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.
Tag: Humanely raised chicken
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Where Chickens Like to Live
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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.
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On a Wet April Day
On a day like today, it’s easy to imagine this place is high in a mountain valley. The clouds are rolling in off the ocean and hanging low. The air is misty, with big drops of cool water collecting on the leaves and flowers.
Young roosters often like to hang around older roosters. Lately, young Daisuke has been spending a lot of time near Billy. Roosters don’t start competing with each other until they get closer to being a year old. After their mother is done rearing them, if the roosters have brothers, they will stick together. And those that don’t have brothers, may seek out the company of an older rooster.
This is Cognac, a Wheaten Maran, one of my special hens. Marans lay some of the darkest eggs of all. You can see the dark egg she laid below.
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Lucky Lays an Egg
It’s a fresh, Sunday April morning. When I fed the dogs this morning, I saw that Lucky was already in one of the dog houses. So while the dogs were eating, I closed the gate to their kennel. A few minutes later while I was making coffee, I heard Lucky clucking. She’d laid her egg.
Getting Lucky’s egg before the dogs do is a game I play nearly every day. Lucky insists on using one of the doghouses as her nest. Some mornings, she lays the egg before I even get up, and the dogs get a pre-breakfast snack. This Sunday morning, I got her egg.
There used to be more hens who liked to lay their eggs in the dog houses each morning. Now, Lucky is the only one. Most hens change their nesting spots from time to time. They’ll use one nest for a month or two, and then switch to another nest. I suppose it’s an adaptation to hide their nesting spots from predators. -
Svenda in the Woods
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So what do chickens like to do? One thing they really like is to go hunting in the woods. The underbrush is full of good things to eat. Chickens evolved from red jungle fowl of southeast Asia. So it’s not surprising that chickens enjoy spending so much time in the woods. This is what chickens like to do. So why pack them by the tens of thousands into chicken houses where they never see the outdoors?Here at a man and his hoe®, what the chickens want is paramount. It’s not about trying to produce the most eggs and meat at the lowest cost as possible. It’s about providing a farm where chickens experience the maximum amount of happiness. And after observing them for eight years, one of their favorite things to do is to spend hours in the woods. This is what humanely raised chicken look like. You can’t raise them humanely in a densely packed chicken house.