The scratching chickens that are found in and around many rural households provides cheap food at practically no cost - now its also happening in city and town houses in Europe and more recently the USA.
Bringing production to the household has no economy of scale but inputs including labour and part of the feed are essentially free. The reduction in transport and packaging cost have financial and environmental benefits.
Eggs from the Eglu
The Eglu is based on a plastic, waterproof box, where the hens shelter and lay their eggs. The box is attached to an enclosed run which can be placed on a lawn allowing the chickens to scratch for insects and grass. The run has a door to allow the hens a free range in the garden when its safe.
The Pew report recommends a new regulatory framework that treats animal farming no differently than other industries (that cause pollution and potential health risks). It also recommends phasing out any confinement system that restricts “natural movement and normal behavior” (such as calf-to-adult confined feeding stalls) and a ban on antibiotics not intended for disease eradication (i.e., growth modification, such as with veal calves).
It’s almost been a year since we picked up our spring chicks- Henrietta and Dixie. In all honesty, we did have four Spring chicks but our dog Durgen, killed two of them (Fluffy and Lois). It was devastating to say the least. We decided that two was our lucky number. Having chickens has been such an adventure. When you first get them as chicks they do require to be under a heat lamp for about 2-3 weeks until they get bigger and can face the temperature variations outside. They require a little heat, food (medicated), water, your attention and love. Just before they get bigger you want to teach them to perch so that they are accustomed to doing so when moved into the coop. All you need to do is add a piece of wood inside the box you’re using to house them; elevate it so that they learn to jump up and perch. It’s really that simple.
My husband built the coop and we reused as much material as we could to get it up. For instance, the door was leftover fencing material and some of the wood was from older jobs that didn’t require as much wood as expected. Building the coop didn’t take much time and before we knew it the chickens had there own place to live and roam. Besides the coop they need a nesting box which is where they’ll lay their eggs. Add straw to the nesting box and make it nice and comfy. Some people will put in a golf ball or alabaster eggs in the box so that the chickens get the idea that they should lay the eggs inside the box. We did not do this. Our chickens learned on their own. It took them a few weeks but they figured it out.
The NAACP has joined with environmental groups to oppose the construction of three power plants because of concerns that burning the feces will expose poor people to arsenic and other contaminants.
“Everyone wants jobs, but you have to be against a job that on the back end may bring disease,” said William Barber II, president of the state NAACP. “I guarantee you if they attempted to put it in a suburban community or a higher-income area, it would be an all-out fight against it.”
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) recently re-launched the ‘McCruelty’ campaign against the fast food giant McDonald’s, saying of their treatment of animals, “I’m hatin’ it.”
The original campaign against McDonald’s was launched in 2000, and after the company worked with PETA to make some basic animal welfare changes, the campaign was withdrawn. Now, PETA says, there are more humane methods of killing animals such as chickens, but McDonald’s won’t use them. Controlled Atmosphere Killing (CAK) would allow chickens in McDonald’s suppliers’ slaughterhouses to die relatively painlessly, but they have refused to consider asking their suppliers to switch to CAK—a move that would cost McDonald’s nothing—and so PETA has unleashed their wrath at McCruelty.com. PETA says:
I’m sitting in my backyard, surrounded by chickens and children. A couple of dogs periodically pester both species of livestock. (Yes, I did just call my child flock “livestock.”) I’m waiting on the first egg of the day, a pink speckled one from my oldest Americana hen.
This backyard chicken experiment is new to my family, only a 6-month-old endeavor. We wanted our children to know where food comes from. We wanted to know that the eggs we ate were from happy chickens.
But as the number of small chicken “farmers” pop up in cities, suburbs, and rural areas alike, our collective grand experiment may be in peril.
This week, our eco-vlogging friends at ZapRoot take a thorough look at animal rights, food labeling, and sequestering carbon in middle eastern rocks. Mix in some of their trademark snark and - poof! You’ve got a finished product that is both educational and entertaining.
Across the country, cities are passing new laws to allow backyard chickens.
Cities across the country have shown new leniency in the urban chicken arena. Ann Arbor, Michigan, South Portland, Maine and Fort Collins Colorado, have all voted in the past year to allow backyard chickens. They join the growing number of U.S. cities to make legal the raising of poultry in the backyard.
“It’s no longer something kinky or interesting,” said Jac Smit, president of the Urban Agriculture Network. “The ‘chicken underground’ has really spread so widely and has so much support.”
Though some worry that backyard chickens might carry and transmit avian flu, advocates of urban chicken farming claim that farming poultry on a small scale presents less of a risk of disease than large-scale production.
In a victory for would-be self-sufficient urban farmers and organic gardeners alike, the city council in Fort Collins, Colorado, this week voted to let residents across town keep chickens in their backyards.
Lovers of fresh eggs and healthy compost will have some limitations on their chicken-keeping capabilities, though. Each residence is limited to no more than six chickens (sorry, roosters, you’re out: it’s your loud crowing that sealed the deal). Birds also must be kept in secure enclosures that are at least 15 feet from the property line. (That’s probably also a benefit for the chickens, though, just in case the next-door neighbor has a poultry-hating dog or cat.)
We’re into early summer, now, and I know this, not by the rise in temperature, but because we’ve gotten the last bit of asparagus for the year and the first of the summer squash. Summer squash is one of the most prolific of vegetables, always seems like there are more squash each week than I have recipes for them. Here’s a creative way to use that abundant basil, the first tomatoes and your burgeoning crop of summer squash:
Squaghetti
1 large, long-shaped zucchini, leave peel on, prepare as above
1/2 pound spaghetti noodles
1/3 cup basil pesto (recipe)
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1 cup roasted tomatoes (recipe)
Prepare zucchini strands and place in a colander. Boil water for pasta. Before you place the spaghetti in the water, put the colander in and blanch the squash for 1-2 minutes. Remove from the water, set aside to cool. Cook pasta.
When the pasta is cooked, Drain and add the hot pasta and pesto in a large bowl. Gently fold in the squash strands as they will be more delicate. Top with the tomatoes and the parmesan. Now, let’s see ‘em pick the green vegetable out of that dish! Actually, they won’t bother. The strands mix well with the other flavors
More seasonal recipes in this week’s carnival after the jump.
