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Post by nana on Mar 2, 2018 15:40:39 GMT -5
My husband went out to gather the eggs. I asked how many we got today? He said one and a half. Someone is not putting forth the effort the others are. Just saying. I am getting new chicks this spring and "retiring" these old biddies who took a long break over the winter and are taking their sweet time gearing back up into production. I've said it before, but this time I really mean it!
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Post by pooka on Mar 3, 2018 3:00:12 GMT -5
I envy you eggs that fresh. Most of us must make due with the supermarket variety. They are generally carbon copies of one another like a factory product. You'd almost forget they come from a feathered source. It would be a novelty to get a mix-matched bunch like that. I saw a pic posted on reddit of a misshapened one recently. It said, "One of my mothers chickens laid an egg and tied it with a bow". Years ago when I worked in a factory. There were two sisters who worked there too. Well their family had a big farm. Part of it were laying hen for egg production. I remember Joan saying when they slowed production, her mom would walk through the hen-house with a hatchet to encourage laying. I'm sure it was a joke, but then again, maybe not.
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Post by nana on Mar 3, 2018 10:00:54 GMT -5
That is a pretty amazing egg! It took me by surprise when I started keeping chickens how variable egg size, shape, and color can be. There are chickens that lay green or blue eggs, and there are countless shades of brown in addition to plain old white. I've had even a few shell-less eggs, just the inner membrane. You most often get the weird ones as chickens start up production from a hiatus, or as they get older. My youngest chickens are now going on 4 years old, which is why I need to get some new blood. I think I'll try Rhode Island Reds this time, they're supposed to be real good layers.
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Post by karitx on Mar 3, 2018 13:46:01 GMT -5
I sometimes toy with the idea of having chickens, but my sister usually has them (not currently, but she is re-doing her hen house) and it's a lot easier to just buy them from her. She does usually give in to my requests to throw a few Ameraucanas or Marans into the mix for the fun-colored eggs. The last round of chicks she bought had a feather-footed Bantam accidentally mixed in, which was one of the cutest critters I have ever seen. Alas, he turned out to be a rooster and Terri isn't a fan of roosters, so he got re-homed.
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Post by nana on Mar 3, 2018 18:10:00 GMT -5
I really like having them around, not just for the eggs and manure. (Hey, I'm a gardener!) It's fun to watch them interact and listen to all the sounds they make. I wouldn't want a rooster either, though. The crowing really gets on your nerves and most of them are sneaky and mean. Our neighbor had a rooster and whenever I took care of his chickens when they were out of town I had to go in there with a snow shovel and whack at him or else he would edge around behind me and then attack. I suppose in his mind he was protecting his wives and children, so I can't really blame him, but he was annoying all the same.
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Post by pooka on Mar 4, 2018 12:27:14 GMT -5
It's funny you saying how much fun it is to have them around. I just read this March 2, 2018 article in the Washington Post about Silicon Valley elite’s. One of their new distractions is keeping chickens as a diversion from their high tech & demanding day jobs of staring at computer screens. With money to burn, it's astounding how they apply their skills & cash from their day jobs to this new endeavor. The last paragraph of the article, one of these guys says, “It’s really nice to have this tactile feel of filling the chickens’ food, filling their water, feeding them and petting them,” said Van Horn, who was introduced to chickens by his company’s senior electrical engineer. “Experiencing them is a way of getting away from the technology that is in our lives so much of the time.”The Silicon Valley elite’s latest status symbol: ChickensI guess there are worse things they could fall into like drugs, drinking or other fast living pursuits. It's humorous these people have found the recreational value of raising chickens, an old fashioned endeavor in these fast paced high tech times.
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Post by nana on Mar 4, 2018 15:52:38 GMT -5
Plus you get eggs!
It's an interesting relationship, though. They're not quite pets, although a lot of people do spend more time coddling and interacting with their birds than I do, and convince themselves that their affection is returned. I'm not so sure. As long as they have food and fresh water and the occasional treat, I think my chickens couldn't care less if it was me, or someone else or a robot bringing it to them. They have very intricate relationships amongst themselves, and they're a lot smarter than people give them credit for. I'm sure you could train them to do many things, and certainly some are more amenable to being picked up and petted than others, but their end of the bargain in the domestication deal only goes so far. They haven't given their hearts and souls to us they way dogs, cats, even horses have. And considering how we treat so many of them, who can blame them for that?
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Post by pooka on Mar 5, 2018 1:47:47 GMT -5
I suppose to those Silicon Valley types, they are sorta like pets, but not quite. There's something visceral & down to earth about raising animals. They are living, breathing things. Not a line of code on a screen. For them working in the abstract realm of the virtual in their day job, perhaps makes them crave to dig even deeper for real world experiences. Keeping chicken is a microcosm of farm to table agriculture that you can do on a small scale. It's not like gardening. that more passive. Chicken are a chore that must be done. Feeding, watering & letting them out & putting them up at night, plus collecting the eggs. Then there's the cleaning up. This is something you can neglect. So it's an active regiment you have to commit to. & yes, you do get the freshest eggs ever too!!
I guess there's a niche in the chicken world for all types. There's the big farms that raise the broilers & the egg business. Then there's the breeders & fanciers who raise them to show. Down to the back yard coop with just a few birds. It's something you can do on any scale. My dad used to talk about wanting to raise white giants when he was younger. The imaginings of a rural Kentucky farm boy. I was told when they were kids, they had a pet chicken. It had no feathers. I guess that's how it got to be a pet. They said they had to make a coat for it so it wouldn't get sunburned. I understand it got left outside in the cold weather & it froze to death.
My mom had a pet pig named Mugsy for a while too. He was a runt, but eventually, he went to market too though.
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Post by nana on Mar 5, 2018 15:48:18 GMT -5
Poor Mugsy. I suppose he needed a Charlotte. But farm kids are pretty matter of fact about this type of thing. All baby animals are cute and lovable, and you raise them and care for them and you may even love them, but there's a difference between a pet and livestock. Livestock is there to serve a purpose. If that purpose is to become food, so be it. The 4H kids are all OK with that. Since I started keeping them, though, I am no longer able to eat factory farmed meat or eggs, because now I know how little it takes to make a chicken happy, and I just can't support the cruelty with my money anymore. I read in a book a few years ago that cruelty is knowing you are causing another living being pain and misery and doing it anyway. Now that I know what goes on in an industrial farm, I can't un know it and I can't ignore it. I try not to preach or put others down for their choices. But I've made my own. Sustainably and responsibly farmed meat is way more expensive, but my soul feels cleaner. We eat a lot of vegetarian things these days, and meat is a treat or just a small part of the meal. I'm lucky I live in a part of the world where there are a lot of small farms and a strong sustainable and local food network.
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Post by karitx on Mar 8, 2018 10:31:39 GMT -5
We are in the same boat regarding eating meat. My sister (the rooster hater) raised two pigs for us last spring, so we have a freezer full of pork, but I have been buying eggs and meats other than pork from a small local farm. It's expensive enough that it means we eat a lot less, but I feel better knowing that they were able to live a more natural life than what the factory farms provide.
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Post by nana on Mar 8, 2018 16:21:32 GMT -5
Exactly. I have no problem eating meat in and of itself. If they were still wild, our farm animals would all be prey. Their ecological niche is to be food for something that eats meat; nature, red in tooth and claw...you know. They made a deal with the devil (us), in that we keep them safe from predators, feed them, assist them in propagating their genes all over the place, but they are still prey, and the time comes when they have to pay up. We humans don't HAVE to be cruel about it. But to our everlasting shame, we often are, just to make a buck. And besides the karmic burden, factory farms are horrible for the environment in which WE have to live, too, so I suppose we will get what we deserve if we don't change our ways. Too bad we'll take everything else down with us. It kind of feels like some lesson from a Twilight Zone episode, if you think about it.
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Post by nana on Mar 17, 2018 17:40:54 GMT -5
OK. Now this is just getting ridiculous.
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Post by pooka on Mar 18, 2018 6:00:17 GMT -5
Well at least two of them look good. That's pathetic compared to your first pic. Perhaps it is time for a fresh new team line up. The old veterans can go on to be a dinners entree.
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Post by nana on Mar 18, 2018 11:04:24 GMT -5
That's the plan. I was going to do it this fall when they were molting, so as not to have to feed the oldsters over the winter, but somehow every weekend I found something I'd rather do than slaughter chickens, so here we are. I've only ever actually eaten one of my own chickens, one that was killed by my neighbor's dog.(She made GREAT soup!) Some have dropped dead from some unknown chicken malady or other. When I see they are sick, I figure I don't want to eat a sick chicken if I don't know what it's sick from. I try to nurse them along, and they either get better on their own, or they die. Sometimes I come into the coop and see one that looks like it's keeled over off the roost in its sleep; a chicken heart attack, I guess. But I ordered more chicks for this spring, and this fall when they come into lay, I'm "cleaning house" and this time I really mean it. They'll get to enjoy one more summer, and I'll get to enjoy however many eggs they care to give me. All except for Betty. She's the last one of the original first batch of 6 chicks I ever had. They all had names and everything. She's grandmothered in, and at 8 years old she's practically a chicken Methuselah. She's earned the right.
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Post by karitx on Mar 18, 2018 12:00:21 GMT -5
I think that hen is working herself down to pea-sized eggs!
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Post by nana on Mar 18, 2018 20:10:52 GMT -5
I read in a chicken magazine that those teeny eggs are called fart eggs. A very apt name!
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Post by cinnabar on Mar 26, 2018 18:51:56 GMT -5
Just don't let this Spring Chicken near your hen house or you'll have all sorts of troubles going on.
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Post by Chuckie on Mar 26, 2018 21:43:06 GMT -5
Just don't let this Spring Chicken near your hen house or you'll have all sorts of troubles going on. ROFLMFAO!!! TOO cute!!! Did you make that, cinn?! FUNNY! CHEERS! Chuckie
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Post by mach12 on Mar 26, 2018 21:45:53 GMT -5
All that Spring Chicken needs is a guitar are it's ready for the 60's!
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Post by cinnabar on Mar 27, 2018 8:22:56 GMT -5
Did not make it, but wish I had. My DH knows the creator and we bought it from her. She had lots of others(chickens) lumberjacks, football players, hunters etc. Gave it to my Mom a few years ago and it sat on her newel post in springtime after the Christmas decorations were done.
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Post by nana on Mar 27, 2018 15:54:22 GMT -5
Just don't let this Spring Chicken near your hen house or you'll have all sorts of troubles going on. That's for sure! They don't need to be giving themselves any more airs than they already are! If I put anything in there, though, it will be a stewpot! Maybe that will bring their minds back to business. They are gearing up production, but very slowly. My daughter said she would do meat chickens this summer. If she does, I really won't have any excuse not to thin their ranks a bit!
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