How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Respect the Chicken
September 9th, 2010Via: Lew Rockwell:
Today on any given day we have between 75 and 100 chickens, depending on hatch rates.
Since that conversation, I’ve come to realize how important the chicken is to our civilization. It may be the most important animal that we have “domesticated.” To those that know chickens I’m sure this will seem obvious, but, to me it was a revelation. I’d always taken the chicken for granted. Now I believe that anyone serious about “surviving” the crash had better have at a minimum a small flock of chickens to ease the transition.
Unlike us carnivores, they are naturally omnivorous, greedily chasing bugs as well as picking at grass and, if you let them, your garden. They are little garbage disposals with legs that you can feed nearly every food scrap you generate and recycle back into high-quality food for you and your family. The only things my chickens won’t eat are celery and onion skins, because even a chicken knows that eating celery is like Keynesian stimulus, a waste of time and energy, costing more to consume than the act will generate.
While their digestive tracks are grossly inefficient and chicken feed is expensive, they will produce eggs of similar quality at a far-lower price. With even just a small amount of free ranging, you will produce eggs far superior in quality to anything at the supermarket, regardless of price. Fully free-ranged eggs are like a gift from on high. Moreover, they produce a high-nitrogen fertilizer as a by-product that is essential for a successful vegetable garden.
The egg is one of the world’s most perfect foods, combining easily digested proteins with a mix of saturated fats, beta-carotene and cholesterol that are all essential for proper energy production at the cellular level. Your mitochondria will thank you for every free-range egg you consume. Like global warming, the lipid hypothesis is one of the most idiotic things ever promulgated by one human towards another. If you want to survive the crash, begin divesting yourself of its consequences immediately.
Research Credit: pookie
@Thanks Pookie for the article.
I love my chickens so much. Every egg seems like a gift. Lord would I love to have a large flock of them.
I’m off to make some egg drop soup in chicken broth from one of my old ones that had stopped laying and was acting like a rooster. I have it labeled “Goldie broth.”
I am sure this is all I need to cure a respitory illness caused by long distance travel.
I don’t give my chickensnames anymore because when their life cycle usefulness is over it is painful for me to have to “bury” them.
Chickens are a gift that keep on giving.
@Eileen
No chickens for me yet — I’m researching coops and figuring out where on my land I’ll stage the critters, but I’m still doing intl travel on a regular basis, so can’t yet have a flock. But the “fresh air poultry house” is what I’m thinking of building, placed in an area in which I’ll be planting a fruit tree orchard:
http://www.nortoncreekpress.com/fresh-air-poultry-houses2.html
@Pookie
Thanks for the article. My coop is made out of a place my father built on the back of our huge garage to dry wood from the tornado in 1985.
Windows on the coop face south and west.
Very interesting about the fresh air. In the summer the coop is basically chicken wire, rafters, a brick floor with shredded leaves to absorb the poop. Used to seal it up pretty tight in the winter. Not this year anyways, now that I’ve read this.
My four girls are already covered with their winter weather feathers.
Even if you are on international travel alot, it takes apples, pears and other fruits about seven years to produce after planting. That’s my experience. Maybe get that part going now. Trees don’t need as much care as chickens. Good luck!