Eggs...slight rant.

I think companies that use marketing schemes that fatten their pockets by taking advantage of shoppers are bottom feeders.  I stumbled on one today.

Chickens are omnivores.  Mature egg laying chickens need about 16% of their diet to be protein.  Given their choice...this would be bugs and meat (think of animals they can kill and eat; mice, snakes, skinks etc) if they can get it.  So...if your eggs come from vegetarian fed chickens where do you think that protein comes from?  Soy.  What agriculture product in the US has the most plantings of highly genetically engineered product with herbicides (roundup) and insecticides??  Soy.

Where can chickens get their protein?  Soy, meat products and alfalfa meal.  I am sure there are others...but those are what I researched.  Most commercially prepared chicken feed uses soy for the protein.  Most organic feed...uses soy for the protein.  So, chickens who live in little boxes and do nothing but eat and lay all day...they eat a commercial type feed.  So, what does this mean?  Aha!  Those chickens are vegetarian fed too. 

Chickens little bodies (like ours) are designed to filter out toxins.  Since eggs are not a waste product...they will have had the benefit of the chickens cleverly designed filtration system. 

So, if you want to spend more money on eggs or are concerned with how chickens are treated..please choose cage free or free range.  Don't waste your money on vegetarian eggs...the biggest contributing factor to the nutritional value of the egg comes from the health of the chicken.  Chickens living in a box aren't going to be as healthy as a cage free chicken.

Disclaimer thoughts...There has been a hubalub about chickens in mass farms being fed the culled older chickens to give them the protein they need.  I believe...that most of the byproduct goes towards dog food and such these days but couldn't find any sources to the contrary.  However, chicken tidbit, chickens will kill and eat each other in the free range environment.  I have also seen them eat a mouse and a snake.  Then a day later fight over a skink.  No joke.    

When you see 'no animal byproducts' on the package...recycling chickens who aren't producing is what they are referring to.   Also, the vegetarian eggs pictured above...do not say that they are cage free or free range.  So, those chickens who are being fed a vegetarian diet were living in little shoe boxes laying and eating all day. 

1.5 pood baby carry ...

53# kettle bells are also referred to (by the informed Russian set...you know who you are) as 1.5 pood.  Every time I hear that I think of the past tense of poo...that would be a lot of poo.

This week in CrossFit we had a WOD that involved carrying a 53# kettle bell down the parking lot while your partner slogged away doing pushups and then switch until 200 pushups were achieved by the team of 2, 300 pushups for a team of three or for the super awesome 300 pushups for a team of two.

As I was carrying the 53# kettle bell down the parking lot I thought of this picture below of me carrying an extra 50# of body weight.  The equivalent of what I was at that second carrying a 53# kettle bell. 

 

When these pictures were first taken..I was so annoyed at my husband for taking them with me in the picture.  In my mind the pics were all ruined.  Because I was in them.  Ouch. 

While continuing to chip away at the WOD...remembering back to the day when I saw those pics contrasted to now...I came to a few conclusions.

1.  This picture is of a woman who fought to keep her youngest alive at the expense of her own health.  I sat up all night watching her breathe giving her treatments into the wee hours of the morning and then got up and went to work.  I ate horrible fast energy foods and had zero time for myself.  However, the Littlest Who lived and that is all that matters.  End of story.  I didn't ruin the pic...God working through me is the reason this picture took place.

2.  One short month after this, at that weight, I walked from the Radisson Hotel in Seattle to the SeaTac airport, not a great distance, with the little red head (30#) on my back, a computer backpack backwards on my chest (15#) pulling a big suitcase (not doing the coefficient of friction math) and directing Andrew and Katherine to stay on the side walk.  That lady is strong and determined.  A wise friend told me that we should strive to be like a force of nature...guided by God and unstoppable.

3.  Clearly I should have been carrying the 2 pood bell.  Say that without giggling.  I can't.

4.  Thinking like this during a WOD probably contributes to why I can't count reps.

What does this all mean?  I have no idea.  One thing, military wives do stuff like this all the time and are awesome.  I am also thinking with those numbers in #2 that I need to be squatting and dead lifting more and perhaps I shouldn't try to think of profound things while starving myself of oxygen during exercise. 

You raise chickens? In your yard? HOW?

Since I talk so frequently about my chickens I get questions and odd stares (I assume those are the judge-y types) but most are like, "hey...do you sell your stuff?  I want in!"

Our yard is mostly cleared and the house sits closer to the street than to the back property line and the yard is completely surrounded by a wooded area.  I can only see one neighbor's house from the backyard and she is an older lady that throws scraps in her backyard as she likes to watch my chickens roam through her yard.  My ladies are happy to oblige.

We have both meat birds and egg birds.  Meat birds are bigger meatier birds that get big really really quick.  Our lesson learned is that meat birds reach sexual maturity and begin crowing before they reach maximum dress weight.  Lesson learned...only hens next time.

Our goal is raise our own chicken meat and then have enough eggs to sell to pay for the rest of the operation.  This started as a project business for the kids in budgeting and responsibility.  They all have an active part in some function of the process and eventually will reap part of the earnings to add to their allowance. 

This is a panoramic from our back door - the green dome in the right middle is my greenhouse.  More on that later.

When we get new chicks (meat or egg laying) they start off in the garage or the shed in a chick playpen.

Nifty Playpen

At this age it is important to keep them free from drafts and predators.  They are supposed to be kept at 90 degrees for the first week.  I don't do that.  Actually...I am not careful at all.  I didn't wash my children's binkies when they fell to the floor either...unless it landed in something worse than their mouths.  Which is pretty hard to find.  I watch the chicks to see if they are all clumped up trying to get warm...if so I turn the light on.  If they are gathering under the light I lower it until a few are escaping the heat of the light.  Which is at about 82 degrees for about a week then we only had the light on at night.  

Baby chicks are about as helpless as a toddler.  They can feed themselves, walk around, play and hurt themselves pretty easily.  Tidbit: baby chicks can also drown in their drinking water. 

Looking back up at the picture of our back yard..after they leave the playpen they go to the romper room which is the green 'tractor' that can be moved around for them to have fresh grass for scratching and to keep disease out of the picture by them not walking around in their own poo.  A 'tractor' is any portable chicken enclosure that can be moved to provide fresh grass to chickens.  The 'romper room' also has a heat light built in to the lower back part so they can have heat at night.

Romper Room

Inside "Romper Room"

After the romper room...meat birds go to the flat which is the second from the right.  It is a flat box that is 12*12 with food and water.  Half of it is covered on top and about a quarter has blocked sides to provide them a place to sleep where predators can't look in.  I followed the Joel Salatin model.  Interesting tidbit...meat birds aren't supposed to roost as they are too big and it leaves bruises.  The flat gets moved around the yard and they scratch, eat the weeds and poo.  Which fertilizes the ground that I plant grass seed on right behind them as I move the 'tractor'.  Pretty simple operation.  Meat birds eat a lot as they go to 10-14lbs (undressed) in 80 days.  I raise Red Rangers as they are "more" of a heritage breed than the Cornish Cross and they take longer but it is a much more humane process.  In my opinion.

"The Flat"

After the romper room for egg layers they go to the condo which is second from the left.  They have a roost and two levels for sleeping and hanging out during the day.  It is covered as well.  The ladies in the picture below are about 6 weeks old and will move in a few weeks to either 'Momma's Coop' or 'Pax Pullum'.

"The Condo"

Right now the condo is full of egg layers.  They will be moving to Momma's coop (to the right of the shed) and "Pax Pullum" all the way on the right.  Momma's coop is the one I built for our Hen who hatched out eggs from the Amish man in the Spring.  You can hardly see it from the house.  Good design, eh? 

"Momma's Coop"

The Big House. "Pax Pullum" which took us almost 8 months to finish in between gutting the kitchen and living room of our house.  The run is about 135sqft which they spend the morning hours in before they are let out in to the yard to free range.  If you lay an egg... and I like you...you have the privilege of living here.

Last but not least.  The "Penalty Box" or the "Broody Buster" as the "Chicken Chick" calls it.  It has one occupant in it right now.  I let her out every day (she has food and water in there) and she goes right.back.to.the.egg.box.  So far she is on day two...I am hoping she will give up soon.  The cool air is supposed to return her body temperature to a normal level and then she will stop being broody.  Supposedly.  I think she is just looking for a baby daddy.  Clearly, she doesn't read my blog.  If she did she would know all of the roosters are in the freezer.

This was our first hen house and since then we have used it for an injured hen that we nursed back to health and trying to unbroody hens. 

That is it.  We pray one day that we will be blessed with the stability of living in the same place long enough to purchase 20+ acres for a real farm! 

how to quiet a rooster...or not

As most of you know I have chickens.  At present...a few too many.  If you have objections to eating or processing humanely pastured raised birds, please move on.

In May, my girls, convinced me to get some fertilized eggs for our broody hen (a hen who wants to sit on eggs and have babies...if only she knew) to hatch out.  Those hatched out early summer.  We also purchased more birds to raise for meat later that month.  Then, we ordered more egg laying babies (all hens) to replace some of our more obnoxious hens from our egg laying flock later.  I have.too.many.chickens.

The meat chickens were purchased straight run. Which means, they send you chicks as they are laid without sexing as they are laid.  Yes...there are people who work for hatcheries called sexers.  I would like that name tag.  [My NAME] SEXER.  That is awesome.  So, straight run means bottom line, they will be less than 1/2 roosters.  At first, we looked at it and saw that was cheaper then all female or all male and since we plan to eat them...what do we care?  Oh... WAIT.  We care cause roosters are loud and obnoxious.  Like a two year old who has learned to whistle and will not stop doing it horribly. If you have to process them too early then you end up with a smaller bird (still sizeable) and less meat then you could get with a fully mature bird.  Mental note for next time....all hens.

So fast forward to yesterday. We returned from a weekend away to find out that we had a crowing rooster.  We live in a subdivision with largish yards without a chicken ordinance and we have neighbors with chickens (a few with roosters) but I don't want to be the one that causes a problem because I do have too many chickens.  So...cockadoodle doo....over and over.  We packed the boys all up to take them to the Amish man for processing only to find out that he can't handle them for several days so we decide to handle Mr. Crows A'lot.  Details spared...he was handled and he went in the refrigerator.  Then...this morning... I walk out to this:

Three roosters crowing...some of them from the hatched chick cage.  How do I keep them quiet enough for them to reach full size?  I don't want to take time from my work day to "handle" more...the Amish man isn't available until the end of the week... so...what's a girl to do. 

I spent about 10 minutes playing various videos from YouTube with crowing roosters trying to get the crower to identify himself so I could 'handle' him.  To no avail.  Once I walked out there with the tags to mark the crowers...they stopped.  I think they were on to me since one disappeared yesterday.  

So, I opted to separate them in a more excluded part of the yard so they wouldn't disturb the neighbors or be otherwise stimulated by the hens and then prompted to crow and demonstrate their manliness.  Once I separated them I put a tarp over their enclosure so they couldn't see what was going on with the girls.   If it gets hot...I can put a box fan at the opening.  This seemed to help ... A LOT.  No more mid day crowing.  I moved them to a part of the yard that was far from the ladies so they didn't hear the chattering and such from them.  Then my neighbor said that she heard an old wives tale that if you put a laundry basket over them...they can't stand up to crow.  Light BULB!!  So, I put a layer of poultry netting in their enclosure to keep them from being able to stand up tall.  It is kind of high...but I don't want to restrict them TOO much and I can always lower it.

My goal is to let them hang out for another few weeks so we get a maximum return on our investment while they live humanely.  Everyone is invited to my backyard tomorrow at 6am to see if it works!