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Shortage of Chickens
The orchestrated COVID pandemic to change the economy for the BUILD BACK BETTER Great Reset has set in motion food shortages that are now emerging. Farmers have had to plow their crops under, and one had to kill over 30,000 chickens because they simply could not get them to market. As I have said, these morons look at the world only in a single dimension. They had no idea that locking people down to lower CO2 meant that they were also cutting off the supply chain in technology to food.
There is a shortage now of chickens, and don’t worry, it will move to beef as well. Add their scheme for a cyber attack, and the future looks really crazy because nobody will lock these people up, no less dare to investigate them. So be warned. This will get far worse post-2024. We should all send a thank you note to Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates for starters.
Backyard Chickens, and the Interconnectedness of All Things, Part 3
BACKYARD CHICKENS, AND THE INTERCONNECTEDNESS OF ALL THINGS. PART 3
This article is Part 3 of a Series that is mostly about chickens. It’s not a how-to-care-for-chickens article, but a how-to-appreciate-the-specialness-of-chickens article.
If you are interested only in chickens and would like to read about the funny things one of our roosters gets up to, this article will be fine to read by itself.
But if you missed the earlier articles in the series, and you’re interested in what backyard chickens have to do with the interconnectedness of all things, you’ll need to go back to the beginning of Part 1.
ROOSTERS ARE A LOT OF FUN TO WATCH
Roosters are gentle, generous, and protective, particularly as they get older, feel they have their place well established, and don’t have to compete with other roosters for space or mates.
They show the hens all the good things to eat that they find, calling them and sharing the food in a similar way to how a mother hen shares with her chicks. And they come running to defend the hens when they hear one in distress.
In our flock of about 30 hens, there are currently three adult roosters. The oldest has his own family group of hens who go with him to forage in the same areas each day, to rest in the same shady spots, to dust bath in their designated dust baths.
The other two are younger, and very different. One, a large white rooster who stars in the stories I’ll share below, seems to be where-ever there is food to share with hens, or where-ever there are good spots for hens to lay eggs.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Backyard Chickens, and the Interconnectedness of All Things
BACKYARD CHICKENS, AND THE INTERCONNECTEDNESS OF ALL THINGS
This 3-Part Series articles starts off with our cultural lack of understanding about our place in the web of life, which is at the root of why our efforts to address ecological destruction aren’t working yet.
If you were mainly interested in chickens, stay with me – I’ll get onto backyard chickens in the second part of Part 1, and then I’ll stick almost entirely to chickens for the rest of the Series.
Please note, though, that this is not a “how to take care of chickens” Series (you can find those everywhere). This article Series is about “how to appreciate chickens as more than just egg-layers and garden-scratchers.” You’ll find out the importance of this, as you read the following section.
WE NEED A BETTER APPRECIATION OF OUR CONNECTEDNESS TO ALL OF LIFE:
I’ve been reading some of Charles Eisenstein’s writings. In his books and articles, Eisenstein points out that regardless of how hard we work in a piecemeal way or on a superficial level to address the social and ecological challenges we face, collectively we are still missing a fundamental piece of the puzzle. It’s a piece that must fall into place before deep change can occur on a broad scale.
That missing piece has to do with our culture’s ways of interpreting reality, and our place in it.
Ecological destruction and social upheaval will continue until we as a culture experience a fundamental change in the way we view our place and role on earth, and our relationship with the rest of life.
So long as we continue to hold onto a (now obsolete) scientific worldview that says we are alone in the universe, we will continue to place ourselves above and apart from nature, and to prioritize our own wellbeing at the expense of other lifeforms.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Permaculture Chickens–6 Practical Lessons From the Evolution of Chickens
PERMACULTURE CHICKENS – 6 PRACTICAL LESSONS FROM THE EVOLUTION OF CHICKENS
One of the fundamentals of permaculture design is to observe, understand and work with natural ecosystems.
It sounds simple enough to apply permaculture principles to chicken keeping. Can’t we just observe wild chickens in their natural environment? The problem is, modern domesticated chickens don’t exist in the wild. Junglefowl are the immediate ancestor of chickens, however it’s not that simple.
Modern chickens were domesticated more than 8,000 years ago and have changed a lot as a result of selective breeding. To get a more complete picture, that accounts for the differences between modern chickens and Junglefowl, I’ve studied the evolution of chickens from the Asian jungle, to modern factory farming and chicken nuggets.
I have distilled this research into 6 lessons for a permaculture approach to happy, healthy, backyard chickens.
Evolution of Chickens
Before I jump into the 6 lessons for permaculture chickens, I’ll start by setting the scene with a brief history and evolution of the modern domestic chicken.
Junglefowl – The chicken’s immediate ancestor:
Domestic chickens can be traced back to Red Junglefowl, from South East Asia and India. Jungle fowl have small lean bodies and they only lay about 20 eggs each year.
If we trace chickens back even further, chickens are the closest living relative of the T-Rex. This makes a lot of sense because chickens go crazy for meat, hunt down insects and even small rodents. And check out this incredible video of a chicken grabbing (stealing) a mouse that was being hunted down by a cat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwtuoHyLEiw .
Domestication and family farming (1900s to 1950):
Junglefowl were domesticated around 8,000 years ago. Despite domesticated chickens being very different ‘physically’ to jungle fowl, studies show that genetic differences are actually pretty small. This study of the genetic evolution of chickens shows there are two important mutations:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Perks of Raising Chickens
THE PERKS OF RAISING CHICKENS
For many people who have grown interested in gaining a certain sense of autonomy through taking responsibility for growing a part of their own food, a simple backyard garden or even a container garden on your window will is considered a good place to start. Making the leap from growing tomatoes and peppers to raising a small flock of chickens, however, is a step that not everyone is ready to take.
For some reason, raising chickens (or other small farm animals) is considered to be something that farmers do, even though almost all of our grandparents kept a small flock wandering around the house, no matter where they lived. Whether you live on a 100-acre farm on in a crowded suburban neighborhood, raising chickens brings a number of important benefits.
Chickens should belong on every farm, every backyard, and every urban rooftop. Instead of caging chickens in pestilent CAFO housing where they´re pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics if every family would keep just a couple chickens, they would receive more than enough eggs and meat every year.
Chickens are a descendant of a jungle fowl that humans domesticated thousands of years ago. They are omnivores and traditionally survived by scratching the soil in search of insects, seeds, and other small animals. They also feed on the leaves and roots of certain plants. Chickens, when given the right conditions, can feed themselves on the land where they live.
While commercial chicken feed is made from grain that farmers dedicate millions of acres to growing, if every suburban family simply fenced in their backyards, they could raise a large flock of chicken without any sort of outside inputs. The current “organic” movement specializes in free-range chickens meaning chickens that instead of being caged are allowed to freely roam to gather a lot of their own nutrients.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Make a Thrifty DIY Swingset Chicken Coop
Make a Thrifty DIY Swingset Chicken Coop
Do you have one of those old A-shaped swingsets rusting in your backyard? If you do, then you have the basis for an awesome swingset chicken coop! (And if you don’t, watch Craigslist – there are frequently people offering them for free to whoever comes to pick them up.) Creativity is key when you go DIY for your coop.
When we moved recently we had to leave our wonderful chicken coop behind, since it was attached to the barn. While I drooled over some of the beautiful chicken Taj Mahals that are available, I’m on a pretty tight budget so it was important to use items that I could acquire either cheap or free. Luckily, the house we moved to had some pretty interesting stuff in a shed and an old rusty swingset in the woods.
I don’t have a lot of construction skills but the guy who put up my fence does, and luckily, he was on board with my wacky, freebie-scrounging ideas.
For the price of some labor, some hardware, some chicken wire, and a fancy-dancy hanging chicken waterer, I got a snazzy new coop that keeps my chickens safe and sound. (Some of the tips for predator-proofing came from this guide.)
Here’s what we used:
- A swingset with the swings removed
- 2 pieces of corrugated metal on the top 3/4 plus a strip of it over the top to help weather proof
- Some sheets of plywood for the bottom back of the coop
- A piece of chain link fencing for the bottom in order to keep out predators
- Some old pieces of fence posts for the bottom of the coop to attach the chicken wire and chain link to
- Some lumber for the door
- Chicken wire (It was cheaper from Amazon than from my local store)
- A double-hinged latch
- A chicken waterer
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Definitive Guide to Keeping Chickens in Winter
THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO KEEPING CHICKENS IN WINTER
Welcome to The Definitive Guide To Keeping Chickens In Winter. Raising chickens during winter can be a challenging time for backyard chicken owners. With those dark cold mornings and the drop in egg production, it’s no wonder we don’t like this time of year!
So I decided to write this guide as an aid for all backyard chicken owners, and to answer all your questions about how to care for your chickens during winter: how to keep them warm, how to stop predators, how to keep your egg production high… you will find all the answers here.
Each chapter can be read as a standalone guide on a specific topic; however you should make sure you try and read the entire guide to get the most out of it. You can drop in and out of it as needed, or you can read the entire guide cover to cover right now!
As each Chapter is a quite in-depth article, the full chapter’s are available via the link!
WINTERIZING YOUR COOP
In the first chapter of our definitive winter guide, we are going to look at how to prepare your coop so it’s ready for winter.
Mother Nature built the chicken to withstand some fairly extreme environments. The layers of downy feathers under the visible plumage can be puffed up to catch air against the body, providing extra warmth in cold climates. This gives them insulation against cold air.
However during the darkest days in winter these feathers aren’t enough to keep your chickens warm, which is why you provide them with a coop to roost in during nighttime.
The ideal coop should be warm, secure and draft proof; however it should also provide ventilation for your girls. Let’s take a look at each point in turn.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Bird Flu Has Already Killed More Than 20 MILLION Turkeys And Chickens In The United States
Bird Flu Has Already Killed More Than 20 MILLION Turkeys And Chickens In The United States
Are you prepared to go without turkey this Thanksgiving? Yes, it might actually get that bad. So far, the worst outbreak of bird flu in U.S. history has claimed the lives of more than 20 million turkeys and chickens, and the pandemic continues to rage wildly out of control. Once one bird becomes infected, this particular strain of the virus is so virulent that it can virtually wipe out an entire flock in just a matter of days. At this point, scientists think that this virus is being spread by wild birds, but they have no idea how it is getting inside barns and other enclosed facilities so easily. Considering how important turkey, chicken and eggs are to our food supply, it is quite alarming that scientists don’t really understand what is going on. If this bird flu outbreak is not brought under control, how many birds will eventually die? Right now, it is already in the tens of millions. Could the total eventually reach into the hundreds of millions?
Minnesota is the top producer of turkeys in the United States, and Iowa is the top producer of eggs, and that is why it is so alarming that both of these states are right at the heart of this current outbreak…
Virulent H5 avian influenza strains have spread to 14 states in five months and affected about 24 million birds so far, mostly egg-laying hens and turkeys, according to USDA.
That tally is expected to grow, as U.S. authorities confirm pending cases. The outbreak, which is also affecting two Canadian provinces, shows little sign of slowing.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
