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Chickens at Home - Raising Poultry
Most people keep one type of bird for egg production and another type for meat. The egg layers adorn our property for 3 years or so, the meat birds come just for the summer.
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Poultry, around here anyway, seem to be a woman's preference. We like eating poultry more often then men, we enjoy watching them, caring for them and can appreciate their wide diversity (eggs, meat, garden fertilization, weed pulling).
Most people keep one type of bird for egg production and another type for meat. The egg layers adorn our property for 3 years or so, the meat birds come just for the summer.
Lately I have had a passion for Bantam Chickens -- a small bird with lots of personality (for a chicken). They come in a wide variety of colors, the roosters are seldom mean, the hens are prolific layers and brooders (they'll even try to hatch ping pong balls), and their butchered size is just perfect for one (cornish hen style).
There are a few basic principles to follow when keeping birds of any sort:
1. As always, begin with quality stock purchased from a local hatchery or mail order.
2. Give your birds room to roam outside as well as shelter from the elements and predators.
3. Feed them a store-bought feed designed for the purpose of egg production or quick and healthy weight gain. Supplement their diets with as much natural food as possible (let them eat a free range diet in the summer, give them your table scraps in the winter -- if you're not feeding pigs).
4. Clean out the coop or chicken stall at least twice per year. Chickens can become infested with lice easily. Age the manure in your compost heap for one year, then add it to your garden soil.
5. Sell or freeze (not in the shell) any excess eggs.
6. Don't feed meat birds any longer than necessary. Once they've reached their maximum or expected size butcher them yourself and can or freeze them. Overfed usually means fat - and fat collects on the heart first which quickly kills or stresses your bird.
A current major concern of people who eat a lot of chicken in their diets is that of the feed and treatment of birds in the large growing facilities. Steroid use for fast growth, cramped conditions, stressful lives and rampant disease in growing facilities are persistant in the news and in our minds each time we sit down to a meal of grocery store chicken.
Raising your own birds is economical, incredibly easy (with the right information to back you up), and an entire year's supply of chicken can be grown for your family within an 8 week span. You control what they eat, how they live their lives and even the size of bird you need per meal. It is not economically sound to feed a meat bird past the 8 week mark - they have grown so large, so fast that their legs and hearts often cannot support them comfortably past 2 months of age. At that point they also become less mobile, so instead of converting their feed to meat, generally it is stored as fat on their bodies.
Absolute control over your family's consumption of second hand chemicals and steroid ingestion is within your reach and knowledge. Anyone can do this with just a small backyard space!
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