Chicken First Aid

SUBHEAD: Some vital items you better have on hand to support the health of your chickens.


Image above: The hen Dazeywith droopy comb whose owner Natureloover could not save her. From (https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/i-think-i-have-a-sick-hen-pale-and-droopy-comb.934754/).

By Juan Wilson on 7 June 2017 for Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2017/06/chicken-first-aid.html)

We recently had an older hen pass away. Before she obviously appeared sick we noticed her comb was a little droopy. We've seen this before a few times. Most chickens that have displayed a droopy comb died within a week or so.

The hen Dazey, above, that looked like our chicken before she passed away. Dazey died after muchme effort by her owner, 'Natureloover' to test and treat her. As it turned out Dazey had peritonitis and lymphoma, she ended up losing almost all of her body weight because her food wasn't processing.

But droopy comb can be caused from many things including mites. It is a general sign that something is truly amiss with a chicken.

It is advised to make sure that the hen has not mites on her, and it is recommended worming her with a good broad spectrum wormer that gets more than just roundworm. Look at her stools to make sure there is no blood in them. Avitrol and Wormout gel are both very good. Here is a link: (http://planetpoultry.com.au/15-medications). From (backyardchickens.com/threads/i-think-i-have-a-sick-hen-pale-and-droopy-comb.934754/)

Below are communications between the owner Natureloover, owner of the hen Dazey and another online adviser from BackYardChicken.com

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Hello, thank you in advance for any feedback! One of our hens, Dazey, was diagnosed with gastrointestinal infection and was on antibiotics for coccidious. Even though her stool was negative, she had the symptoms.. After nursing her back to health and finishing her antibiotics, we re-introduced her back to the flock. She was doing well, acting normal, very happy to be back home! Her comb was still very dry, but red. At the beginning of her illness, we noticed a single black dot on her comb, and now I am noticing some more, even smaller, dots. But she was still acting normal. Last night my mother gave them some mealworms (one of her favorite treats) and she didn't seem as interested as she normally would be. Not sure what her comb looked like yesterday as I wasn't around, but today it is very dark and droopy. She's eating and drinking normal. Please help!!! I am very worried about my sweet girl!!!

This is a photo of her before moving her back home with her flock.

Naturelooover

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Welcome to BackYardChickens.com. How old is she, and where do you live--is it warm with mosquitoes out now, or wintertime? Can you post a picture of her now with the marks and dark comb? Since she had symptoms of an intestinal disease and was treated for cocci, what were her symptoms then? How does her comb feel now and does it empty by morning? What do her droppings look like? Can you try to add vitamins and electrolytes to her water, and add a little plain yogurt to her feed for probiotics (since she was on antibiotics?) Chickens can suffer from so many different illnesses, and they can also have internal laying problems which cause vague symptoms. Her darker comb may be significant that she is not getting enough oxygen to her heart, but pictures would be good.

Eggcessive

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We live in NE Florida, warmest days are in the low 80s right now, coldest nights, low 50s. There haven't been a lot of mosquitoes. She will be three in March, we've had her since she was two weeks old. She was weak, had abdominal pain, diarrhea, and no appetite, her crop was soft, tail feathers were down, and she was very tired. Her stool was negative for worms or any parasites. She is very thin and slightly anemic. We gave her electrolytes in her water, I think it helped tremendously. I will add some to her water in the morning. I just went to check on her, and her comb is not as dark as I thought, but is still very unhealthy. It looks as if it has shrunk, it is very droopy, dry, and discolored. Here is a photo, I hope you can get a better visual.

Naturelooover

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I am not a vet, but it's possible that she might be suffering from internal laying or egg yolk peritonitis. Whatever the problem, she looks cery ill. Her comb looks dry, and she could have a little peck mark or insect bite. I would try to make her as comfortable as possible, and try to get her to eat and drink. Bits of egg or runa, feed made liquid with water and plain yogurt are food for feeding sick hens. Keep her warm. Poultry NutriDrench or Poultry Cell are good vitamins with iron and minerals plus amino acids. Antibiotics are sometimes given for internal laying problems, but there is not a lot of success in treatment.

Eggcessive

Image above: Dazey displaying advanced droopy comb towards the end of her life. From (https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/i-think-i-have-a-sick-hen-pale-and-droopy-comb.934754/).

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By Jessica W. on 29 May 2017 for Off Grid News -
(http://www.offthegridnews.com/how-to-2/chicken-first-aid-8-vital-items-you-better-have-on-hand/)

Standing at the kitchen counter, early on a Saturday morning, I caught a glimpse of a white blur, closely followed by a large black blur. Turning to look closer, I saw a black dog, not belonging to us, attacking my flock. I lost three to that attack, including our rooster.

Thankfully, one wise hen that was attacked did escape by taking refuge with our farm dog. She had a deep wound under her left wing that healed quite nicely after being cleaned and treated with ointment from our first-aid kit.

From frostbite to predator attacks, our flock has experienced a lot in a few short years. Having a basic first-aid kit — and the knowledge to use it — is essential on the homestead. Chickens will be injured from time to time. Sometimes they hurt each other, sometimes it is a predator attack that can leave them wounded, or perhaps it is just a routine illness.

Below you’ll find a list of basic supplies that any first-aid kit for chickens should have. As always, use caution when using any type of antibiotic or other medication and carefully read the instructions.

1. Disposable gloves
Protect your hands while keeping the wound area free from contaminants by having a supply of disposable gloves readily available. They also prevent infection from spreading and make clean up much easier.

2. Rubbing alcohol
A small bottle of rubbing alcohol is perfect for cleaning wounds.

Be careful not to get the liquid near the bird’s eyes. Hydrogen peroxide also can be used; however, it also kills healthy cells surrounding the wound, so it is best to use it for the initial cleaning.

3. Cornstarch
Cornstarch, styptic powder and Wonder Dust are all useful for stopping bleeding due to broken nails or minor wounds. A small pair of nail clippers to trim broken nails on the spot also should be included to keep them from being further torn.

4. Triple antibiotic ointment
When choosing an antibiotic ointment for your first-aid kit, pick one free of pain-relieving ingredients. The ointment is most useful for preventing infection in wounds and abrasions.

5. Petroleum ointment
Useful as a protectant, petroleum ointment is helpful to fend off frostbite on combs and wattles during extreme cold snaps. It also can be used to treat scaly leg mites. To do this, simply coat the leg with ointment once or twice a week until the leg scales once again lay flat.

6. Blu-Kote
An antiseptic spray, Blu-Kote masks the wound to prevent other hens from pecking at it. It also stops infection and can be used in combination with a triple antibiotic ointment for serious wounds. Carefully spray on affected area as needed. It may take multiple applications each day before the wound has healed sufficiently enough to deter pecking.

7. Oral syringe
For dispensing any liquid medications, an oral syringe is a must. Electrolyte solutions can be easily administered to aid ailing chickens with an oral syringe. For crop issues, specifically a compacted crop, a few drops of a vegetable oil can be given with an oral syringe to loosen and soften the mass, allowing it to pass freely from the crop.

8. Gauze wrap
Occasionally, a wing will be broken and need to be secured. Position the broken wing in a natural position on the bird’s side and wrap the body and wing with gauze to secure it in place. Broken legs can be splinted and wrapped with gauze as well. It is best to isolate the chicken to prevent further injury due to pecking.

Along with these specific supplies, general supplies such as cotton balls, small gauze pads and small scissors are all helpful in emergencies. Keeping all first-aid supplies in a portable kit allows you to easily treat injured chickens on the spot.


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Hawaii's feral chicken "problem"

SUBHEAD: What came first? The chicken or the Whole Foods parking lot in Kailua on Big Island.

By Kristen Downey on 25 May 2017 for Civil Beat -
(http://www.civilbeat.org/2017/05/why-wild-chickens-are-flocking-to-whole-foods-in-kailua/)


Image above: The Wild chickens are flocking to Whole Foods in Kailua on the Big Island. From original article.

The Kailua Neighborhood Board passed a motion recently asking the city to revise its feral chicken removal program to focus on trapping roosters.

In the past two years, regular customers at the upscale Whole Foods grocery store in Kailua have been noticing an odd phenomenon — more and more feral chickens are roosting in the parking lot.

Whole families of birds –roosters, chickens and chicks– are perching in and under the trees near the entrance to the store, nesting near the area where the shopping carts are stored, and strutting up and down the rows of the parking lot. They’re also crowing. A lot.

Inside the store, a 5-pound, free-range chicken from California costs about $20. Outside, in the blocks surrounding the store, about three dozen are roaming free.

“I don’t remember there ever being chickens like this. Never. Maybe on the Pali, but never like this,” said Amanda Gomez, 29, of Kaneohe, scanning the Whole Foods parking lot. “There are so many moms and babies. They love this area right here.”

Opinions are divided over the feathered newcomers. Some in Kailua admire the birds’ bright plumage and see them as charming wildlife.  Some are irritated by their incessant crowing. Some wonder if they could carry disease and some are growing afraid of them. Some have a live-and-let-live attitude toward the birds.

And some people want the government to get rid of them.

“Are they pests or are they pets?” asked Scot Matayoshi, who serves on the Kailua Neighborhood Board. He has been pushing for the city to trap and remove the birds, particularly the roosters, but said that his effort has been controversial to some people on the board who would prefer the birds be left in peace.

“Whether or not one regards feral chickens as pests is a matter of individual preference,” said Sheila Conant, a professor emerita at University of Hawaii and an expert on Hawaiian birds.

“Having a neighborhood rooster that crows in the middle of the night or very early in the morning could certainly be exasperating. At the moment, I don’t mind the chickens. They can be fun to watch.”

According to the Hawaii Department of Health, the birds don’t present a public health risk.

The federal Centers for Disease Control, however, advises that people who have physical contact with poultry or poultry waste are at risk of salmonella infection. The germs can get on the hands, shoes and clothes of people who have contact with the birds or their saliva or droppings.

Complaints about chickens came up last month at the Kailua Neighborhood Board meeting. Board members passed overwhelmingly a motion asking the city of Honolulu to revise its feral chicken removal program to focus on trapping and removing roosters. They said that would be cheaper than eradicating both males and females.

But Matayoshi said city officials told him they haven’t been able to find a pest removal company that wants to remove the birds. There’s only one company on the islands, Sandwich Isles Pest Solutions in Pearl City, that can be hired to remove bothersome birds, and the city does not have a standing contract with the firm for the work, Matayoshi said.

Harold Scholes, a pest control consultant at Sandwich Isles Pest Solutions, said the company catches and euthanizes unwanted chickens for private clients. For $300 a week and $115 per trip to each site, the company will set up a trap, provide it with bait and water, and remove the animal humanely. He said that other parts of the island, not just Kailua, have seen an increase in feral chickens.

According to Sherilyn Kajiwara, director of the Honolulu customer services department, the  city manages feral chicken issues only on its own property, and only on a case-by-case basis.  Other property owners — whether private owners, the federal government or the state government — are responsible for dealing with their own problems.

But in response to growing calls for action, the city last year added what she called a “fowl response component” into its animal control contract with the Hawaiian Humane Society. The Humane Society began handling the job in January.

“Under the city contract, the HHS will respond to public complaints related to pet fowl nuisances,” Kajiwara said in a statement to Civil Beat. “It does not address feral animals and does not have a fowl eradication component.”

She referred further questions to the Hawaiian Humane Society.

Fines For Nuisance Violations

Suzy Tam, communications director for the Humane Society, said the $80,000 contract for poultry remediation services calls for the Humane Society to respond to “nuisance” complaints. That’s defined as any animal “making noise continuously for ten minutes or intermittently for 30 minutes or more,” and causing a disturbance, or owning an excessive number of animals.

Violations can lead to fines of up to $50 for a first offense and up to $1,000 for further offenses.
She said the Humane Society does not remove nuisance chickens, whether owned or free-roaming.
Tam said the Humane Society has gotten 289 complaints about chickens since late January, with calls coming from all over the island.

She said they have mailed out 83 warning letters and issued six citations to residents with chickens on their properties during that period, but have no way of comparing the numbers to previous years because the contract is new.

Outside Whole Foods in Kailua, there is a whole range of perspectives about the chickens and speculation about where they came from.

Dallas Pabilona, of Hayward, California, a tourist, squealed with laughter when she spotted a cocky rooster strutting in the median in front of her car. She was dismayed to hear that some people want to cull the flock.

“If they weren’t here, where would they live?,” she asked. “This is everybody’s home.”

Bob Beard, the oceanarium manager at the Pacific Beach Hotel and a long-time Kailua resident, on the other hand, scowled at the birds as he sat at an outside dining table near the entrance to Whole Foods, only a few feet from a rooster perching noisily in a tree.

“They’re chickens,” he said. “They do what people like to do. They copulate. I’m surprised there’s not more cats around—there’s a lot of free meat.”
He also thinks they’re dirty.

Michael La Rochelle, 25, a nanny and student, said he called 911 one day this week after spotting a young man trying to catch a large rooster with a kind of lasso. He said Kailua police said they would check it out. When he returned, the man was gone, and the rooster was still the cock of the walk.

La Rochelle said he thought the man was trying to catch the rooster to use it for cock-fighting. “He was going after a rooster,” he said. “If he wanted to eat it, he would pick a chicken.”

Pumehana Piko, who grew up on Molokai and Maui but who has lived on Oahu for 14 years, said she believes the chickens in Kailua have been released or escaped from cockfighting businesses because they seem unusually fierce. Cockfighting is illegal in most parts of the country but is only a misdemeanor in Hawaii, and the events can be popular and well-attended.

“They breed for chickens that are aggressive,” said Piko, 37.  She said people who organize cockfights earn big money from it–$5,000 or $20,000 for a match—and that more people are trying to get into the business.

“You’ll see kids try to grab them for pets or experiment to get them to fight each other,” Piko said.
Pauline Menor-Ozoa, of Kailua, who works in the human resources department at Queen’s Medical Center, also believes the chickens are escapees from cockfighting operations.

“My girls are afraid of them,” she said. “Usually chickens run away, but these follow you and look at you.”

Conant, the bird expert, said she is growing curious about why chickens are proliferating so quickly. In an email to Civil Beat, she said she believes that more people have been raising chickens to get their own fresh eggs, and that when it proves troublesome to care for them, they are releasing them, and they become feral.

“Feral chickens, much like feral cats, can do quite well without assistance (food or shelter) from people,” she said in an email to Civil Beat.

She identified one of the birds at the Kailua Whole Foods as a rooster, and she said his color patterns and the lack of any unusual plumage characteristics, such as feathers on the feet, or an ornate crown of feathers or distinctive markings, make it likely the bird is what is known as a “jungle fowl.” That’s the common name for the wild species from which modern chicken breeds have been developed.
There are more than 200 breeds of chickens, Conant said.

“Once individuals escape and breed on their own, they revert back to the appearance of jungle fowl in very few generations,” she wrote.

Why Kailua? And why Whole Foods? The managers at Whole Foods, as well as their public relations firm, declined repeated requests for comment.

So for now, the question is open. Perhaps the fowl feel particularly safe there.
After all, the chickens only need to cross the road.

On the other side, they get to the Kawainui-Hamakua Marsh Complex, the largest single wetland in the state, a safe haven for birds.

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Chicken Odesssy - not from Polynesia 3/18/14
Island Breath: Moa - Red Jungle Fowl 10/31/06

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Long Term Egg Storage

SUBHEAD: There are a number of techniques for keeping eggs edible for months without refrigeration.

By Brian Kaller on 25 October 2016 for Restoring Mayberry -
(http://restoringmayberry.blogspot.com/2016/10/storing-eggs-for-winter.html)


Image above: A variety of jarred pickled eggs. They can be kept for long periods. From (https://www.reference.com/food/basic-recipe-pickled-eggs-bb99f4e9c9bcce2a).

No matter what else you have in your kitchen, you probably have eggs. Whether you boil or fry them for breakfast, brush them over meat, whisk them into egg-drop soup, bake them into pastries, eggs provide one of the simplest and yet most versatile of foods, prized the world over as a rich source of easy protein.

If you raise your own chickens, moreover, you have a ready source of eggs, as well as fertilizer and comedy relief. Hens convert your leftovers into your next breakfast, keep your garden free of pests and mow your lawn for free.

Other animals can do some of these things, but not many of us have the time, space or will to manage a suburban herd of sheep or swine, or to slaughter them in the garage. Hens, however, require little space or maintenance, and turn any home into a homestead.

They lay eggs seasonally, however, speeding up in summer and slowing in winter. You could give them more indoor light or Vitamin D supplements, but they cost money and interfere with the chickens’ natural cycle – and saving money and being all-natural are two of the most popular reasons for keeping backyard chickens in the first place.

Another way would be to collect the extra eggs in summer and preserve them through the winter. Eggs can be preserved in several ways; one, well-known to pub patrons here, is to pickle them.

A typical recipe involves hard-boiling eggs and removing the shells, and then creating a pickling solution of cider vinegar, small amounts of salt, sugar, herbs and spices. Bring the mixture to the boil, then simmer for five minutes and pour over the eggs – they should keep for at least a few months.

You can also soak the eggs in a solution of sodium silicate, known as isinglass or water-glass. One popular recipe from a century ago recommended dissolving sodium silicate in boiling water, to about the consistency of a syrup (or about 1 part silicate to 3 parts water).

The eggs -- as fresh as possible, and thoroughly clean -- should be immersed in the solution in such manner that every part of each egg is covered with the liquid, then removed and let dry. If the solution is kept near the boiling temperature, the preservative effect was said to be much more certain and to last longer.

Perhaps the best and longest-lasting way, however, is to preserve eggs in limewater. No recipe could be simpler; take fresh raw eggs in the shell, set them gently in a jar, and pour in a simple lukewarm mix of tap water and lime powder. I’ve done this with our eggs, and they lasted for up to a year and remained edible.

“Lime” here means neither the citrus fruit nor the tree, but refers to calcium hydroxide, a white powder derived from limestone. For at least 7,000 years humans burned limestone in kilns to create the dangerous and caustic “quicklime” (Calcium oxide), and hydrated that to create lime powder (calcium hydroxide).

Sumerians and Romans used it as a cement, while farmers mixed it with water to create whitewash, tanners used it to remove hair from hides, gardeners to repel slugs and snails, printers to bleach paper.

Perhaps most importantly, farmers here in Ireland spread lime over their boggy fields to “sweeten” the acid soil and increase crop production as much as four-fold. For hundreds of years until the mid-20th century, lime supported a vast and vital network of village industry in this part of the world-- County Cork alone was said to contain an amazing 23,000 kilns, or one every 80 acres.

In his 1915 monograph “Lime-water for the preservation of eggs,” Frank Shutt describes a series of egg preservation experiments at an experimental farm in Ottawa, which found lime-water to be “superior to all other methods” – how, he didn’t say.

When I first tried to preserve eggs in lime-water, I simply mixed equal parts lime and water – which did no harm, but most of the lime simply settled to the bottom.

It turned out a fraction as much lime would have sufficed – Shutt says that water saturates with lime at 700 parts water to one part lime, but adds that “owing to impurities in commercial lime, it is well to use more than is called for.” In any case, if you use more lime than is necessary to saturate in water, the rest simply condenses out.

Since exposure to air causes more lime to condense over time, some articles recommend keeping the container sealed, either in a Kilner jar or by pouring a layer of oil over the top. I kept mine in an ordinary mayonnaise jar, and they kept fine for a year.

Eggs kept this way do come out with their whites darkened slightly, and with a faint “musty” smell like old clothes. It does not, however, have the unpleasant smell of a rotten egg – believe me, you won’t mistake one for the other.

The difference can perhaps be compared to that of rehydrated milk vs. fresh milk – not inedible, just slightly different than expected. As Shutt puts it, nothing “can entirely arrest that ‘stale’ flavour common in all but strictly fresh laid eggs.”

I’m not aware of an upper limit on how long eggs could be kept this way – I kept mine a year, with no ill effects beyond the stale smell – but I would not recommend going longer than several months to be on the safe side. Several months, however, still allows the homesteader to continue harvesting eggs through the winter.

Shutt recommends keeping the water at a cool temperature – 40-45 degrees Fahrenheit, or five degrees Centigrade, to help the preservation.

That’s the temperature of a refrigerator, but a cellar or underground storage container would probably be fine. I kept mine at room temperature during an Irish year, where the temperature ranges from freezing (32F, 0C) in winter to lukewarm (75F, 25C) in summer, with no ill effects.

Some old texts say to boil the lime-water, dissolving as much of the lime as you can and letting it cool before immersing the eggs; that might be slightly preferable simply to maximise the amount of lime dissolved or to sterilise the water, but I tried it both ways and noticed no difference in quality.

Some old recipes recommend adding salt to the eggs, but I tried it with and without salt and found that it didn’t make a difference, and neither did Shutt a century ago. Still other 19th-century recipes mixed the lime with salt-peter and even borax, but I would not try those until I had confirmed their safety.

Experiments like this might seem pointless when we have refrigerators, freezers and a convenience store down the road.

Many of us, though, like being able to do things ourselves, with simple ingredients, for a lot less money than processed food at the store would cost. Money and electricity, moreover, are less certain than they used to be; I know many friends who have lost jobs, or whose power now goes out regularly.

Here in Europe we know people whose governments have collapsed or gone bankrupt, or been torn by civil war. These scenarios are not as apocalyptic as most people imagine -- crises are rare, and even in a crisis life goes on – but they happen occasionally, in an emergency our local village would benefit from someone who knows how to do things the old-fashioned way.

See also a website page with several recipes for pickling eggs
(https://www.pinterest.com/Dragonfly9586/pickled-egg-recipes/)

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There's a 100% chance of weather

SUBHEAD: Surprise! We didn't know nine-banded armadillos had reached East Tennessee.

By Brian Miller on 29 May 2016 for Winged Elm Farm -
(http://www.wingedelmfarm.com/blog/2016/05/29/theres-a-100-percent-chance-of-weather/)


Image above: A Nine-Banded Armadillo on its hindlegs. To the surprise of some they have reached East Tennessee. From (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-banded_armadillo).

It is 4:45am in the morning and a neighbor maybe a half-mile away is shooting a rifle.

Sounds like a .22, so he is probably potting raccoons or rats raiding his cattle feed. Or perhaps he is a man who likes to annoy the world. Regardless, I roll out of bed and make a pot of coffee.

We promise you rain, tomorrow:
For a man who gets up so early, it is amazing how late I am in getting to haying this year. It is the perennial struggle to find just the right week between cooperative weather and work schedule. Driving back from Sweetwater yesterday, I observed that almost all the fields were either cut, raked, baled, or a combination.

I have been holding off for one more good rain, but apparently all the moisture continues to dump on Texas. Meanwhile, our Roane County forecast is an ever-shifting horizon, the moisture always promised in another three days.

Beware the nine-banded armadillo:
On yesterday’s drive back from town, just past the big hog roast in progress at the Luttrell community center, I spotted the distinctive and familiar remains of an animal ­on the road. The sighting was commonplace to me on the backroads of Louisiana growing up. Later that night at dinner with friends, we discussed what I’d seen.

Our friend remarked that, coincidentally, she could’ve sworn she’d seen the same kind of animal a few days before, but she decided against it, since the critters are not known to live in these parts. But, sure enough, a quick bit of research and we found that the nine-banded armadillo has arrived in East Tennessee.

Busy little bees:
In the immortal words of Margot Channing, “You are in a beehive, pal. Didn’t you know? We are all busy little bees, full of stings, making honey day and night. Aren’t we, honey?” Frantically painting more supers and putting together more frames, Cindy has struggled to keep pace with this spring’s exponential colony growth.

The number of our hives has doubled to four, and the girls (all worker bees are female) seem unusually productive. Cindy keeps slapping on supers, and they keep filling them up. We look for a bountiful honey harvest come end of summer: I see horns of mead aplenty and a rereading of Beowulf in my future.

Let’s not go there:
I fixed some chicken sausage gumbo last night. “Cindy, when you go out to feed, grab me an onion from the garden. There are three rows of weeds before you get to Petunia. Buried in the last row are the onions.”

Typically, the dry years like this are the years the garden looks the best. So I really have no excuse … except the fencing. That massive project of closing in the ravine for the pigs was a time-suck this spring. Sigh.

Who cares why you crossed the road. Where are my damn eggs?
After raising speckled Sussex almost exclusively for 16 years, we are going to make a change. We ordered 20 brown leghorn chicks, which arrived this week. They are the foundation bird for the modern leghorns and an egg-laying machine, purportedly.

Our dual-purpose meat-and-eggs Sussex are too irregular in the latter department. So, unless the governor calls (and why would he?), the flock will go in the pot. We look forward to endless bowls of coq au vin, chicken paprikash, and gumbo.

Well, with coffee and the blog now done and the eastern sky alight with the approaching dawn, it is time for me to go dig holes and plant grapevines. One must take advantage of the coolness of the morning and reserve the afternoon for a siesta.

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Breeding a Better Chicken

SUBHEAD: Finding an happy outdoor chicken that lays a reasonable amount of eggs, breeds and is tasty roasted.

By Eatwell Farms on 8 August 2014 for CUESA -
(http://www.cuesa.org/article/breeding-better-chicken-eatwell-farm)


Image above: Nigel Walker of Eatwell Farms with chicks he hoping will "do it all". From original article.

While many conscientious eaters go out of their way to purchase pasture-raised eggs laid by happy chickens, it’s a little-known fact that almost all eggs have a hidden cost: millions of baby male chicks are killed each year at the hatcheries that raise egg-laying hens. Even humane, organic egg producers are reliant on these large hatcheries.

“It’s a dirty little secret, isn’t it?” says farmer Nigel Walker of Eatwell Farm in Dixon, California, who has ordered thousands of Production Red chicks each year for his diversified organic farm.

“Many customers have asked me about this practice, and I’ve been very truthful with them,” he says. “I’ve always been uncomfortable with it, but I wasn’t able to find a good solution until now.”

Earlier this week, Eatwell Farm launched a crowdfunding campaign on the online platform Barnraiser to start a chicken breeding program, which aims to eliminate the farm’s reliance on hatcheries. “We want to step up to the next level because we think it’s the right thing to do,” says Nigel.

Live Fast, Die Young
 Up until the last century, chickens were raised outdoors for the dual purpose of eggs and meat. Around the mid-twentieth century, breeders began to focus on developing specialized breeds for indoor industrial production. “These birds are selected to live in a house with 25,000 other birds with constant light and heat all year round,” Nigel says. “That’s not the environment we have in the fields.”

Popular meat breeds like the Cornish Cross have been bred for rapid growth, to the detriment of other characteristics such as longevity and disease resistance. “The average chicken in our country is processed [slaughtered] at 37 days,” says Jim Adkins, founder of the Sustainable Poultry Network in Old Fort, North Carolina. “If you and I grew at that rate, we would be 260 pounds by the time we’re two years old.”

Modern layers like the White Leghorn and Rhode Island Red are also bred for productivity: they lay 250 to 300 eggs a year. After about 14 months, they stop producing, making them virtually useless to a farmer, except for processing into chicken stock.

Because laying breeds don’t grow fast enough to be profitable for meat production, egg farmers have no incentive to raise the males, making them reliant on the hatcheries to replenish their flock every year. Once the chicks are sexed at the hatchery, the males are killed—ground alive, gassed, or otherwise disposed of.

Out of the Hatchery
A couple years ago, Nigel attended an Acres USA farming conference in Kentucky where he met Jim Adkins, who opened his eyes to a different way of raising chickens.

A bird enthusiast and hobbyist who had raised more than 50 different breeds of chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys, Jim has seen all sides of the poultry industry. For several years, he was a supervisor at a large-scale turkey operation, where he witnessed the unsustainability of modern poultry breeding.  “I thought, ‘Something is wrong with this picture,’” he says.

In 2010, he founded the Sustainable Poultry Network, with the goal of restoring heritage breeds and training farmers to humanely and sustainably breed their own flocks. “We are on a mission to put the old breeds of poultry back to work,” he says. While such birds may produce fewer eggs and put on pounds more slowly than modern breeds, they tend to be more healthy, resilient, and productive in the long run.

Nigel hired Jim as a consultant to help him start a dual-purpose breeding program at Eatwell Farm. Eatwell is one of the largest operations Jim has worked with so far, but interest is growing.
“Nigel is definitely on the forefront,” says Jim. “To be able to breed your flock so it’s sustainable is a lot of hard work.”

Starting from Scratch
 For Eatwell, Jim recommended the Black Australorp, a dual-purpose breed with dark, shiny feathers. Last spring, Nigel bought 200 chicks (half male, half female) from a hatchery in North Carolina. When the Australorps arrived, they instantly took to the pasture and were more vibrant and alert than the Production Reds Nigel was accustomed to.

Jim chose seven males and 35 females to start the breeding families. “It’s a bit like heirloom tomatoes,” say Nigel, who is well-versed in saving seeds. “You select the ones that do really well in your environment.”

As the flock grows, the birds must be carefully tracked. Each time a hen goes to lay an egg, a door closes behind her (in what is called a trap nest) so that the bird and her egg can be recorded by Eatwell staff. The best of the best will be selected for hatching.

Nigel’s hope is that Eatwell will be able to replace their flock of nearly 3,000 Production Reds within the next two years, possibly sooner, and the farm will no longer have to purchase chicks from hatcheries. Whereas the Production Reds lay for only about one year, the Australorps are productive for at least three. The males will be raised to maturity and processed for meat, providing additional income for the farm. Nigel may also be able to sell his locally adapted Australorps to other farms in the area.

Raising the Barn
Completing such an ambitious project takes time and money that is not currently in the farm’s budget. The $20,000 requested on Barnraiser will help cover the costs of infrastructure, from incubators and nesting boxes to labor and consulting fees. (Pending additional funding, Nigel and Jim hope to develop a mobile app to help organize the breeding data and track flocks remotely, a tool that could be used by breeders across the country.)

This is not the first time Nigel has turned to his community for help in starting a new project. The farm originally set up its egg operation with financial help from his CSA members, who were demanding organic eggs. They quickly raised and loaned him $25,000, which was later paid back in full.

Today, the income from Eatwell’s eggs barely covers the costs of production, but chickens play an invaluable role in the farm’s ecosystem, having eliminated the need for compost and external fertilizers.

“The real core issue here is getting animals back on farms and out of these confinement operations,” says Nigel. “Yes, we want their eggs, and the meat is great, too, but the reason we have our chickens is that they eat the pasture and fertilize the ground. All our organic vegetables are grown with fertility from cover crops and chickens.”

He continues, “We’re trying to find a bird that can live outside, where it can express all of its chickenness, but still lay a very reasonable amount of eggs and make an absolutely tasty roast chicken.”

Look for Eatwell Farm at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market on Saturdays. To learn more and support their fundraising campaign, visit Barnraiser.
Eatwell Farm photos by Jamie LeJeune and Eatwell Farm.

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Chicken Odyssey

SUBHEAD: It seems chickens didn't cross the Pacific to reach South America.

By Scott Neuman on 18 March 2014 for NPR News -
(http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/03/18/291182073/study-the-chicken-didnt-cross-the-pacific-to-south-america)


Image above: Kauai chicken (moi) with mariachi hat. Mashup by Juan Wilson.

An analysis of DNA from chicken bones collected in the South Pacific that the ubiquitous bird first arrived in South America aboard an ancient Polynesian seafarer's ocean-going outrigger.

Instead, researchers who sequenced mitochondrial DNA from modern and ancient chicken specimens collected from Polynesia and the islands of Southeast Asian found those populations are genetically distinct from chickens found in South America.

"[The] lack of the Polynesian sequences [of DNA] in modern South American chickens ... would argue against any trading contact as far as chickens go," says Alan Cooper, director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, who is a co-author in the study published this week in

(For a treatise on the origins of the domesticated chicken, and how the bird came to play such a key role in the human diet, )

The finding may shed light on one of the most vexing questions in modern anthropology: Did South Pacific seafarers, who evidence shows settled island chains separated by vast stretches of ocean, reach the coast of South America before the time of Christopher Columbus?

The evidence is contradictory.

In , researchers looked at chicken bones found at an archeological site in Chile that were radiocarbon dated to pre-Columbian times (between 1321 and 1407). DNA analysis of those specimens found what scientists thought was a genetic mutation unique to Polynesian chickens — which would point to a Pacific origin for the birds — only to discover later that the mutation is common in all chickens.

Alice Storey, an archeologist who led the 2007 study, is skeptical of the latest results. She says the new study focuses too much on modern DNA.

"Using modern DNA to understand what people were doing in the past is like sampling a group of commuters at a London Tube station at rush hour," Storey is . "The DNA you get is unlikely to provide much useful information on the pre-Roman population of London."

Nat Geo writes:

"As humans moved around the world, they brought chickens along with them. So modern chicken populations aren't necessarily representative of past populations, Storey said. "We know from his journals [that] Cook moved chickens all over the Pacific, as did other Europeans, so DNA from chickens living on Pacific islands today has little to tell us about what people were doing in Polynesia, the Pacific, and in Southeast Asia before A.D. 1600."

The South American sweet potato, common in modern times in the Pacific islands, has long been viewed as a key piece of evidence supporting the hypothesis that Polynesians made contact with the Americas in pre-Columbian times.

(Incidentally, Thor Heyerdahl, who built and to bolster his now discredited hypothesis that it was South Americans who settled the South Pacific, and not the other way around, used the sweet potato evidence to support his claim, too).

But the absence in South America of Pacific rats, known to have accompanied Polynesians on their island-hopping voyages of colonization, is a strike against the theory.

So, where did the Pacific islands chicken come from?

"We can show that the trail heads back into the Philippines," Cooper tells Nat Geo. "We're currently working on tracing it farther northward from there. However, we're following a proxy, rather than the actual humans themselves."

As for the South American bird, that's still a mystery.
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The Activist Rooster

SUBHEAD: We have long since stopped cringing every time Mr. Bernard reads the rooster riot act to the world.

By Alan Wartes on 16 September 2013 for Jailbreak Journals -
(http://jailbreakjournals.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-activist-rooster.html)


Image above: The urban rooster Mr. Bernard. From original article.

Four years ago last Valentine’s Day, my wife and I became backyard chicken wranglers. On a chilly Saturday morning, we acted on faith that spring was actually coming and bought four barely-out-of-the-egg hens at Denver Urban Homesteading’s weekly market. I had grown up helping to tend my family’s small herd of white leghorns, so I knew it didn’t take an advanced degree to succeed—and I had experienced first-hand the payoff we stood to receive in fresh eggs every day.

Never mind that we live in a typical urban neighborhood with ordinances prohibiting backyard “livestock” of any kind. That was not going to stop us. No one will ever know they’re here anyway, we thought, our own silent uprising against Really Dumb Rules. Take that, Monsanto!

There was just one problem (which fellow chicken wranglers have probably caught on to by now, nodding and chuckling): Our little cotton ball herd of baby chicks was only mostly hens. Three out of four isn’t bad, but that last 25 percent was all rooster. So much for stealth mode.

Now, the woman who sold the chicks guaranteed hens, so we could have traded him in. But that just seemed wrong, somehow. Sexist, certainly. Besides, it was a 50-mile round trip to her farm on the prairie—hardly in keeping with our goal of more sustainable, responsible living. And speaking of sustainability, wasn’t a rooster a necessary part of the equation if we wanted continued returns on our investment?

So, our daughter christened him “Mr. Bernard” and we gave him full citizenship. (Let the court records show that he has done his part to contribute several more cotton balls to the community since his reprieve.)

But there is no denying he is a noisy and aggressive little cuss. Once he really found his voice and his machismo, Issa and I expected to be met at the door every morning by S.W.A.T. or a mob of people with pitch forks. We decided to head that off at the pass by taking our most radical action yet: talking to the neighbors and listening to their thoughts. In essence we said, “We’d like to keep this guy around, but if that is intolerable to you then we’ll settle for a potluck BBQ instead. You bring potato salad.”

The vote was unanimous: Thumbs up on Mr. Bernard. Some even said they liked the “ambiance” he provided as it reminded them of their rural childhood. One man threatened to buy a replacement rooster himself if we got rid of the bird. Granted, not all neighbors will be as accommodating as ours, and the experiment might turn out differently on your block.

But I wonder what the outcome might have been here had we erected a stockade of “private property rights” and “you’re-not-the-boss-of-me” defensiveness. It might have cost us a rooster to offer the neighbors a say-so. But what we stood to gain—a small step in the direction of genuine community—was far more valuable. The relatively trivial conversation about roosters planted the seed of an idea in our neck of the woods that will surely come in handy as the current rearrangement of modern life picks up speed: We are in this together.

Here’s the part that’s most important to our collective conversation about the need for a jailbreak and how to go about it: Busting out of the faulty beliefs and habitual thinking that imprison us does not always involve storming the obvious strongholds of power, injustice, inequality and oppression. That’s our goal, sure, and we will get there.

But sometimes the jailbreak is about facing our small fears, escaping the daily ruts that hijack our potential to be free, confronting little pockets of injustice and oppression with courage and grace, building solutions out of whatever is at hand. In fact, true crisis is never “global” even when it gets its own theme music on the nightly news. Real trouble will always present itself right in your time zone and challenge your beliefs—and the structures you’ve built to reinforce them—at point blank range.

Can we just agree from the beginning that there are no small or trivial freedoms? Every declaration of independence from old choices and worn out ways of being is equally powerful and profitable in making a new world.

We have long since stopped cringing every time Mr. Bernard reads the rooster riot act to the world. (By now, the neighbors have all had a taste of fresh eggs.) And this morning we heard a sound in the distance that brought a big smile to our faces: Somebody else in the neighborhood has a new rooster.
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