every chick deservers a mother
During these dark winter days, it’s helpful to look back and be reminded of warm, sunny days. Mother hens provide a wonderful spot for chicks taking a rest. Some huddle underneath her, others around her, and some perch on her back. Every chick deserves a mother.
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At nine days, the chicks are already adept at scratching and preening. The great thing about having a mother, is that she is always nearby for a warm place to rest. It’s late December and hovering around 40 degrees F, but with a mother nearby, the cool weather is just fine for these lucky chicks.
Until I started raising chickens I had no idea eggs could be so beautiful. The variety of shapes, sizes, and colors in endless. There are few things more magical than holding an egg that is so fresh it is still warm. Nothing compares to the taste of an egg that is minutes old.
The powers that be have decided that consumers don’t need to know how fantastic eggs can be. They want you to believe that an egg is an egg is an egg, and that it doesn’t matter how old it is. Nothing could be further from the truth. The eggs from chickens which run around and exercise all day are so rich you don’t need to salt them. Their yolks are so thick and golden, that they taste incredible even raw. And if you want to make a soufflé so fluffy it practically floats away, you need an egg laid that day.
But when you need to produce eggs by the millions and millions, and make them as cheap as possible, the only way to do it is to cut costs, streamline operations, and make everything the same. Any sign of uniqueness is erased. What ends up on the store shelves are endless cartons of nearly identical blandness.
When you go to the supermarket and shop for eggs, you encounter racks and racks of identical looking eggs. You’ll never see a date as to when the eggs were laid. You’ll never see the name of the hen which laid the egg. If they are USDA graded eggs, you will see a 3 digit number which tells the day of the year (January 15 is 015, February 20 is 051, etc.) the eggs were washed, graded, and placed in the carton, however this may not be the day the eggs were laid. So you really have no idea when that egg was laid. I’ve often wondered why the large egg producers don’t want customers to know when their eggs were laid. I’m baffled as to why consumers don’t demand to know when the eggs they are buying were laid.
All this mass production and efficiency obscures the incredible variety of eggs chickens lay. It takes the fun out of getting eggs. Every carton is the same as every other carton. When you open it up, there are no surprises, nothing to make you smile. You have no idea that even the same chicken will lay a slightly different day each time. The size, shape, and shade varies slightly. Gathering the eggs throughout the day is an adventure. What did Lucky lay today? Where did Happy lay her egg this morning? No wonder so many people are bored out of their minds.
Nadia Arumugam of Forbes wrote an interesting article Why American Eggs Would Be Illegal In A British Supermarket, And Vice Versa. It’s an interesting read and one wonders how standards in developed countries can be so different.
Another good read from Forbes, is Industry has sway over food safety system by Christopher Doering.
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The chicks are seven days old now. The mother has brought them out to feed with the other chickens. It’s a sunny, beautiful day today and she may take them outdoors today for the first time.
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When a mother hen senses danger, she’ll spread her wings and puff up, doubling the size of her appearance. She starts showing this behavior even before her chicks hatch. While she is incubating her eggs, she’ll come off the next once a day to eat and drink. A brooding hen will often puff up around other chickens as if she is protecting a brood.
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The chicks are five days old. I opened their nursery so their mother is free to take them wherever she wants. The next time you buy chicken ask your grocer, “Was this chicken raised by a mother?” Don’t worry about the blank stares you get from your grocer, or that this-customer-is-nuts look on their face. You are the one who is going to be putting that chicken in your mouth. You have a right to know everything about that chicken. You have a right to demand that chicken you eat has had a wonderful life. Call me crazy, but customers are not nearly demanding enough about the quality of food grocers sell.
The chicks are four days old today and doing well. In a few more days, I’ll open the nursery so the mother can start taking them outside. Some mothers have their chicks outside right aways, others keep them close to the nursery for a week to 10 days before taking them outdoors. Each mother has her own chick-rearing style. In this age of making everything exactly the same, and turning food products into commodities to trade on mercantile exchanges, I’m taking the opposite approach. At A Man and His Hoe, no two chickens are ever the same. It’s impossible to lump them all together and treat them all the same. When you pick out a chicken in the supermarket, do you ever wonder if that chicken was a shy one, an adventurous one, a kind one, or a bossy one? There are all types of chickens. When you purchase one of my chickens, you can ask me what kind of personality the chicken had. I watch each chick as it grows. I can tell you which mother it had, and what mischief it got into.
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After three days, we get a good look of the new chicks. They are off to a good start and before long, the hen will be taking them outdoors to find lots of good things to eat. Life can be very good for chicks on a farm.
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On a winter day when snow blankets the ground, there’s always something good to eat in the compost. When it is time to turn a compost pile I can always count on chickens rushing over to feast on worms and bugs in the pile. Chickens are far from vegetarians. Skilled hunters, it is a good thing they are small. If they towered over us we would be their dinner.
It’s day two of the chicks, but you can’t see them because mother is being very protective. Hopefully I’ll be able to get a good picture soon.
And here is one of the Turken hens. Originally from Romania, Hungary, and Transylvania, they are a curious, friendly breed. I ended up with Turkens when someone nearby unexpectedly ended up with some this summer and asked me to take them.
Earlier this year I was examining chicken at a Whole Foods store and reading about the way they grade chicken. They have 5 grades of chicken and depending on the grade they tolerate from 0.5% up to 15% of a flock to have hock burn. Hmm, I thought, what is hock burn?
I discovered that
Hock burns are marks found on the upper joints of chickens and other birds raised on broiler farms. These marks are where the ammonia from the waste of other birds has burned through the skin of the leg, leaving a mark. Many meat processors now remove these marks as they discourage customers. Hock burn normally does not surpass 15% of a flock, according to poultry industry standards, but independent studies have found incidents of hock burn more common. Researchers at the University of Cambridge found that hock burn could be identified in 82% of chickens sold in supermarkets. (Wikipedia)
I was aghast. What farmer would ever raise chickens in such dire conditions that parts of their bodies get burned because they are sitting in so much shit! How can the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration allow chickens to be raised in such filth? And these deplorable conditions are so prevalent that even chicken sold at Whole Foods has hock-burn.
You will never find hock burn in any of my chickens. For one, my chickens are out and about all day running through grass, pasture, garden and woodland. Two, at night they sleep high above the ground on roosts. The straw and hay under their roosts is cleaned regularly. Their thighs are never in a situation where they would be sitting or standing in piles of shit. Chances are good that chicken you buy in supermarkets, even high quality ones like Whole Foods, is chicken that is wallowing in so much shit that it’s thighs are getting burned. Do you really want to buy and handle such meat?
Today Consumer Reports posted an article, The High Cost of Cheap Chicken, about the high levels of bacteria, including antibiotic-resistant bacteria, on most chicken sold in supermarkets. This isn’t surprising considering the deplorable conditions under which most chickens are raised. Also most chickens are fed feed containing antibiotics, increasing the likelihood that bacteria on these chicken farms will develop resistance to antibiotics. None of my chickens ever receive antibiotics. They forage for a large percentage of their food eating grass, bugs, earthworms, berries, and other delicious food they find. I supplement their diet with certified organic grains. According to the National Chicken Council
In practice, most chickens stay close to water and feed, which is usually located within the chicken house.
I’ve never had chickens that stay close to water and feed. Even if I dump out buckets of grain in the chicken yard, my chickens will feed on it for a few minutes and then move on to explore the brush, gardens, and woods. Perhaps the reason chickens on your typical chicken farm don’t venture far from food and water is because they don’t have acres of brush and pasture.
It means that the price of my chicken is exorbitant compared to other chicken, however you will be hard pressed to find more humanely raised and contented chicken.