IN PRAISE OF MY CO-WORKERS
(or - all I know about chickens in 12 parts)
Part I
In Praise of my Co-Workers
The chickens I have known have never disappointed me. They are the cornerstone of my no-tech, no expense, off-the-grid farm backup system. Our small herd of fifteen are the ultimate in IPM (Integrated Pest Management). I count on them in case of a plague of locusts or an armada of slugs. The composting bin is in one of their foraging yards and they are in charge of turning it regularly. (They also remove all the grubs and worms, which is only fair.) They are our on-site provider of high quality nitrogen fertilizer, mixed to the perfect 50/50 ratio (by mass) with carbon from their straw bedding. Left in a pile to the wiles of the elements for a month, it is the perfect substrate for all the leafy greens. I provide fox and weasel-proof housing, daily housekeeping services, and room service of all our dinner leftovers. Health care coverage includes rehab, eldercare and hospice services. Their eggs—our major source of protein—are delivered fresh daily, always on time, instead of rent. The chickens live out their normal lifespan—anywhere between seven to twelve years—laying eggs most of the time.
Part II
The Beginning
When he was four years old, our son threw a tantrum until we promised to save a crab at the fish market. It came home with us and lived contentedly (I assume) in the bathtub, until our Labrador retriever decided it looked like lunch. Though heartbroken, our son was undeterred. What followed was a succession of rescued animals. Not just kittens and puppies, but a baby crow, lizards, box turtles, snakes, rats and rabbits. All in need of a home... according to our child. But along with the dogs, the most enduring and endearing were the chickens. He brought home five day-old chicks who spent their first month happily eating and defecating in our bathtub. When our son moved onto iguanas, the chicks moved onto more natural quarters while remaining an integral part of the family.
Part III
Dinosaurs in My Backyard
Chickens are saurischian dinosaurs, maniraptoran theropods to be precise. Molecular analysis from unfossilized material inside a Tyrannosaurus rex bone confirmed that dinosaurs did not die out... the maniraptor line evolved to chickens. Anyone who has seen their sweet day old chick turn into a baby tyrannosaur at one month old knows they are dinosaurs. They could not be otherwise. They walk just like tyrannosaurs with their short forearms tucked against their side. Their forearms terminate in three tiny digits, vestigial hands. We just can't see that for all the feathers. Like the tyrannosaurs, chickens are feathered, have air sacs extending from their respiratory system, hollow bones and three clawed toes on each foot. They lay eggs and guard their nests as fierce mothers. Like tyrannosaurus, chickens are ancestrally bipedal with nothing whatsoever to do with lizards, which was, as with dinosaurs, a false relative. And like mammals and birds, dinosaurs and all chickens are very gregarious and live in groups... in this case flocks.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-dinosaurs-shrank-and-became-birds/
Part IV
Red Jungle Fowl in My Backyard
My chickens and all domesticated chickens (Gallus domesticus) have been bred from wild Red Jungle Fowl (Gallus gallus), native to southeastern Asia. The behavior of their ancestors tells me almost everything I need to know about my flock. Jungle fowl are primarily ground birds, roosting in trees at dusk or if there are predators about. They dust bathe regularly to keep clean. The exquisite plumage and impressive crow of the male are primarily about attracting mates. And they have seriously impressive spurs on their lower legs which they use for fighting. They have a large repertoire of sounds—from alarm and fighting to calling the community together. No predator (four legged or two) comes on our property without our roosters letting everyone know about it. In the wild, they hide their eggs and are standoffish about pretty much anything connected with human contact. Mother hens too let their broods know danger from potential food to time to sleep with various pitches and frequencies to her clucking. Unlike my two month old chicks who run to me to see what I have brought them, jungle fowl want nothing to do with being domesticated.
This last bit has been eye-opening for me. The more we interfere and domesticate our animals, the less they can rely on their innate resources. I am learning to be less interactive with our farm companions and let them become more self-reliant. They are now far better prepared to find food and protect themselves without my hovering watchfulness. My goal this year is to be independent of all commercial feed and to seriously explore worm farming. And I have stopped clipping the wings of all the birds, allowing them to fly up into the trees or down to the river (as with the ducks). Most, not all, come back. That is their choice but they now have the ability to escape a predator... and they have many.
Part V
The Initial Flock
But back to the day old dinosaurs in our bathtub. They needed to rest for a few hours after hatching but were standing and pecking at anything which might be potential food on their first day. From their very beginnings, chickens have an excellent sense of smell and keen sight and they respond to the rhythm of the sunlight. Chickens cannot be solitary, they are flock animals and at night the newly-hatched sleep in a pile and do not stir until it is light. Without a proper mum, chicks need constant warmth their first few weeks. Around 35º C/95º F. We suspended an electric light over the bathtub. The chicks regulated their temperature by moving under or away from the light as needed. We ground up seeds for their first few meals and then did some reading on their natural diet. After that we chopped up grass and greens from the garden, the kids hunted down tiny worms from the compost, and fed them bits of whole wheat bread soaked in milk. They drank from a bowl of water with a stone in the middle (so they wouldn't drown).
We named our five after silent film stars. The infant rooster was Douglas Fairbanks. He was full of bravado and the first to fly out of the tub. There were two Marlene Dietrichs (they were identical twins); huge and docile. And Bette Davis, who was shy, pretty, and blond. The clear leader and (eventually) our #1 brooding hen was Greta Garbo.
Part VI
Chickens Always Return to Home Base
Keeping chicks in the bathtub was great fun for a short time. Once they were flying, the shit hit the fan... and then the sink, the toilet and the walls. And because they instinctively want to be up high when they sleep—away from the predators on the ground—they began to perch on the towel bar at night. Clearly, it was time for more natural accommodations. Phil constructed an elaborate and rather beautiful coop with multiple layers to accommodate their avian nesting and perching nature. It was screened in with space for wooden panels in the winter. We lined their nesting boxes (wooden crates) with leaves and grasses. The floor of the coop was dirt.
Without any coaching, chickens return to home base as evening approaches and they will not venture outdoors, even with an open door, once it is dark. We released them from their high rise in the morning. (I often say my major job is doorman to all our animal companions.) Then the five were free to peruse the backyard in search of a meal and some amusement for the rest of the day. If one of them caught a large bug or small snake they ran around displaying it, chased by the others. By the time they had tripled their numbers—the rooster was very proactive about reproducing—they had cleared the back 1/2 acre of all the noxious weeds as well as the black snakes. There were no rats in our compost heaps and not a raspberry left on a single bush. At dusk, once they were up on their perch, I closed them in from the solitary but voracious racoon and provided water.
Part VII
What Chickens Eat
We are what we eat but we are what we eat eats too... Michael Pollan
Once our chickens were let loose outside, they ate everything they could scratch up or chase down, along with our dinner left-overs. It is absolute bunk that one must buy a balanced feed for poultry. Chickens are omnivorous. Jungle fowl eat a vast variety of plant matter. They love a juicy invertebrate be it a slug or insect. Or a small amphibian or reptile. As long as they have a source of protein and calcium (we give them back their eggs shells... washed, dried and crushed), they can eat from the field or the garden or the table. Like their ancestors, they would prefer lizards and fish and reptile eggs, small snakes and insects—especially insect larvae. But the chickens we have known have been delighted with spaghetti (any sauce will do), whole wheat bread—after a dunking in water—a bit of cheese or leftover cereal. And they love greens of all kinds. And no... corn is not their natural diet. There is no corn growing in the southeast Asian jungles.
Commercial animal feed is all about cheap and fattening in order to grow the animal quicker and slaughter it sooner. It is not about the health of anyone concerned, most definitely not the animals. Free-ranging domesticated chickens, although omnivorous, prefer to chase down something smaller than themselves for a meal than have it handed to them. My first small group of five chickens ate every single just-hatched tadpole in our pond before they would touch chicken feed from the store.
And, right now, I have started several large worm bins (in addition to the compost pile the chickens sort through) to provide enough worms and grubs to make it through our coldest months.
Part VIII
Mother Hens
Greta Garbo (above) was the best dinosaur I have had the pleasure to know. Every spring she commandeered the largest nest of eggs in the barn; sitting quietly, warming the tiny fertilized embryos to the exact temperature (100ºF) they needed for development. She sat for three weeks (always exactly 21 days), leaving the nest only occasionally to eat a little and take a quick bath. (Chickens bathe in dry earth. It's called dust bathing.) She midwifed her adoptive children long past their breaking free of their shells, continually clucking encouragement and guiding them through their first months. She showed them how and where to peck and scratch for food and where to obtain water. She fearlessly shepherded each and every one of her brood to maturity in an always challenging world of barnyard cats, leaping baby goats, Labrador retrievers with a passion for hunting birds, and the various raccoons, snakes, and chicken hawks. She could puff her feathers out, appearing as if she had grown to twice her size. Looking formidable, she clucked her young ones a warning and they disappeared under her girth. She birthed eight generations of chickens, my entire flock for the same number of years. Ours was a barter arrangement: Greta, her four siblings, and all her children had palatial quarters for life, green pastures, and daily room service which consisted of fresh straw in their sleeping and nesting quarters, clean water, a compost heap full of worms, and all our left over food. In exchange I got to keep all the abandoned eggs left in the nest at the end of the day.
Part IX
Chicken Intelligence
I had just opened a beer and begun to relax when Betty Johnson, our next door neighbor, called to say, “I just saw your chickens walkin' down MacArthur Boulevard.” I looked out the back window into the yard. Not a chicken in sight. Apparently all of them—the original five and their children—were racing down the road heading for the Seven/Eleven, stopping traffic in both lanes. I yelled for my son and with the help of the neighbor, our arms spread wide, and shouting encouragement, we guided them back to the house. I closed them in their barn and looked on the Internet for who might come out to put up two meter fencing in a poultry emergency.
My chickens, and chickens everywhere have been unfairly maligned. They are determined and very intelligent birds. If you were kept all your life in a tiny wire cage, sitting in your own shit, had nothing to do all day and were fed an unnatural diet, you might seem a bit stupid too. My chickens are absolutely capable of staging a complicated jail break. Yes, like most birds, they fly. Clearly, our fence presented no challenge whatsoever. Nor, apparently, did the new six foot fence... see photo (above) of Douglas Fairbanks crowing on top of it. The brooding hens are fierce, wise, and protective parents. The roosters, who are equally protective and aggressive in their own way. They guard their community and are better alarm systems than the dogs. They alert the flock with warning calls and guide them to food with specific clucking sounds. It is our narrow vision which has allowed us to believe we are the superior animal. Chickens, like all animals, have a wide range of very specific sounds for specific communication.
Part X
Chickens Smell Like Feather Pillows
We were eating in our backyard with Gildo and Patrizia. Gildo looked up from the conversation to the small chicken barn 10 meters away and asked me why doesn't it smell? Why should it smell? I asked. Because the chickens are sleeping not 10 meters away, he said. This is the second most common question I am asked. The answer is that it doesn't smell because chickens don't smell. They are very clean birds. They preen themselves often and they dust bathe daily, it is the way they rid themselves of any insect or excess oil. In humane situations, chickens sleep up high on perches. When they defecate, their shit drops to the ground. It hangs out in the straw until morning when I fetch it and add it to the compost heap for a very high quality nitrogen fertilizer for all my greens. If chickens smell it is because humans keep them in conditions where they literally are sitting in their own shit and infrequently cleaned. This is true for all farm animals... THEY DON'T SMELL. It is the farmer who is dirty if there is an odor. Well, except perhaps male goats, which I must admit do not smell so great.
Part XI
The eternal egg question
The answer to my most often asked question is YES, hens can lay an egg without a rooster. Female chickens ovulate with or without males—just like all women. The rooster is strictly the sperm donor. Chickens lay eggs several times a week, generally every other day for their entire first year. In the spring, a free-ranging hen will lay her egg, cover the nest with leaves and dirt, and return to it on another day to lay another egg. After a month, or around 13 eggs, she will sit on them all and hop off only for a very few minutes to grab a bite to eat and find the bathroom. After 21 days, high humidity from her body, and a constant temperature of 37º degrees C, the chicks will hatch. Under natural conditions all baby birds are born in late spring—birds are innately protective and will not sit on eggs until the temperatures are such that their broods can survive. From their second year onward, chickens stop laying in late October or November. The change is triggered by shorter days, colder temperatures, and their need to use their energy to keep their bodies warmer (which includes dropping old feathers and making new ones for a thicker winter coat). Chickens raised in a natural environment will lay again once there is more than 14 hours of daylight. But because I depend on eggs in my diet, I want eggs year round. And so I keep roosters to fertilize the eggs and am grateful to any hen who wishes to hatch out eggs and do the hard work raising her young. Certain hens just love to sit on eggs—theirs and anyone else's. They are called brooding hens. And what do I do with all the males and the females I don't want? People who have seen my co-workers, and know the old breeds I favor, are happy to offer them free country B&B services—either hen or rooster. I have a waiting list. The tale for commercial eggs from industrial farms is neither pretty nor healthy. The way the birds are contained, killed and what they are fed should make anyone pause before picking up eggs from the supermarket.
Part XII
This is a photo of my daughter holding one of the original five chickens, one of the Marlene Dietrichs. I made it for an animal rights group years ago. It is still sold as a postcard by United Poultry Concerns. The chickens kept my kids occupied for hours. In fact, the impromptu animal rescues the kids organized were their responsibility. They created humane habitats for all their animal companions, cleaned and fed them, sat and silently observed them for hours, and nursed them through various calamities. With only a very small amount of coaching from me, they learned their natural habitats and diet. With rapt attention and great delight, they watched their animal companions for hours and midwifed them through their death and solemn burials. I cannot imagine a better teaching tool about the ways of the natural world, about empathy and caring, patience and observation than letting a child adopt an animal.
And honestly, I cannot imagine a better way to begin the day than to go hunt up a just-laid, still warm egg for breakfast.
Postscript
My now adult son has a serious avocation as an unrepentant animal rescuer with an abundance of dogs and cats. His wife, a career teacher, has introduced countless elementary school charges to the joys of gardening and raising chickens. For their last anniversary, we gave them a gift certificate to their veterinarian.
Zia Gallina is a teacher, a botanist, an environmental scientist but mostly she is a farmer.
