Here's a post about what I've learned about chickens this year. None of it is news to people with chickens, so if you have some skip the post.
You can feed chickens vegetarian scratch that's healthy for them, but unless they're confined indoors they will find a way to eat bugs. That's one of the best things about chickens, that they eat bugs and slugs. Those hens will lay the tastiest eggs. If you read a label on store-bought chicken eggs that says the hens are vegetarian fed, they are either living in a bug-free (read: unnatural) environment or sneaking in some buggy snacks. I admit I'm no expert on fowl but I have learned a lot about them this year. They're more badass then I had previously thought.
I hesitate to post this photo, because there's rice in the pan and it looks like I don't clean my pans. I was actually about to make a second helping of fried rice with these eggs and didn't see any reason to clean up the rice from the last one. Anyway, I thought it was interesting to see the difference in yolk color between these two eggs. They are from chickens that live in the same flock, but one, a New Hampshire Red, is a nice bird who stays in the coop. The other one I call Problem Chicken; she is an athletic and foolhardy Egyptian, and runs around wherever she pleases so she can eat insects, especially grasshoppers. But that's not all she eats. She nailed a tiny frog once (well, probably more than once but I just had the misfortune of witnessing it once). In the photo, her egg is the one with the deeper color yolk. The other one is still a fresh, tasty, nutritious egg, but the murderous Problem Chicken's is a little heartier.
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| If you tilt your head, you perv, they look like boobies |
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There are pros and cons to keeping backyard chickens. The pros are obvious. I won't go into the controversy about hatcheries. You can raise your own, but it looks kind of complicated, with incubators and stuff. I have been to farms with hens and roosters of heritage varieties that seem to just flock together and raise families though. But obviously they do risk their lives when they run around like PC does. The people in my neighborhood I have gotten eggs from lost half their little flock to a fox last year. They're kind of predator magnets. When I had a frail little old kitty, I remember thinking I was glad we didn't keep chickens that would attract red-tailed hawks.
Since I'm on the subject, I have to out Nest Fresh. The artwork and wordy marketing essays on the package describe a virtual chicken Shangri-La, even going so far as to say the hens are "a little spoiled." However, Nest Fresh customer service confirmed that all their farms have debeaked hens. I'm not making the connection between "spoiled" and "debeaked." That may no longer be the case at this writing, but it was last year. The lesson is that, if you have certain criteria you require from manufacturers or farms before buying their products, read the label critically.
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