Chickens at work, Part 2

In one of my previous posts I wrote about my new approach to letting people know that we have a massive chicken farm. I was just testing which way is better for me - letting people get to know me first and then telling them about our chickens OR just telling people that we have hordes of chickens and see what happens. Telling people upfront apparently has worked better!!! The proof is the picture above. Today the organization-wide email went out to invite everyone to the company's annual picnic. The picture of chickens playing soccer was a part of it! It's wonderfully weird, can't describe it.

Buying poultry

Photo: nukeit1

Here is another article on buying poultry from Wisebread - Supermarket Angst Part III: How to Buy Better Poultry. I can't put it better - community agriculture is the way to go. You have to go and see for yourself where your chicken comes from. You need to visit your meat, ask questions. The more you know, the better you eat.

However, growing chickens moved us closer to being vegetarians. Farmer Boy is a meatarian. He likes his steak. But if you look at our consumption of meat since he got chickens - we eat less meat. I still buy turkey and chicken meat from Costco and organic black Angus (once a year) from Trader Joe's. Overall, we eat less meat. Part of it, I signed up for Terry's Berries farm share (about $28-30 a month). We get a lot of veggies and fruits, which forces us to eat it all within the same week. It also simplified my cooking and spending. I am forced to cook and eat what we already get.

Buying eggs

I recently had a long conversation with my professional (non-farming) friends on buying healthy eggs and chicken meat. I haven't bought eggs from a store for about 4-5 years. I feel that our eggs taste, feel, and bake differently. Our chickens run around, eat grass, bugs, organic feed. They are also not regular layer hens, they are really jungle fowl. I have less worries about whether our eggs full of pesticide, which they probably have some, just like anything else.

However, our friends, who live and shop in the city, don't have an opportunity to have their own chickens. They buy things. So when they asked us how to go about buying good eggs, we told them to find a local chicken farm, ask questions, visit those chickens, and judge for themselves. Another thing - read and educate yourself. I was surprised to learn that they think "free-range" is a meaningful label. It is not, free-range doesn't mean chickens actually ran around. It just means a coop door was open for a certain period of time. That's it!

If you are serious about finding good eggs, you are forced to be an educated consumer. Nobody will do it for you. All those labels mean nothing, really. Here is a well-balanced article about buying eggs from Wisebread -

Supermarket Angst Part II: What Eggs Should I Buy?

Gaiam on chickens

It is amazing how nowadays chickens find their way into everything! Even Gaiam published an article about an urban couple and their experience in urban homesteading. I was surprised, I have never thought of Gaiam to be more than a source of overpriced yoga mats and bizarre trinkets. But I am cheap and not hip, so what do I know!

The article, Chickens In Suburbia: One Couple's Foray Into Urban Homesteading, is a good read for anyone who wants an intro into urban homesteading. Everett Sizemore went from knowing nothing about homesteading to owning chickens, bees, growing a garden, and starting the Greater Denver Homesteading Group.

It is a great story of how average people can do it. It’s amazing how much the couple has done. I wish they said how long it took them to go from zero to now. What is the most impressive, owning and growing chicken is hip now. So does it mean I am hip too?

Tour De Coops

(from Growing Gardens)

This year I heard about Tour De Coops, an event in Portland, OR. It is only 3-4 hour drive from us. I really wanted to go. However, it overlapped with a work-related event. And work comes first. If you went, please let me know how it went. I have been reading it's a really successful event, which attracts many people. I am planning to go next year, unless my work interferes again.

Chickens at work

I recently have started a new job. The issue of chickens came up really fast. Farmer Boy doesn't feel comfortable telling people that we grow chickens in the city environment. Mostly, it's because of my work environment - lots and lots of professional folks, who are not into farming. My arguments that many people are into chickens nowadays don't convince him. He begs me not to talk about chickens at work. People do look down on him because he doesn't dress or appear certain way. I disagree. First, I am proud of his achievements in breeding! Second, there is nothing wrong about chickens. If we, professional folks, just talk about self-sufficiency and food security, but don't actually do anything (grow chickens, grow gardens), it's just blah-blah-blah and our words and degrees are worth nothing!

So at my previous job I slowly disclosed to people that I live on a chicken farm. Most people were extremely surprised. They would chuckle every time they ask how our chickens are doing. So I decided to change my approach. When our HR asked me to write my introduction at my new job, I gave them something like - " Undomesticated Wife and her award-winning chicken-breeding husband support the environmental movement by chickens within the urban environment...... " and on and on and on. Just 3 sentences. The technique worked - nobody chuckles, nobody snickered. Several days later I found out that our Director of Operations has 5 chickens, and our Office Manager is planning to get hens. Nobody thought it was weird that I live on a farm, married to a farmer, and believe in farming. I wonder if it's just a different crowd, or maybe nobody even read my intro.

Overall, it's been easier just to tell people right away about our chicken obsession than to ease co-workers into it.

Gangsters, ragamuffins, muffins, munchkins

Our fierce warriors, terror of the chicken yard! Something happened, and their mama abandoned them when they were barely 3-4 weeks. She pecked and fought them, they fled. Timing was good, if it was winter time, they would be in the garage under the heat lamp. They spend several weeks under a massive pear tree, hiding from any possible danger and big chickens. They survived their vulnerable motherless stage.

First, they were cute, with their baby fluff and all. Then they started losing their baby cuteness and went patchy bald. Farmer Boy started calling them gangsters, I called them ragamuffins. Farmer Boy also called them munchkins at one point. "Muffins" stuck with them. They are about 3 months old, and they look big and strong. They come running out to great Farmer Boy and me. They recognize us, they talk to us, they come and sit with us. It is really heart-warming. Some chickens grow up and forget the bond they had with us. Some chickens remain our "doggies", they follow us around, they remember us, and they trust us when we handle their babies. I wonder what it will be like with our muffins.