First thoughts on chickens

Although horses might be more exciting, I've always had an affinity for chickens. Even living in town growing up, we kept a sizable flock in the backyard coop. We had our own eggs and meat. And the most fun part was raising heritage breeds to show at the local county fair.

Here I am with a Best-in-Show Wyandotte, probably in the Fall of '97 or '98.

While renting the place in Dallas, Rosemary and I finally got to raise some chickens of our own. The professor who leased us the house allowed me to construct a chicken coop and run, and we built up a thriving business selling eggs to professors and fellow graduate students at the university. In fact, we made enough money to cover all the feed expenses and even to purchase our raw milk supply.

Here are a few pictures from the Texas years:

Cyprian being chased (or chasing?) our Texas chickens, his beloved pet turtle shell (yes, it's a real shell) in hand.

Larry, my rooster (may he rest in peace!). St. Lawrence, the early martyr, was reportedly grilled alive, telling his torturers, "Turn me over; I'm done on this side." Larry the Rooster, on the other hand, ceased crowing long before his untimely end in a crock pot. 

Look at that smile. You would almost think Rosemary likes cleaning chickens!

Here in North Carolina, Rosemary scouted out the cheapest hatchery before we had even closed on the house. All but a few meat chickens survived the arduous two-day postal journey all the way from Iowa and were soon under a heat lamp in the garage.

The chicks on arrival.

Even the broilers are cut as babies!

Our current flock, which is now 2 1/2 months old, consists of 14 or so broiler meat chickens and 20-some of a variety of other breeds--California Whites, Americaunas, Rainbow Layers, Production Reds, Isa Golds, Australorps, and Barred Rocks. Since most were unsexed straight run, we'll have more than a few roosters vying for dominance (and, for that matter, for avoidance of the crock pot!). The non-roosters will become our flock of layers. Three or four months from now, we should start getting enough eggs not only for ourselves, but also for colleagues and friends.

So, why chickens? First of all, they're fun animals to have around. They love you because you're their source of feed. Their hierarchy/pecking order is a lot of fun to observe. The crowing of the rooster is a beautiful sound early in the morning (well, maybe once you're used to it), as is the cackling of the hens as they lay their eggs in the morning. From a romantic standpoint, chickens part-and-parcel of living on a farm.

Of course, there are the practical reasons: meat and eggs. In Texas, we were accustomed to putting a whole chicken in the crock pot and getting several meals from it. There was a definite difference between the flavorful white and dark meat. And even the organs are tasty. Just ask Cyprian, who would vie with me for the heart every time we cooked a new chicken. By way of contrast, here in North Carolina we stocked up on 80 pounds of boneless chicken breasts. While they were "all natural" (what does that mean, exactly?) and antibiotic free, the breasts are uniformly tasteless apart from whatever spices we cook them with. I was reminded of how good free-range chicken is the other day when I helped a fellow St. Catherine's parishioner--a gentleman with a family of eight (with another on the way!) who is also beginning to homestead--to process 20 chickens. He paid me with a chicken, which quickly made its way into the crock pot. The difference is unmistakable. 

Our own 14 meat chickens are common broilers, bred specifically to put on weight quickly. Yes, heritage breeds would be even tastier (and we'll get some of those later on when we butcher the excess roosters), but broilers have a lot more meat on them and reach processing weight twice as fast. They're already twice as big as the heritage breed chickens. Due to cost considerations, ours eat conventional feed. But they get plenty of space to roam about and greens and table scraps in addition to the feed. 

Big, fat broilers. Phew, eating is a lot of work!

I'm currently building the meat chickens a second pen so that I can "finish" them apart from the layers.

The meat chickens' pen-in-progress

Currently all the chickens are residing in the main chicken coop, converted from one of the horse stalls. A colleague helped me to dig the fence post holes and construct a large run extending from the stall. I've built a roost and a feed trough, and, later on, I'll be adding nesting boxes. We also plan to let them out of the run regularly once they're a little bigger.

The main chicken run.

Chickens in their run.