Why Keep Chickens
My husband and I are at a rest stop on I-95 in Maine, eating our lunch. We work as biologists for the Department of the Interior, and lately, I have begun to realize how far from the land and agriculture I have become, nestled in my ivory tower of science and information. I am facing away from the parking lot, toward the woods, when Kyle says, "Oh, no, don't look." And, of course, I have to. I turn to see a tractor trailer stacked with crates of chickens, the tarps on either side of the truck rolled up to reveal the battery cages, stuffed with white chickens with large, floppy combs. At first I think they must be roosters headed for slaughter, and of course, I insist that we must investigate. At the truck, I discover that it is loaded with cages of laying hens (probably just over one year of age), destined to be soup. The cages are stacked one upon another, at least 8 feet high, and in each, several chickens huddle. I think I can count at least 15 birds in every cage. Their beaks have been cut so they can't cannibalize each other in their tiny cages or eat their own eggs, and they have toenails that have curled upward for lack of any chance to scratch in the earth and wear them down. They are ragged and spent, and their mouths are open, gasping for air in the rare Maine heat. On the other side of the truck, it is much worse. On this side the flaps have been open to the sun, and there are chickens in every cage that have succumbed to this unaccustomed heat, lying dead in the cages with their compatriots.
The horror of this suddenly hits me. These laying hens are done with what they have been contracted to do and are headed for the soup factory on a crowded truck. Why haven't I ever considered this when I buy my eggs? Certainly, I am concerned with veal calves, kept in their climate-controlled stalls, filled with antibiotics and grain for veal production, their big, brown eyes blinking, and that's why I won't eat commercially raised veal. But how did I think that most eggs appeared in those cartons, anyway?
I'm covering my face with my hands now, and my husband is trying to quietly usher me back to the car, when a big, tall man in a pinstriped shirt that reads "DeCoster Egg Farm, FLOYD" approaches me. I ask him where the chickens are headed, and he tells me that they are going to be made into soup or broth. Then, between the stacks of cages, I see a tiny white body. She has found a way out, and has mashed herself in between the rows, concealed beneath the truck's flaps. "You can have her if you like," he says to me, possibly concerned that he has met someone from PETA. My husband crosses to the other side of the truck, and I stay hidden, until the little hen dashes from her cave. I snatch her up and whisk her away. She is terrified and shudders, cackling alarm. Her name becomes Floyd, and she is my pledge to stay aware of why I have decided that I must raise chickens. If I am to eat meat and eggs, then I need to take responsibility for caring for them in a humane manner, from start to finish.
It took two months to teach Floyd how to eat and drink on her own, having been used to mechanized delivery of nourishment. After her initial adjustment, she laid eggs every day for nearly a year. She took two months off to molt her spent feathers, then resumed production. She lived almost three years at Fat Rooster Farm, when she finally died of cancer, a common demise of the commercial strains, developed for production, not longevity.
Floyd shocked me back into reality. The convenience of purchasing eggs at the local shopping market had completely removed me from the fact that something alive had laid those eggs. I had not been concerned with how the eggs were produced, how the hens were cared for, and with the final disposition of the creatures that had laid the eggs.
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In the spring, my father would sometimes give my sisters and me a choice: either we three could go to church with Mom, or we could pile into the station wagon and head over to Teeny's Tiny Poultry Shop, a half hour's drive from our house. Both my younger sister and I would be out of our Sunday finest and in the car before the chill of the morning air had left our rural Vermont valley. My middle sister, the pragmatist, would weigh her decision carefully, but in the end, the entire family made the trip. The adage "April chicks bring September eggs" works well in our northern clime, and the chicken run to Teeny's was a sure sign that spring's arrival was close, and green grass and dandelions were not far off.
Before my sisters and I were born, my parents lived in California. One night at a party in San Francisco, they saw a calendar of Vermont on the wall. Eventually, the memory of those scarlet maples and covered bridges guided them east. In our first home in Vermont, I slept in a dresser drawer, the only crib my parents could afford, and it worked just fine. Dad eventually became a teacher at the high school, and Mom raised us kids and was a registered nurse at Middlebury College. Both of them imparted a deep sense of wanting to be involved with the living world and to know how to nurture and nourish ourselves, life skills that many of us have now forgotten or don't know how to teach our children. Having an iPod or an iPhone with the newest, latest, greatest technology is more important than learning where the food we eat comes from, whether chickens can taste their food, or whether a Leghorn hen is used more often for egg production than for meat production.
Our food is being outsourced, in front of our eyes, at the expense of our health and ability to reliably ensure its safety and quality. Personal freedom to choose products other than from large corporations like Tyson, Pilgrim's Pride, and Gold Kist, who control 48% of the chicken meat production in the United States and account for 85 million broiler sales in the United States weekly, is slowly being taken away. In fact, in 2006, fully 15.7% of organic grocery sales in the United States were made at Wal-Mart. Our ability to fend for ourselves and to feed ourselves is being replaced with the idea that progress and civilized culture can only be achieved outside of the home, away from the chicken yard, far from the kitchen, closer to the frozen selection of ready-to-eat meals.
And although the outright joy of collecting the family flock's warm, fresh eggs to make an omelet far outweighs how happy it makes me feel to peel back the wrapper on a frozen, microwaveable breakfast burrito, the psychological considerations of raising food oneself go even deeper. Keeping chickens is as rewarding as growing sun-ripened tomatoes; they are the livestock most likely to be kept by the back-to-the-landers, the homesteaders, and the dreamers of a place in the country. They have been domesticated for thousands of years, and even the Egyptian pharaohs used artificial incubation to rear their own chicks. Chickens are relatively hearty, require little living space, can produce both meat and eggs, and are inexpensive to purchase.
Americans annually consume 87 1/2 pounds of chicken meat and 256 eggs per capita, a number that has continued to grow leaps and bounds above the average consumption of beef, pork, or lamb. Both chicken and eggs are important sources of high-quality protein, vitamins, and minerals. Chicken meat is higher in protein than red meat, is second in vitamin D content only to fish oil, and is much easier to raise and process than the latter two.
Darwin believed that Gallus domesticus, the modern-day chicken, descended from the Red Jungle Fowl (Gallus gallus) in Southeast Asia some 3,000 years ago. Recent DNA evidence supports this theory, though some dispute that chickens such as the Cochin and Brahma may have descended from other breeds near China, Vietnam, or India. Domestication occurred with the advent of cock fighting within the Roman and Greek armies. After conquering territories and moving on, surplus birds left behind continued to multiply, and inbreeding and isolation led to many variations and different breeds. In the mid-nineteenth century, an interest in fancy poultry was at its height in England. Queen Victoria kept a royal poultry yard and was given a pair of Cochins (formerly called Shanghais) as a gift. Poultry fever hit when the birds were displayed at the Show of the Royal Dublin Agricultural Society in 1846, and everyone present wanted to purchase them. When cockfighting was banned there in 1849, poultry exhibitions and clubs sprang up to take the place of the fighting ring, so poultry shows increased in popularity.
The order of arrival of chickens to the New World has been much disputed. Columbus brought chickens on his second voyage in 1493, though scientists have discovered ancient remains of chickens in Chile that could date back as early as 1300 ad. This would point to the Polynesians as introducing them first, perhaps as a source of food. Early American colonists imported chickens to Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607 to use primarily for eggs and cockfighting. (Americans did not consider chickens a good source of meat until sometime later.) The poultry craze hit the United States in the mid-1800s after the first poultry exhibition held in Boston in 1849 attracted more than 10,000 people to the show. The American Poultry Association was formed in 1873, and one year later, the American Standard of Excellence was adopted. After World War II, poultry business became industrialized, and improvements were made by crossbreeding to produce superior egg layers and meat birds. With the rise in commercial value for chickens, many breeds, now referred to as heritage breeds, were eliminated from flocks if they weren't able to compete with the crossbreeds for eggs or meat production. Of the 55 chicken breeds listed by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (ALBC), an organization concerned with preserving livestock diversity, more than 26 breeds are listed as critical or threatened in the United States Besides the loss of diversity to guard against catastrophic illness in our domestic poultry population, keeping heritage breeds to preserve their unique characteristics alone may be motivation enough for you to keep chickens.
By keeping chickens on your farm or homestead you'll achieve a safe, high-quality food source for the family. There are other joys that they can bring, like the pleasure my son shows when he has discovered a nest wriggling with newly hatched chicks, or when he quietly watches the birds scratch and pick at the soil for food, marveling at their many shapes and colors, and laughing at their quirky chicken antics.
For me, chickens are a link to childhood. They're responsible for filling me with a wonder of living things, a means toward selfsufficiency and a lesson in compassion for living creatures that holds much more weight than just having someone tell me that we're entitled to dominion over all other living things because we're humans.
Chickens are curious creatures, easily sloughed off as "bird-brained" and inconsequential in the grand scheme of living things; certainly they're not as smart as dogs or ponies. And yet, like watching aquarium fishes swim in a tank, watching chickens in the yard and being responsible for their care and comfort has taught me a respect for caring and preserving life, as I know it.
Whether you decide to keep chickens for eggs and meat, for show, or just for companionship, learning to care for them is easy and rewarding, providing that you know some basics. This book should give you what you need to get started building and keeping a flock; choosing breeds that will fit your goals; starting and raising chicks; housing and protecting your flock from predators; hatching and incubating eggs; and gathering, storing, using, and marketing the eggs and meat that you produce.