You might remember from our Stone Soup video that our little eco-village has started to cull our chicken flock to make room for new birds. For the last 2 months we’ve been learning what it takes to be mother hens and raise two dozen newly hatched chics. Jay and I grew up in urban areas where there were no chickens but in the grocery store, so this was a learning experience for us both. These babies need tons of food, water and warmth because they grow exponentially in their first months of life. The benefits of having chickens in your backyard are many- they eat veggie food scraps and weeds, they poop instant fertilizer, they lay eggs and, if you’re into it, they’ll eventually make a great organic, free range, home raised meal.
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[tags]chickens, chics, raising chickens, san mateo eco-village, food security, ryanishungry[/tags]
Yeah, I’m amazed at how fast they grow! It’s great you guys are doing this.
They’re so BIG! I guess it’s been quite awhile since I was there and saw them as babies. They look great, happy and well.
…plus they eat bugs.
John
yeah, chickens are compost machines. We throw all our weeds into the pen only, they eat it all up, poop it out, then we make that into soil.
Thanks for the comment Jay. Raising the little ones up is a lot of fun isn’t it? I only had 4, so I bet with 18 you guys were pretty busy.
Still Life with Chickens is a great book about (among other things) raising chickens. It seems much more like a part time job than say tomatoes.
Inspired me to look into having chickens, but they are considered livestock by the city and I can’t have them in my small backyard.
Some people have been able to get around their city restrictions on keeping chickens by showing that they are pets to them and not just livestock.
About 18 months ago, give or take, my husband and I started raising chickens for eggs…We are meat eaters, but I can’t imagine what change would have to occur in me to actually eat one of the Chichi Sisters…Do you think it’s because I named them??? Or because I hand picked them from the feed store and raised them from little peeps…or possibly the fault is I don’t have enough of them??? The rooster… we only have one little silky bantam…He could go at any time, except he is just too small to be worth the effort! Are meat birds mostly roos??? At present, Mr. Chuckers has redeemed himself with a byline on my blog…however, if that doesn’t work out, he might be on the short list again…I do intend to put a link to your site on my blog…If he reads this maybe he will work harder!
I agree that getting to know your chickens make you less likely to want to eat them. From my experience, people process chickens when they are either hungry, or the birds stop producing eggs.
I think “feeling close” to the birds usually is overpowered when you are hungry…or when you are sick of paying for feed when the hen isn’t laying anymore.
You can of course keep chickens as pets. This is just a different reason than most people who keep chickens.