a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Tag: Humanely raised chicken

  • Billy

    Billy the rooster
    Billy

    It takes both a rooster and a hen to create a chick. Just in the US, some 9,000,000,000 chickens are raised each year for meat. Which means that hidden from view there are millions of roosters and hens kept to pump out fertile eggs. Artificial insemination is not used much in the chicken industry. According to Marian Stamp Dawkins, Professor of Animal Behaviour, University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow in Biological Sciences, Sommerville College, Oxford:

    In commercial production, breeders are usually fed very restricted rations to prevent them from becoming overweight, obese and infertile, sometimes only 25-40% of the food they would eat if they could.

    In other words, breeding hens and roosters are kept on starvation diets to keep them from becoming too fat. If they get too fat, they can’t physically breed! Imagine how you would feel if you could only eat a quarter of what you would like to eat.

    However, this certainly is not what happens at a man and a hoe. The heritage breeds I raise don’t over eat. They won’t stay in one place and eat nonstop like the broiler breeds most chicken farmers raise. I could dump out a whole bag of grain and feed, and the chickens here will eat their fill and move on, leaving much of the grain and feed untouched. They have better things to do than sit around all day and stuff their faces. With acres of pasture and forest to explore, they would rather be outside enjoying the sunshine, courting, chasing small birds, and finding fat earthworms to savor.

    Billy is a special rooster. The first rooster at a man and his hoe. He is now five years old and is starting to show his age. He’s survived an encounter with a raccoon, when he bravely kept a raccoon from getting the hens. He’s battled with younger roosters challenging his dominant position. Over the years he’s broken a toe, and after battles with younger roosters, hobbled around while he healed. But he’s still the king of the flock and has two inch long spurs to prove it. He’s very gentle with the hens and is the favorite rooster of many of the hens.

    So when you buy chicken or eggs from me, rest assured that there are no starving breeding roosters and hens used in the process. All of the chickens here have very full lives, spending most of their time outdoors, and get to eat whenever they want.

  • Edible Recycled Chicken Manure

    Reincarnated Chicken Manure
    Reincarnated Chicken Manure

    So what happens to chicken manure when it is reincarnated? It turns into edible wonders, like these over wintering onions I pulled this morning. Most chicken farmers get rid of their egg laying hens by the time they have gone through two egg laying seasons. However, on the micro scale that I operate, the manure these older hens is as valuable as the eggs they lay. I’ve had hens live more than seven years. Billy, the oldest rooster, is five years old this year.
    Eight week old chicks with mother
    Eight Week Old Chicks

    The chicks born on December 19 are 8 weeks old now. They are still spending their days and nights with their mother. Most commercial broiler chickens are in the supermarket by 8 weeks of age. These chicks are still having the time of their lives foraging for food with their mother. Here, they are digging for earthworms next to a compost pile.

  • Staying Warm

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    Staying Warm
    Staying Warm

    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.
    Staying Warm
    Staying Warm

  • Guard Dogs

    Guard dog
    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.

  • Good Food

    Luscious Eggs
    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.

    perfect eggs
    Perfect Eggs