Holy Cow! Did you know there are over 400 different kinds of chickens? Me neither. But there are, and what’s more, only a few are used to grow commercial chickens – the rest are kept alive by small chicken farmers and enthusiasts. The commercial chickens are of course bred for their incredible breast size. The only problem with that is that their breasts are so large it often causes them to have leg problems, and sometimes their hearts actually explode because they are growing too fast – definitely sounds a bit like overbreeding, to me.
But more on that later - as you may have already guessed, I ‘m currently in the middle of step two of my chicken farm plan – which is to educate myself, because the truth is, I knew (and still know) next to nothing about chickens. So I bought a couple of books and have been reading all sorts of things on the web, and I have to tell you, I am amazed at how much there is out there.
One of the books I have read is by a woman named Katie Thear. In it, she chronicles the history of raising chickens, which is far more interesting than I ever thought it would be. First of all, chickens come from tropical climates originally, probably in Asia. They are thought to have first been domesticated around 8000 years ago, but not for eating, necessarily – for fighting! (Which explains why roosters have such a bad reputation for being mean – it’s not their fault – they were bred that y!) It’s thought that the Romans were the first to make it a practice of eating them. Good idea, Caesar!
Believe it or not, poultry farming was apparently not considered very glamorous in Europe – considered to be mostly “women’s work,” whatever that means. It was really the Americans who apparently stepped up to the plate, so to speak, and developed large scale poultry for commercial purposes. Now it is, as we know, pretty big business, both for eggs and table chicken, with commercial farms producing billions of pounds of chicken per year. So we’re eatin’ a whole lotta chicken, apparently!
I’ve also learned that chickens are actually quite beautiful animals – their feathering is colorful and lovely, and yes, they do come in all sorts of amazing shapes and sizes (as I said before – over 400 varieties). And that people who raise chickens really get attached to them – putting pictures of them on the internet and sending them to friends and relatives the way we do with our children! It’s pretty cute, actually.
It turns out that chickens raised for meat grow relatively quickly, depending on their breed – a chicken is considered old and not fit for broiling after twelve or sixteen weeks! And even free-range chickens don’t live on grass and bugs alone, it’s only a portion of their diet – they still need feed, and a lot of water. They are pretty hearty, but they are also prey animals, so keeping them safe is going to be a serious priority – out here we have hawks, raccoons, coyotes – even skunks and snakes like chickens, too and I am determined not to let them get anywhere near my flock! This is going to require more research, I think…
Chickens are social animals who look out for each other – they do have a pecking with dominant birds who lead the flock and keep everyone in order -apparently some can even develop into bullies! When they are ranging they even have sentries who keep an eye out for predators and warn everyone when there is danger – kind of cute. I am learning about broodiness, scratching, pecking, perching, molting, dust baths, even clucking and crowing – turns out they are far more complicated than one might give them credit for, these birds of little brain!
I realize that I've just scratched the surface of chicken knowledge, and learning will certainly come with doing, but now that I have a little background about chickens, I think I'm ready to go into the next phase of learning, which is about different breeds and which would be best for our endeavors.
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