Biosecurity for Birds

(from USDA)

USDA is concerned about the Avian Flu. They actually released several publications, which you can order online.

Somehow, the publications fail to mention that humans are the direct source of this problem.

Everything I Want to Do is .......... actually fashionable and trendy nowadays.

I like Joel Salatin. I am nothing like him and not as opinionated, but I like him. He reminds me of my own Farmer Boy. It also reminds me that several martial arts weapons came from farmers using their farming equipment to protect themselves.

Recently Tree Hugger published an interview with him. My favorite part is when he tells people to turn off the TV and get to know a local farmer.

Backyard Chickens (Bantams this time)

Living the Country Life had a short and sweet article about growing bantam chickens. Their main idea - if you don't have enough space, grow bantams. I must agree that bantams are cute. However, a bantam takes no less space or time to grow. However, it's up to you to decide.

If You Buy and Eat Chicken Meat (very traumatic)

It's not every day that Tree Hugger and PETA agree on the same thing. Well, it's not every day that anyone agrees on anything with PETA nowadays. However, the chicken industry has bahavied unacceptably for many many years.

Please remember to support your local organic chicken growers or grow your own chickens!

Warning: this is very traumatic - baby chicks are ground alive

Hatchery Horrors: Video Shows No Mercy for Baby Chicks By Christine Lepisto

New Undercover Investigation: Chicks Ground Up Alive from PETA

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.

Thousands of chickens die in a fire at a Stanwood farm

From Komo News:

Thousands of chickens die in a fire at a Stanwood farm.  

"...The three buildings - each about 60 feet wide and 600 feet long - burned to the ground with chickens inside.

Firefighters estimate the damage at $2.2 million...."

I can't even imagine the devastation.  When you are a farmer, it's not just your livelihood, it's your life.  I am sorry to see another farm disappear.  Recent floods and other emergencies have been claiming farms all over the state.   I strongly believe in local farms, their simple and direct connection to every aspect of our lives.  

Recently, when Farmer Boy wanted me to stop our organic share from Terry's Berries, I said no.  Buying organic fresh produce from a local farm is not just a whim or trend for me.  I am putting my money where my mouth is.  Buying local and local organic products (produce, eggs, meat, etc) is my political stand.  I do not know whether this farm was organic, but it is local.  The less we have local farms, the less we are connected to the reality. 

Chickens are stars of Sunset, April 2009

(Elizabeth Jardina with her chicken Ruby, Sunset Magazine April 2009, Photo: E. Spencer Toy)

Sunset Magazine published a short article about growing laying chickens - How to Raise Chickens.  It is short, sweet, and good for beginners.  I would warn though - you don't have to buy a coop, you can build one very easy and fast. There are many resources of building a chicken coop online.  Also, the article doesn't mention that they need a roost inside the coup, not just "... a secure hen-house with a roof to sleep in...". 

Chickens and gardening - massive misrepresentation!

(Sunset Magazine, April 2009, Photo: Jim Henkens)

Sunset Magazine, April 2009, had an article on growing veggies in your own yard - Digging into Veggies.  The first part of the article is about Willi Galloway from Seattle.  She gives tips on how to grow a garden.  I am not an expert on gardening, so I have no comments there.  

The part that really bothered me was a picture, which is not online, where Willi is feeding chickens in her garden.  It's really a shame that the magazine failed to mention the most important tip - keep the chickens out of your garden!  People, who do both, separate chickens and gardens.  Chickens destroy gardens and lawns - they eat everything, they scratch the ground, they will eat your veggies and tomatoes.  

I am sure Willi does keep them separate, otherwise there would be no garden to brag about.  Another explanation - those chickens are just models! 

Chicken-friendly dog

We are dog-sitting Baba (our friend's dog).  He is half lab and half pit bull.  But nobody told him that he is a pit, and he is not smart enough to figure it out on his own. He is a sweetest-sweetest dog; all he wants is to be petted and be played with.  He is very gentle.  He doesn't bark at all, he doesn't pay attention to other dogs, he doesn't bite, he doesn't even chase chickens.  Actually, he is terrified of chickens. In the picture he is whimpering, because the rooster is too close to him, even though there is a fence between them.  He is looking at Farmer Boy, begging for protection.  

When I get stressed out, I go to the yard and play with Baba.  He just wants attention.  He is not the brightest dog, but he has so much love for us.  If only I could clone him and keep him forever.  Did I say that he is good with chickens?  A chicken-friendly Baba.

Washington Feather Fanciers' 29th Annual Spring Show

(our show bird)

Washington Feather Fanciers' 29th Annual Spring Show

will be held on May 30th, Saturday, in Chehalis, WA. 

I am excited to finally see this event.  In 2007 it was scheduled for November/December, and then we had a major flooding of Chehalis area.  So the show was canceled.  

We plan to attend and just watch.  Farmer Boy thought of entering his birds.  However, showing a bird is time-consuming and stressful for the owner and, most importantly, for the show birds.  I really wanted us to enter, since our birds are rare.  Bird breeders get excited when they see our chickens.  But it would cut into Farmer Boy's work time. 

I will write about the show later.  If you are interested in attending, for details see http://seattle.craigslist.org/oly/grd/1174733662.html. 

Cow Racing and Tipping

I know a lady, whose last name before marriage was Farmer.  She married a farmer boy, lives on a cow ranch, and she is not really a farming person.  We constantly make fun of her maiden name.  

Her husband grows (farms, breeds, cares for) Black Angus.  They have about 50 heads, not counting babies.  We missed the branding week, but still wanted to come out and spend some time with them.  It is a vacation for us, away from work and civilization.  In the evening the entertainment was simple - Wii and Guitar Hero.  None of us was sophisticated enough to play anything on Guitar Hero.  However, Wii was fun.  I only played Cooking Mama before.  So it was a great chance to try many, many, many games.  After hours of going through them, I ended up liking cow racing.  I hit ever fence pole and tree in sight.  I asked our friends if they ever did cow-tipping.  What followed just confirmed what a city person I am.  

Cow tipping is a myth!!! You can't tip a cow, since they weigh about a ton or more. They had a case when a pregnant cow ended up on her back in a hollow dent in the ground, it wasn't even a hole.  It required a big tractor to untip her.  So we couldn't go and tip cows at night, so we raced our cows on Wii.  Farmer Boy got a Wiinjury from curling. 

Apple Blossom Festival

Farmer Boy calls me "Apple Monster".  I can probably exist on apples alone, plus, I come from the Land of Apples and live in the State of Apples.  For many other reasons we decided to go to Apple Blossom Festival this year.  It is still going on till May 3rd.  Farmer Boy has seen it, it was my first.  We drove to Wanatchee on Saturday and arrived just before the parade.  The parades of my childhood involved military marching and saluting.  This one was fun and wild, with kids running around and marching bands (from excellent to hysterical).  I really enjoyed it.  All around Wanatchee orchards were in bloom.  It was good to see some of them in operation after the last year's fires, which destroyed a lot.  

We came home to our own backyard fruit blossom festival.  My pear, apple, cherry, and plum trees are in bloom.  I hope to get lots of fruits this year.  

Itty Bitty Chicken Committee, Part 2

We lost our first batch of baby chicks this year.  Farmer Boy didn't want to bread at all after that.  However, the spring came, and we ended up with a box of early babies in our living room.  I can't tell you how many hours we wasted watching those babies sleep, eat, and play.  After ALL eggs hatched, the first 4 babies went back to mama. There are 6 of them.  They are about 2-3 weeks now.  I went to the coop to document their growth.  The mama didn't like it.  The harder I tried to take a picture, the more she shielded her babies and moved around.  Those who ever tried to take a picture of a constantly moving bird know that patience and a good camera are essential.  I didn't have either.  So here is a fuzzy picture of the angry mama and one curious chick sticking out of her butt. 

Chicken, chicken, chicken on Cute Overload

I like Cute Overload, even though they mostly post dogs and cats.  Occasionally, there is a chicken. And we can't miss any chickens! Here is the link to the original post.