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Putting chickens up at night

By timmukyPosted on Posted in chickens, farmingNo Comments on Putting chickens up at night

I was dreading it, but when it came to pass, remembered that I quite enjoyed crating the chickens for slaughter by moonlight.

It has to be done at night, unless you enjoy chasing birds through bushes, and they always seem to be able to hide in the young locust shoots. Spiny, sharp, skin-tearing locusts shoots.

At night, their flight instincts are at war with the need to roost and sleep.

I had to move slow, and was worried that my rechargeable torch was on the low end of the charging scale. But after a while moonlight is just fine.

I’d pick them off one by one. The boys into the crates. (The cockerel’s life is a jolly one, until this day.) The girls into the coop,  where they will, eventually, become accepted by the older hens.

I got ’em all up but one hen, who will be fine til the morning.

In previous years, it was fifty at a time, white cornish crosses, one indistinguishable from the other, and they never came out of the portable pen. This year, it’s just about a dozen cockerels, and they’ve had the run of the yard. They are all colors. The dominant line is buff orpington,  so a lot of orange birds,  but many reds as well, some speckly things (silver-laced wyandottes, perhaps) and a couple with whiskers, whom the kids have dubbed Chipmunk Fur #1 and #2.

They all have names. It’s kind of a sad thing. They put up the most awful fuss when I grab them, but when I squeeze them to my side they calm  down so quickly.  “We’re going in the crate? Well, OK. Time for some shut-eye.” They trust the farmer.

In the bucolic bubble

By timmukyPosted on Posted in chickens, farming, gardening, major farming mistakes, sustainableNo Comments on In the bucolic bubble

We incubated baby chicks in two batches this spring, and now they are feisty grown birds. The males are feeling their testosterone.

A mature rooster goes about his breeding duties with clinical efficiency. It’s hop on, bite a piece of neck for stability, thrust, and hop off. No fuss. The hen gives a little indignant shake and clucks away.

With these callow cockrels, it’s considerably more chaotic and comical. (Alliteration!) They chase and grab at the hens but never get a good grip, and end up tugging on pieces of skin or a couple of feathers, the hens screeching a cross between “I’m being murdered” and  “not in a million years, pal.” Most times, they escape.

I can’t lie. I find this entertaining. We have friends who also keep chickens who coined the phrase watching Chicken TV. It’s a pretty good show.

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After a wet spring, the rain stopped abruptly (in May!) and we edged into drought territory. Nothing like Texas (these images are heartbreaking),  but plenty bad. The garden was a disaster, my cistern was dry for more than a month, the pasture became dominated by weird weeds, which the cows wouldn’t touch, and Johnsongrass, which they would eat at least. Some of my neighbors were already feeding hay before the first of September. The irrational thought that it will never rain again seemed entirely sensible to me for all of July and August.

But  suddenly two weeks ago, the clouds parted and we’ve had plentiful and steady rains.  My herd will be happily grazing well into November.  I like to think this is because of my pasture management, but am not ready to take credit yet….

We’ve had eight calves (the latest born just ten days ago) and all are doing well. The mommas too. Seven of the eight were male, which is pretty weird, and a little disappointing, since my prime directive is to grow the herd, but having seven steers to market next  winter will be good for the cash flow.

The fall has been much greener than the summer. My hives are bustling, and the recent rains have salvaged something like a fall honey flow for the bees. This weekend I’m hoping to get work started on installing a wood stove to reduce and (I hope) eliminate the outrageous propane bills we’ve been paying for seven years. The cows are getting good and fat, and the garden is teeming with volunteer greens, arugula especially.

Tonight the state of Georgia will execute a man for a crime few believe he committed. At the United Nations today the president announced that “the tide of war is receding,” even as new bases to launch Predator drones are being built in the Horn of Africa, where a quarter of a million people will likely starve to death,  in no small part due to my country’s intervention. (Everyone should read that article, by the way).

The wider world we’re bringing three kids into is getting uglier, greedier and more dangerous. For the moment we are living in a little bucolic bubble where they bounce on a trampoline for hours at a time, amidst tame chickens foraging in the grass, and calm cows staring at them through the fence.

Winter is coming, and I know I can’t protect my children from the outside world forever. It’s autumn. Things wither and die, and new life comes along.

Some days I’m not so sure about the second part, but for now I’m determined to enjoy this little autumn interlude. I think I’m happy.

Crusade for better foods … and get stomped

By timmukyPosted on Posted in cheap meat, chickens, farming, food, industrial agriculture, school lunchTagged , No Comments on Crusade for better foods … and get stomped

That episode of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution where he showed kids all the nastiness that goes into chicken nuggets—and they wanted to eat them anyway? As upsetting as it was,  it did save me the bother of showing it to my nugget-inhaling son, as it will probably achieve the same (opposite of intended) result.

I don’t for a moment doubt Jamie Oliver’s good intentions in this food crusade of his. But he is a wealthy celebrity chef, and he  will get over it. He is probably already home in Britain, regaling his like-minded friends with tales of the benighted colonials over some delightful meal he’s just whipped up, along with a number of impeccably complementary bottles of tasty plonk.

Meanwhile, there is growing evidence that speaking out about the garbage served to kids in schools can have career-threatening consequences. From La Vida Locavore, here is an excerpt from the  woeful saga of what happened to a school teacher who became concerned about what her students were eating. (Writing in haste today, so apologies for the extensive cut-and-pastiness).

Mendy Heaps, a stellar English teacher for years, had never given much thought to the food her seventh-graders were eating. Then her husband, after years of eating junk food, was diagnosed with cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure and suddenly the french fries, pizza and ice cream being served in the cafeteria at rural Elizabeth Middle School outside Denver, Col., took on a whole new meaning.

Heaps was roused to action. She started teaching nutrition in her language arts classes. She bombarded colleagues, administrators and the local school board with e-mails and news clippings urging them to overhaul the school menu. She even took up selling fresh fruits and healthy snacks to the students on her own, wheeling alternative foods from classroom to classroom on a makeshift “fruit cart,” doling out apples for a quarter.

Finally, the school’s principal, Robert McMullen, could abide Heaps’ food crusade no longer. Under threat of being fired, Heaps says she was forced to sign a personnel memorandum agreeing to cease and desist. She was ordered to undergo a kind of cafeteria re-education program, wherein she was told to meet with the school’s food services director, spend part of each day on lunch duty recording what foods the students ate, and compile data showing the potential economic impact of removing from the menu the “grab and go” foods Heaps found so objectionable. … The case of Mendy Heaps is a stark reminder that at least one voice is largely missing from the debate over school food that’s getting so much attention lately: the voice of teachers. Teachers see what kids eat every day. They have opinions about the the food and how it impacts children’s health and school performance. Yet they are almost universally silent.

… “When I got the memo, everyone became afraid,” said Heaps. “If I tried to talk about the memo, no one wanted to listen. I got a little support from a couple of teachers, but not very much. Everyone wanted to forget about it and they wanted me to forget about it too…The only thing I still do is write letters and try to get someone interested! I’m working on one for Michelle Obama right now.”

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