer than usual winter in California, farmers there are having a hard time growing this cool loving crop.
Hazel
Hazel is nine months old. Here are some pictures of her from June of 2013, July of 2013, December 2013, and March of 2014. She has stunning patterns on her feathers, and with her naked neck, she cuts quite the pose. At a man and his hoe®, every chicken is special.
Heat
Chickens are but a part of a man and his hoe®. The 800 garlic I planted last fall are shooting up. Come May, the garlic bed will provide a bounty of garlic scapes to enjoy. Much of this is made possible by all the manure the chicken produce. Every few months, I start a new compost pile. The current one is heating up. Much of this week it has been around 130ºF. It’s a bit cooler today as I thoroughly broke it down yesterday and rebuilt it. It will be hot again tomorrow. A good reference for composting, is The Science of Composting by the University of Illinois Extension.
Every time I turn the compost pile, I’m always amazed at how full of life it is. There are countless tiny creatures as well as billions of microscopic bacteria, fungi, and actinomycetes. Turning the compost pile immediately attracts many chickens. The pile contains a feast for them, and stirring it up makes it easy for them to snatch their favorite things. It’s like a fast food joint for them.
The brooding hen has ten days left before her chicks hatch. Does she have any idea how busy she will be then? What is going through her mind as she patiently waits?
It’s been a cool, drizzly day. When the hens have had enough of being out in the wet, hanging out under the eaves is popular.
Spring Is Here
Spring is here at a man and his hoe®. Vibrant shoots of stinging nettles bursting out of the ground prove it. The best vegetables never make it into the stores. Once in a great while, I’ve seen stinging nettles in a farmer’s stall in a farmer’s market. But here, from now through May, there is an endless supply of succulent stinging nettles to eat. The best way to describe them is spinach on steroids. Delicious steamed, fried, or used in soups, they are especially delightful made into a soup with a touch of cream.
With all the new shoots and bugs emerging, the chickens are having a field day. What a difference two sunny days in a row make.
The three hens below, Ina-Svenda, Cognac, and Kuro-hime, laid three of the eggs in the colander. I’m not sure who laid the fourth egg. Even though I gather eggs throughout the days, sometimes there are too many hens in a row using a single nest to determine which hen laid which egg. Ina-Svenda laid the egg on the far right, Cognac the dark one, and Kuro-hime the white one.
Treating Chickens Humanely – Who Laid Your Egg?
If we eat eggs, chicken, or other animals, we are all concerned about how they are raised. But it’s impossible to go visiting all the farms which produce our food, especially when we live in cities long distances from the farms. And often, it’s not clear exactly which farm raised the egg, dairy, and meat products we are buying.
So we rely on others to monitor the farms and let us know if they are treating their animals humanely. One such organization is Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC). To help consumers pick products which are humanely raised and handled, they have developed a Certified Humane label, farms and producers can place on their products. According to their webiste:
The goal of the program is to improve the lives of farm animals by driving consumer demand for kinder and more responsible farm animal practices.
This sounds fantastic, but I was wondering what they consider to be a humane way of treating chickens. So I went to their standards page where they list their standards. They have separate standards for beef cattle, broiler chickens, laying hens, dairy cows, goats, pigs, sheep, turkeys, young dairy beef, and bison.
Their broiler chicken standards has rules for feed, water, buildings, floor and litter, lighting, space allowance, thermal environment and ventilation, environmental enrichment, free-range, provisions for chicks, as well as standards covering management, health care practices, transportation, and processing.
Many of the standards seem fine, however when it comes to the space allowance, they consider giving 1 square foot for ever 6 pounds of chicken to be humane. This works out to about 1 and a half to 2 square feet per chicken. If I was purchasing a chicken which had a Certified Humane label, I would expect that it be raised in a much less crowded condition.
HFAC allows housed laying hens to be kept in even more crowded conditions. Depending on the type of housing, acceptable densities range from just 1 square foot per hen to 1.5 square feet per hen. In a hundred square foot area (a small 10 by 10 foot bedroom) HFAC will accept putting 66 to 100 hens. It boggles my mind how this could possible be considered humane treatment of laying hens.
For pastured hens, HFAC allows farmers to raise 1,000 chickens on 2.5 acres, or 400 chickens per acre. For free range hens, HFAC’s minimum outdoor space is just 2 square feet per hen.
Are these standards truly humane?
Ever wonder what the hens look like which laid your a man and a hoe® eggs? Here are photos of a few of the egg layers here.
Working Mother To Be
So what is life like for a mother-to-be hen? Most of the time, day and night, it is sitting quietly on her eggs. She is also gently turning the eggs many times a day. This keeps the embryo centered in the egg and prevents it from sticking to the shell membrane. She also protects the eggs she is sitting on and will keep other hens and predators from getting into her nest. (The squiggly lines on the eggs are ones I drew to mark the eggs she started incubating.)
Of course, a hen doesn’t have a servant to bring her food and water. At least once a day, she has to leave the nest to eat, drink, go to the bathroom, and get some exercise.
Afterwards, she is back on her nest until the next day.
Minimum Wage
The news is full of articles about raising the minimum wage. There’s no question that workers need a reasonable minimum wage in order to buy the things they need to live. Animals are no different. Now chickens have no use for money. They are not going to take a bill full of dollars and walk to the store to purchase things. However, they still deserve something of value in exchange for the eggs they provide. And what is amazing, is that the more you pay them in the way of space, pasture, and brush, the more they reward you with higher quality eggs.
The next time you purchase eggs or chicken meat, ask your grocer what sort of wages the chickens which laid those eggs receive? How much space does each hen have? How many acres of grassland do they have? Do they have roosters they can flirt with?
In the pictures below, I’ve listed a number of things I consider should be part of any chicken’s compensation package.
Mother and Daughter
The relationships mother hens have with their chicks can be rich. Watch hens interact with their chicks, and it’s clear that chicks need their mothers.
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