Fowl Behavior

Raise awareness about tolerance through cinema

2011-11-21T13:28:00.001-05:00

Child's Play - Fundraising Video - KICKSTARTER! from Matt Firpo on Vimeo.

This young man was bullied because he was raised by two moms. Join me in supporting his film production.

Chicken coop renovations will keep the peace

2011-11-14T15:27:00.001-05:00

Last winter five of my chickens ganged up on Mooey, and pecked out all of her back feathers.

One reason was because the coop was damp and wet. My son Ian and husband Bob renovated the coop to have yet one more door -- to collect eggs without tracking snow or water into the coop. See video at left. Now there's a human door, two chicken doors and an egg-collecting door. They did this last spring, and I've been enjoying the egg-collecting door all summer.

I'm looking forward to using the egg-collecting door this winter as the weather gets colder and the snow flies. Although Mooey's plight has created a very interesting true bullying story that I share with students from K to 12 in elementary, middle and high schools. Kids relate to Mooey's plight, her position at the bottom of the pecking order and even to her becoming a bully when I brought four new chickens into the flock.

She became a brutal bully, and has pecked out the comb of two chickens, and drawn blood. It's very gory. Only look at the picture below if you can bear it. Mooey lacks empathy. She does to other chickens what was done to her, and worse and meaner.

Compassion and empathy in action

2011-10-13T09:00:00.001-04:00

The tiniest teachers: how babies teach empathy

2011-10-12T15:30:00.000-04:00

Mooey the bullied chicken is my ambassador of empathy for kids of all ages. One of my favorite parts of spending the day in a middle or high school is when word gets out that there's a live chicken in Ms. Gonzales' class. Groups of kids gather outside of the door to confirm, "Mrs. Gonzales, is there really a live chicken in here?!" and "Mrs. Gonzales, can I come into your class this period?"

Something about Mooey evokes empathy. Students feel sorry for her because she was the target of bullying. It galls me that she became a bully -- a much more brutal bully than those who pecked on her. I ask the kids, "Do you feel more compassion for Mooey as a target or as a bully?" The audience is always split.

I feel more empathy for her as a bully. Empathy is the key word here. How to get kids to develop empathy is a challenge because empathy must be experienced in order to learn it. Canadian educator Mary Gordon founded a program in 1996 called Roots of Empathy. A community member brings an infant into an elementary classroom several times over the year to help children identify and think about their own feelings and thoughts, and what other people might feel.

According to research, the program works. See more at this post, sponsored by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company. More than 12,000 Canadian schools have hosted the program and it's starting to immigrate to the USA.

Chickens and babies can open the door to our hearts in ways that big humans don't. It all boils down to empathy -- the ability to understand how others may feel.

Students remember how I make them feel

2011-09-26T15:10:00.003-04:00

I just read feedback from middle school students in Worcester where I delivered "Fowl Behavior and What it Teaches us about Empathy" and some of them made me cry.

From an eighth grade girl:
"I really liked that it taught us about how a victim of a bully could become a bully. It also taught me how to try to talk to the special ed kids because some of them may not even have friends. It also taught me that if I am a bystander, I should help and to empathy for others."
"I felt sorry for you when you were in school, but I think you're really smart on how you used this to teach us something. And I think this would improve lots of kids so don't stop doing this because you're a great person."

Wow. Coming from an eighth grader that means a lot to me.

This one got me, too, from a seventh grade girl.
"I like how the program talked about being bullied and I knew how it felt. I really like it but it did make me tear (up)."

I share with them how it felt to be on the receiving end of different types of bullying. It's really hard for me to revisit that feeling and time in my life. However, the better I am able to go back in time, the more effectively I connect with the students. The more I do it, the easier it gets.

The worst part of being bullied was feeling alone and being socially ostracized because I was different I empathize with children, tweens and teens who have been a victim of bullying, and anyone who is treated differently because they look different or are differently-abled.

If sharing my story and Mooey's story makes a difference in the intense world of school, then I feel good because being bullied is lonesome and full of dread.

Mooey goes from victim to being a bully

2011-08-15T14:35:00.001-04:00

Mooey started as a victim of bullying in the hen house during the long cold winter when the other chickens pecked out her back feathers out of stress and discomfort.

This summer, I added five new chickens to the flock -- four pullets who are four months old (like teenagers), and a one-year-old hen. Mooey has made it her business to bully the new young chickens, even though she has been victim herself.

This picture was taken after the bleeding stopped. When my husband found Henrietta, her head was bloodied from the pecking and she had flown the coop. The photo with a bloody head is too gruesome to show. I set up a "sick bay" for Henrietta adjacent to the chicken yard with food and water. She evaded capture an spent a night and a day AWOL.

The next day Henrietta stayed in her separate pen and I managed to catch her and put her in a small travel crate for the night. The other two nights she roosted in Bob's outdoor lumber shed. On the third day, she tried to push through the door to rejoin the flock, so I let her back in. The hell you know is better than solitary confinement for social animals like chickens and humans.

Mooey has become a regular threat in the barnyard. I delivered some stale breakfast cereal yesterday -- a real treat for the birds. When I gave the young birds a separate helping, Harriet flew away in terror. She was bleeding and panicked.

Notice the bit of blood around her comb from brutal bullying. From what I've seen in the barnyard, Mooey is the ringleader of the attacks. She makes it her business to peck at the younger chickens for no good reason.
The environment has become so caustic in the barnyard that I'm considering starting over with a new flock of chickens.

Yes- there's really a live chicken at school today!

2011-06-17T15:51:00.003-04:00

Students at Nashua North High School hear about Mooey.


No one can anticipate what Mooey will do during the presentation.

It has been an exciting week presenting Mooey, the bullied chicken, and stories about how the pecking order of backyard chickens relates to instinct and intellect.

Students and teachers at Nashua North High School in New Hampshire, Washington Elementary in Lowell, Mass., Samoset Middle School in Leominster, Mass., and Greater Lowell Vo-Tech listened, participated and shared their stories about what it's like to be a victim of bullying.

It's always heart-breaking to hear students and teachers describe what it's like to be singled out because they're different, new or gifted. Like the red spot on Mooey's back, the impact of being bullying can last a long time.

Students at Samoset Middle School offered to revise my rap about the reasons why kids get bullied. They can only improve upon my rhyming. I can't wait to see the results and record their performance of the rap.

By next fall I'll have a set of follow-up activities and discussion questions for every grade. Mooey continues to amaze me at her ability to capture the attention of students and staff. One of the most fun aspects is that students elsewhere in the building hear about what's going on, stick their head in the door, and ask, "Is there really a live chicken in here?"

She leaves a memorable message about how the pecking order relates to how kids treat each other in their school community.

Mooey opens doors to connect with kids of all ages

2011-05-23T09:35:00.001-04:00

The preschoolers lasted about 20 minutes for the presentation.

Last week Mooey amazed me with her ability to connect to students at Cheshire Barn Preschool and Ayer High School. There's something about an animal, especially a hurt animal, that brings out compassion.

Both the preschool and high school students "got" the link between the pecking order of chickens and how humans exclude and mistreat each other. Some of the preschoolers were afraid of Mooey, which surprised me.
The kids enjoyed singing Down by the Bay, Where the Watermelons Grow with custom lyrics such as: Did you ever see a boy grab somebody's toy? Did you ever see a girl get hit and do nothing to stop it? Did you ever see a chicken take a lickin?

I created some more lyrics: Did you ever:
See a bear who didn't play fair?
See a whale mock someone who reads Braille?
Have a friend you didn't defend?
See a queen say something mean?

Mooey gets a little excited at Ayer High School.

The high school students didn't sing Down by the Bay, but they did engage in an animated discussion about raising chickens and why Mooey got bullied.

Their answers aligned with the typical reasons kids get bullied. Perhaps Mooey:
1. Wasn't assertive.
2. Looked different from the other chickens.
3. Something was wrong with her.
4. She acted annoyingly.
5. Was weaker/smaller than the other chickens.

It got them thinking and talking about the reasons for bullying and how to use their intellect instead of their instinct. The funniest moment in the program was when I put up the slide from my high school yearbook that shows how I look different from everyone else and someone said, "Which one are you?" Everyone laughed because the answer is obvious. The ninth-graders paid attention and participated. They were very interested in my stories about getting bullied in middle and high school. On the evaluation they wrote that it was a different angle than the usual lectures on bullying, bully awareness and bully prevention.

I'm looking forward to my next visit to a school or camp. June will be a long month for schools in Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire because of the many snow days this winter that we'll have to pay the price for. Right now the program is being piloted, so there's no charge.

Composting is easy and organic

2011-05-09T10:56:00.004-04:00

When I visit schools, I'm amazed at how many children don't know what compost is.

This photo is compost from our bucket. Coffee grounds in the middle are surrounded by tea bags, pineapple, cantaloupe, onion banana and grapefruit peel, a lettuce leaf and egg shells.

At the top left is dog hair. At the top right is a bite of leftover whole-grain pancake. I forgot to include one my chickens' all time favorite compost ingredient: Dandelion weeds. They LOVE weeds and grass. It motivates me to pull dandelions for them.

You can start your own compost pile. It's easy. Just start putting in vegetable and fruit leftovers along with yard waste.Avoid meat products, although I break that rule because my chickens adore leftovers and few wild predators are attracted to my compost because of our location.

Give composting a try. You don't need any fancy equipment. For small yards it's nice to have barrels to contain the compost.

My chickens enjoy ravaging the compost pile. And they do it in the pecking order -- the highest ranking bird gets at it first, followed by rank. See this video for a demonstration.

Chicks are cute, but are they worth the extra work?

2011-05-02T09:48:00.002-04:00

Little kids and baby chicks go together like bacon & eggs.

My friend Denali is raising two dozen chicks who are growing rapidly. She must monitor their temperature, water, environment and food several times a day and keep them separate from her flock of older hens.

If full-grown hens do not raise the chicks, they may go so far as to cannibalize young chicks. They can't help it -- it's instinctive.

It's fun to visit her her chicks and see their growth, but I'm happy to buy pullets, adolescent chickens about 6 months old who are ready to lay or crow depending on their gender.

Pullets can be had for about $10, roughly the cost of feeding them for the first six months. I've already raised four children. Maybe in a few years I'll be ready to take on the responsibility and work of raising newly hatched chicks.

Chicken friends are essential to backyard chicken keepers because you help each other with knowledge, chicken care and by adopting each others' excess birds. I've inherited several birds that way -- once they're mature enough to join my flock's pecking order.

Raccoon in the neighborhood

2011-04-25T10:14:00.001-04:00

A raccoon is the ultimate bully who will murder, decapitate and ravage a whole flock for sport. On Saturday night at dusk Bob spotted a fat raccoon ambling around our neighbor's yard. We banged pots to scare it away but it seemed oblivious as it eventually climbed a tree to escape the threat.

"Maybe it's tame," Bob said. I immediately went to the coop, chased two stragglers into the coop, and closed it for safety. Because we our house is surrounded by water on two sides and there are several dogs in the vicinity, we have never had a problem with predators. However, there are MANY predators of chickens, so it's a constant threat.

The next day I couldn't find Houdini - the bird taking feed from my hand. She is prone to escaping the coop and exploring. I figured she had flown the coop sometime during the day and the raccoon had gotten her.

This morning, Houdini was back home when I let the hens out for the morning compost feast. Maybe I can't count. Maybe she sneaked back in and I didn't realize it. Either way, Houdini continues to elude predators.

Who will be the next flock leader?

2011-04-18T09:26:00.001-04:00

I found Delaware, left, dead on the floor of the coop yesterday morning. She had been acting funny. I checked her to see if she had a clogged vent, but felt nothing.

Delaware was a Delaware breed. Because I'm from that small state that's famous for poultry, I named her Delaware, then re-named her Susannah, Del-Sue for short. I chose her because Delawares are a cross-breed of New Hampshire Reds and Barred Plymouth Rocks known for prolific egg production and being meaty, too. A heavy breed, she laid about four eggs a week.

More importantly, Del-Sue was known as the self-appointed flock leader. At left, she is the only bird with enough pluck to stick her neck out [there are SO MANY chicken-related sayings in our language] on a snowy day to investigate one their favorite treats -- a cantaloupe rind.

That was typical of Del-Sue -- to take risks, investigate, state an opinion by loud clucking, insisting on first dibs on everything, and taking lead in bullying hens lower on the pecking order.

I'm waiting to see who takes over Del-Sue's position at the top of the pecking order.

Her death will inspire me to obtain two more pullets -- hens who are six months old and ready to lay -- to replace her and some of the other aging hens. After 18 to 24 months, hens are not as productive and cost more in feed than they produce in eggs. So they must be humanely disposed of, i.e., butchered and stewed.Old layers are a bit tough but make excellent stock.

Some people say not to name your food. I disagree. I can have a good relationship with my pets who produce eggs so willingly, and appreciate the nourishment they give us, even in death.

I laid Del-Sue to rest in the woods, covered by leaves and dirt, where nature will re-absorb her. Thanks for your life, spunk and eggs, Del/Sue.

Spring Chickens aren't for everyone

2011-04-04T14:31:00.000-04:00

That's Muffin on the left, a black sex-linked hen that I purchased for $10 when she was 6 months old, called a pullet, about ready to lay eggs. I let Tom Doherty of Westford manage the fertilization, hatching and raising of chicks from birth to pullet.

I bought Muffin and her sister Mooey for $10 each to add to my flock, for about the cost of the feed to raise them for six months.

By purchasing Muffin and Mooey as pullets, I didn't have to fret over the nest temperature and watch their welfare. It's a commitment to raise them from chicks that requires time and knowledge, which I'm lacking.

If you're thinking of becoming a backyard chicken keeper, know that you don't have to raise spring chickens. It's much easier to adopt pullets at 6 months old, enjoy a good laying cycle of 18 to 24 months, and then butcher or give them away.

Yes the baby chicks are adorable, but I like having layers. There is nothing like going outside and finding eggs in the nest laid by my chickens. They are so fresh and delicious.

One of the world's oldest professions

2011-03-28T09:22:00.000-04:00

This drawing is from the 14th century -- more than 600 years ago. No one is sure when people started domesticating animals and plants. Scientists theorize that farming started as far back as 9,000 BC. It makes sense because people have to eat, and chickens generously provide an eggcellent, abundant, and versatile nourishment.

Keeping chickens reminds me that I'm connected to my food, the Earth, and to my ancestors who struggled to survive against much worse conditions than me in the space age with medical and dental care, antibiotics, electricity and a very good diet.

Some modern conveniences now threaten our health, such as too many antibiotics in our food chain, over-reliance on fossil fuels and driving, which leads to poorer health because our bodies do not get the physical exercise they need.

My small flock chickens remind me that I'm connected to my ancestors, some food I eat, the weather, natural instincts, predators in the animal kingdom, and eating and pooping -- which chickens do in abundance.

Bullies in the Barnyard

2011-03-21T11:55:00.000-04:00

I spent Saturday morning with my friend Ruth on her 5-acre farm looking for examples of the pecking order. She has at least 50 hens and four roosters. I give credit to wildlife photographers. They have to keep the camera running at all times because the action happens unexpectedly and it can't be scripted.

I was hoping for examples of roosters bullying hens, and I caught the goats bullying each other. It is very instinctive for animals and humans, unfortunately, to pick on the weakest. This goat has been sick and the other goats can sense that she is weaker.

Animal instinct, what animals teach us about bullying, the pecking order, and bully prevention and awareness are covered in my new presentation for students - "Rulers of The Roost: What animals teach us about getting along."

Take a look at this video.

Cleaning the coop -- a dirty job but someone has to do it

2011-03-14T09:58:00.003-04:00

Bob is dumping the delicious compost into the garden bed.


Bob moves compost from the bin to the wheelbarrow.


These fresh clean wood shavings shavings feel great.

A good cleaning of the coop was long overdue after the long snowy winter. The hens spilled a gallon of water and dampened the bedding about a month ago. It was so cold and snowy I didn't get around to cleaning it up until yesterday and felt guilty about it.

In addition to moving the old wet bedding filled with manure, I vacuumed the hardware cloth on the openings and swept away the cobwebs to keep the air clean. Hens are sensitive to their environment. They like it clean, dry and smelling sweet.

Last month, my son Ian's renovations to the coop layout and doors for humans and egg collecting reduced the moisture that tracks in. The coop stays dryer because I don't have to go in very often. Thank you farmer Ian. The hens thank you.

My next adjustment to the interior is to re-arrange the roost and create a droppings board underneath to minimize the cleaning. A young person told me at the beginning of my chicken journey, "Chickens are basically crapping machines." He was right! The manure does make for a hearty garden and local food right from my backyard.

Becoming a chicken keeper has required a huge learning curve. I'm continuing my egg-ducation by reading more about chicken care. The delicious eggs make it all worthwhile. Even cleaning the stinky coop.

The hanging cabbage to prevent bullying

2011-03-07T09:42:00.001-05:00

One of my challenges as a backyard chicken keeper is a lack of background knowledge. I grew up in a city where we purchased eggs from the A & P. I never saw anyone or helped anyone care for chickens. This kind of innate knowledge is useful and lacking.

I'm in a foreign country where everything is new and the learning curve steep. However, I can learn from books, other chicken keepers and experience. While creating my school presentations on "Rules & Rulers of the Roost: What chickens teach us about getting along," I've checked out from the library a dozen books on chicken keeping, including many picture books for children, which are highly informative.

One of the books suggested hanging a cabbage for the birds to peck on instead of each other, because they might be bored. It's raining again here in Massachusetts. The books say that chickens lack a gland to oil their feathers to keep them dry, so they hate rain and snow because they're not protected from it.

The chickens are all cooped up -- with a new toy. The swinging cabbage. They refused to peck at it while I was standing there in the rain with my camera. That's okay. I like the picture just the way it is.

They're teaching me how to take care of them and prevent bullying, perhaps. I'm afraid bullying is part of their nature. You can see the red spot on the black sex-linked hen, Mooey, right behind the cabbage. Hopefully the cabbage will give her a respite. After less than 24 hours, the head of cabbage is more than half gone.

Winter days and chicken keeping

2011-02-28T12:35:00.003-05:00

Spending the $100 on the water heater and watering can (below) was a good investment this winter with all of the freezing temperatures. I wonder if the birds object to drinking warm water.

The hens tipped over the water can sometime in the past 24 hours, so I started the day by cleaning up wet shavings mixed with chicken manure before breakfast, then disinfecting the water container.

The birds sometimes tip over the water to protest something. Not sure what they're mad about except the continued warm weather that freezes their beloved compost pile at left.

There aren't many bugs to eat this time of year. The hens are still laying quite well thanks to the light installed in the coop. And they're continuing to bully poor Mooey -- see the bare spot on her back, above. Speckle, top right, has also been victimized by the bullying.

My school presentation "Rules and Rulers of the Roost" is taking form. I'm getting lots of photos and creating ways for the students to solve problems and answer questions on barnyard bullying. I'm looking forward to hearing their solutions.

Animals have a lot to teach us about bullying. Establishing a pecking order lets every chicken know her place.

I don't like how they peck on poor Mooey. One explanation could be that they're stressed by being cooped up during the long winter. They choose to stay cooped up on snow days, like yesterday when it snowed four inches. They hate to go outside in snow and rain. Unlike water fowl, chickens lack a way to make oil to make the water roll off their feathers.

Coop renovations by Farmer Ian

2011-02-21T07:59:00.011-05:00

When I was growing up, farmers were considered kind of backwards, like the hayseeds wearing overalls on Hee Haw.

My son Ian, 26, the organic farmer, has taught me otherwise. Farmers are problem-solvers and fix-its who care about the earth and animals. We would be very hungry without farmers.

After Ian took care of my small flock of backyard chickens when I was in St. John Virgin Islands for a week, he announced, "We have to make some changes in the chicken coop so you don't have to go inside of the coop every day."

When backyard chicken keepers go in the coop to refill the water and feed, and to gather eggs, we bring in snow and bring out chicken manure on boots.

Chickens like to stay dry, especially when it's cold outside. Humans don't like chicken manure in boots.

Ian and I rearranged everything: the nesting boxes, the electrical outlet, a roosting perch, the locations of the feed and water, and installed a new egg door. All of the renovations are egg-cellent. It took about an hour for three of us. Bob got involved in installing the egg collection door.

Now we have four doors -- one for humans, two for chickens [one is a fire exit :-) ], and one to collect eggs -- thanks to my smart, problem-solving farmer son. I like the convenience and clean boots. The chickens like to be dry.

Note to self: building a chicken coop requires lots of hinges and doors of all sizes.

"All cooped up" and "The pecking order"

2011-02-14T09:21:00.002-05:00

Raising chickens has taught me a lot about animals and human behavior, and the etymology of words.
Birds and people get stressed from being all cooped up because of cold weather. Like humans, birds take it out on whomever is most convenient. They target weaker birds and pick on them to relieve the stress and establish a pecking order.

Witness "Negro Dos" (Blackie Two) above. The other five birds have pecked off her tail feathers out of frustration, boredom and instinct.

Did you know that state law requires that chickens can only be sold in groups of six because chickens are social creatures. They need a group of at least three to be happy. The law also prevents one or two birds being sold at Easter as a living toy that may be neglected and abused.

Chickens know how to abuse each other. I'm not sure that it's good. It is natural instinct to establish a social order. Someone has to be in charge. And unfortunately, someone has to be on the bottom. Bullying is an unfortunate fact of the animal kingdom.

We humans have the intellect to be aware of bullying, educate each other and make different decisions. We can learn from "being all cooped up" and "the pecking order." I wish my chickens could.

There are reasons for the chicken to cross the road

2011-02-07T11:56:00.003-05:00

Cars, trucks and people stopped for this hen and her chicks in the center of Cruz Bay in St. John US Virgin Islands. She had the sense to cross just in front of the crosswalk.

The reason she's crossing the road is, um, to forage for more bugs, scraps and food on the other side. And for a different view. It's fun to explore.

I ate more factory-processed meat on my one-week vacation in St. John/US Virgin Islands, than I have in months.

These birds remind me of my own backyard chicken flock who RUN out the door when I open it every morning. They LOVE it outside.

Chickens who are raised with one square foot of cage, piled on top of each other, with beaks cut off, have a completely different life than the birds above, who live more naturally.

Of course, when roosters started crowing outside of our hotel room at 4 am, I had a different opinion of free-range chickens. However, when we previously lived next door to roosters, we became inured to the crowing. I just didn't hear it.

I was so cock-a-doodle deaf that one day a friend came over and stopped mid-sentence, "Is that a rooster crowing?!"

I said, "What rooster?" I had heard nothing. Like the chickens in the photo who can navigate in a town with vehicles, we adapt to our surroundings. We prefer the best surroundings possible.

Big decisions using chicken brains

2011-01-28T12:32:00.005-05:00

That's Delaware, the bossiest hen in the coop, mulling over whether she ought to get her feet cold and snowy for the opportunity to snack on one of her favorite treats - cantaloupe from the compost pile.

Eventually, she declined and stayed in the coop. The next day, she was tired of being all cooped up and ventured out to the bigger compost pile, finally. Everyone else followed her, of course, because she does the thinking for them.

When the hens stay inside because of the weather, they eat more feed and less compost, and get the hen house dirtier, which costs the farmer more because she has to buy more bedding to keep it cleaner in there.

Animal husbandry is harder and more expensive than it looks at first glance.

The coop now has water and electricity

2011-01-26T09:27:00.006-05:00

The silver water dispenser and heater below it represent an investment of $99. I have to clean out the water dispenser once a week and have electricity for the heating element- which was 60 bucks.

Last winter I toughed it out by taking out water twice a day and breaking the ice. I didn't have electricity last year. It's so convenient to have the heated water. I don't have to worry so much. It keeps them inside more, which is a downside.

It took me an hour or two to run the extension cord from the garage out to the coop. I had to drill some holes and figure out how to loop it in. Then I installed a florescent light on a timer to increase winter production. The light works! It goes on every morning at 3 am and fools them into thinking it's summer. Egg production is back up.

It's convenient to have the electricity because I could install the water heater. Now they are thoroughly modern with electricity and water - not running water, yet.

It's not "chicken feed" to keep chickens. In the winter, they eat less compost because they hate the snow, so they eat more chicken feed. The heater and water dispenser cost the equivalent of at least 33 dozen eggs.

My son Ian, the organic farmer, is always encouraging me to use organic feed, instead of the genetically modified feed. Organic feed costs at least double the $13 a bag for standard feed. This farming is expensive -- especially the luxuries like water and electricity. I haven't seen how much the light increased my electric bill.

Free Backyard Chicken Workhop

2010-02-03T09:52:00.003-05:00

Learn about raising chickens for eggs and meat in your backyard and in a cooperative at a free information night on Sunday, March 7, 6-7:30 pm, at First Church Unitarian, 19 Foster St., Littleton.

An optional potluck meal will be offered at 5 pm (no signup necessary). Childcare available if requested in advance.

I'll be moderating a panel of five chicken keepers -- Brad Bigelow of Littleton, Denali Delmar of Westford, Alison Kaiser of Littleton, Margaret Miley of Acton -- about how to get started keeping chickens alone or in a co-operative. Learn about chicken shelters, yields, breeds, disease prevention, predators, equipment, vacation care, butchering (it’s not that hard), predators and more.

Notice I didn't call us "experts" :-) I know enough to feed them, keep them alive and gather eggs. I even participated in the butchering at right.

People will be invited to join a community egg co-operative in Littleton to share the work and benefits of raising backyard chickens together, and to join a meat co-operative to raise chickens for meat. Joining a chicken co-op is fun, shares the workload and offers the opportunity for people to learn from each other.

Raising backyard chickens is gaining in popularity across America with the local foods movement. The typical food has been transported 1,500 miles. Eggs from backyard chickens travel a few feet from coop to table and are incredibly delicious, fresh and satisfying to raise and eat. Raising chickens will lower your carbon footprint and make new friends in the community.

This free workshop will provide information and confidence to get started raising backyard eggs and meat on your own and to join a meat and egg co-operative.

The workshop is sponsored by the Green Sanctuary Task Force of First Church Unitarian. Children welcome. Please RSVP if you need free childcare. Come for the potluck before or just the meeting. The public is invited. You do not have to attend the meeting to join a co-op. No registration required for attendance. If you're bringing something for the potluck, just bring it!

For more information contact Susan Tordella, 978-772-3930, susan.tordella@gmail.com or call the church at 978-486-3044.

When the weather outside is frightful

2010-01-19T13:10:00.004-05:00

The chickens are not that fond of snow and cold. They're managing in their unheated, unlit hen house and venture out for water that has frozen during the day since mid-December.

Because I have not invested in a water heater, it's my duty to carry out fresh water twice a day or more, depending on how cold it is.

Besides the satisfaction of raising my own absolutely delicious eggs , the next best aspect to keeping chickens is my heightened connection to what's happening outside. I must monitor the weather to determine how often fresh water is needed, or if to move the feed can inside in case of rain. I like to keep the feed outside to encourage them to spend time outside.

Like a farmer, I keep tabs on the weather. It's like having a pet or a child -- they occupy a corner of my radar screen. Like a pet or a child, rewards accompany the responsibilities.

I still haven't decided whether chicken keeping is a long-term avocation.

My son Ian, 25, an organic farmer whose friend raises chickens advised me to "Put a light out in the hen house to increase my yield" during winter, when egg production decreases along sunshine.

It would require cracking a window to run an extension cord or Bob to install an outside outlet and running an extension cord. I'm collecting about two eggs a day, which could double if I illuminated the hen house from 4 am to 6 am.

I have the timer, light and extension cord. I even have Bob. What I don't have yet is the time for Bob to upgrade the technology. Electricity changes farming. I could use it to heat my water. We're managing so far with traditional means.

Increasing my yield is tempting, however, now that all five hens are producing. I do love collecting the eggs and eating them. Raising chickens can always be counted on as party conversation because it's still such a novelty.

More than that is the "chop wood, carry water" reminder that we depend on the earth, weather and animals for our existence, a reality we usually overlook.

No running around with its head cut off

2009-10-13T14:11:00.006-04:00

Bruce is cutting the neck of a rooster while Denali is holding it still so the blood can drain into the can below. The birds squirmed for one to two minutes after the cut. One of them crowed and moved for what seemed like three minutes.

I took a turn cutting a head off two birds I have raised since June. I thanked them for their lives, took a deep breath and cut as fast and hard as I could with the sharpest knife.
I'll remember that moment of killing to eat for a long time. I'm usually so far removed from the source of my food.

Butchering in a group shared the workload and expertise. It was easier to do it together and learn by doing. Now I know how. I could do it in my backyard. We had a feast at the end of the day. The meat was tougher than I anticipated. Denali shared organic potatoes, beets, carrots and cucumbers from her garden and her homemade bread. It was delicious. I provided homemade peach and apple crisp with fruit from a nearby orchard. YUM!

Denali said chickens bred for meat are more tender. I'll cook the birds I brought home in a crock pot all day to soften them up.

To cut the neck of those chickens, I connected to a deep primal instinct to kill another living creature for survival. My birds had a much more humane life than chickens raised in commercial feeding operations. Someone else does my killing for me when I buy chicken in a store. It was a bit messy, but not as bloody as I anticipated.

Tomorrow-- de-feathering and gutting them.

Not one to follow the crowd

2009-10-12T10:11:00.009-04:00

I'm not usually the one to be "the first" to do anything, unless it's counter to everyone else.

I had a baby and stayed home while most of my peers were dressing for success, climbing the career ladder and avoiding pregnancy and marriage.

When everyone else got perms in the 1980s, I kept my prairie grass -- straight and flaxen.

Now I have chickens and it seems it's the thing to do. Shocking! My urban friends out-and-out laugh at the idea and think I'm a bit odd. I used to think people who kept chickens were a bit odd.

People aware of the cutting edge, nod carefully and say, "A lot of people I know are getting chickens."

Chickens require regular attention -- less than keeping children, men and a dog, but more than fish, a car or growing a garden. (In the photo above, Denali, Mike & Bruce are defeathering a newly killed rooster during "processing."

One of my roosters, Houdini, takes after me -- avant-garde. When Bob opened up the crate to take him to get beheaded at butchering party at Denali's yesterday, he took off into the woods and disappeared. Houdini refused to follow the crowd and go docilely to his death.

Houdini survived the night probably by roosting high lup in a tree to avoid predators, and showed up at her hen house this morning.

"We tried chasing him with the dog and couldn't catch him. We're leaving for Maine in a few minutes," Denali said.

"Why doesn't he fly over the fence?" I said. Her run has no containment over the top.

"I don't know, Susan," Denali said patiently. "He wants to get in and is crowing like mad."

"Oh well. I don't want to come over. It's only a rooster. We were going to kill him anyway. I have other worries -- my car won't start. Just let him be. Would you put out some water for him?" I hung up.

Bob said, "We could go over and try and catch him."

"Emphasis on 'try.' There's no guarantee. And it will take at least an hour. He's not worth it," I said. I'm not one to put animals at the top of my priority list.

Denali left a message a few minutes later. "We caught him and he's in our pen. Call me later."

Roger allowed Denali and Bruce to catch Houdini. So much for independent thinking. Now what do I do with him? It's too much trouble to butcher just one rooster.

I guess I'll keep him for a few weeks, when I get around to picking him up, if he hasn't escaped from Denali's run in the meantime. Houdini likes to fly over the fence. Chickens are not the brightest birds.

Houdini was contrite when Bob opened the box to let him out into our run, the opposite of his dash to freedom the day before. In less than a minute, he re-established himself in the pecking order by going after Big Red.

Barnyard meanderings

2009-09-15T08:17:00.003-04:00

The chickens gobble up slightly imperfect tomatoes, corn cobs with shreds of corn, and the rinds of cantaloupes and watermelons. They bolt into the compost area when they see me coming to the fence carrying the compost bucket.

If you're going to have chickens, it's worthwhile to have a few tomato plants because the chickens love tomatoes. They provide a recycling repository for the slightly imperfect tomatoes. I love f being part of a cycle where my waste is recycled a few steps away from where it was grown. They make weeding fun because weeds are like salad to them.

While the birds relish weeds, they rejected a bag of stale Trader Joe's whole grain hemp corn chips. Shocking. Maybe they needed some salsa.

Bob observed the two marans picking on Charlie Brown, the lowly bird at the bottom of the pecking order. Not much we can do, but let nature take its course.

When I brought a load of compost this morning, I tossed some goodies towards Charlie Brown, but her self-esteem is so low, she didn't think she was worthy of pecking away at an ear of corn.

Denali says to keep the birds busy so they don't pick on each other. I'm still learning what chores to give them. Maybe if they had more to do they'd leave Charlie Brown alone.

Silly little amusing chicken antics

2009-08-20T21:46:00.005-04:00

We have composted for a long time. It has always been a chore.

Suddenly, with eager hens with access to the compost, I look forward to taking out the compost.

They dive right into it, especially watermelon rinds, leftover peach pulp and even weeds. They see me coming with the bucket and come over in earnest.

I didn't realize that I would enjoy watching bird behavior or get attached to them. I'm in this for eggs. I'm not a great animal lover. However, these birds are winning me over.

We have collected four eggs now, so a whole new attitude has hatched. Literally.

However, there are other perks to compensate for the regular care. Just watching them is relaxing and amusing. Red Star -- the odd ball -- has a lonely life as the outsider. Red Star is older, bigger and more experienced.

She has become a little aggressive, but she also teaches the younger six birds a thing or two. They had no idea what to do with the compost until Red Star came along. And she knows how and where to lay eggs -- which is more than I can say for the rest of the flock. They harass her -- maybe out of jealousy.

According to the web, Red Star chickens produce the most number of eggs for the least feed, and in "this economy," that's important. She produces, that's all I care about.

Then there's Houdini. She likes high places and was fond of escaping until I put netting over the pen. Today she perched on the fence between the chicken yard and the compost. It gives her a sense of accomplishment, I think.

I went to my friend Denali's Chalet Poulet -- it's really the Taj Ma Chicken. It's HUGE, about twice as big as my coop. She spent a small fortune on it and built it sturdier and neater than ours. Ours is "just a chicken coop.

The best part of her setup is that the birds can be viewed from her deck, with a glass of iced tea, with your feet up, a restful and entertaining treat. Nature is like a dose of Valium. Daydreaming about butchering counteracts that.

Denali wants to raise birds for meat so she's game to learn to slaughter them. I'm willing. Being self-sufficient is appealing and part of the back-to-nature movement that I've been swept up in. There are instructional videos online on how to slaughter. Someone else is doing it for me at the slaughterhouse and CAFOs -- commercial animal feeding operations. They don't even have the courtesy to consider themselves a "farm." On a farm, people look at the animals, appreciate them and name them -- even though they will be sacrificed for food.

Hurray for sacrifice.

Two eggs, sunny side up

2009-08-18T10:03:00.005-04:00

My chicken adventure started in January with an idea, followed by months of thinking, planning and talking.

Next came the building phase. After the mental phase of talking myself in and out of keeping chickens, the building phase was the toughest. We built a shed with doors and pseudo-windows. It took time and money.

Then the coop was vacant for a few months until my hen friend Lori gave me some pullets -- birds a few months old -- that were not laying yet. They settled in, but I don't expect any eggs from them until October or November.

Then Lori dropped off Big Red -- a solitary hen a few months older than the rest of the gang -- in exchange for a rooster. My other six birds have been together since birth and bonded. Big Red is often on the outside of their clique. She's a bit of a bully. Big Red has been lonely and isolated.

Allegedly, Big Red is a "layer." Three weeks have passed and I was beginning to wonder if Big Red was transgendered or mistaken as a rooster. Hens are very susceptible to stress. It was taking her a while to find her place in the pecking order.

I placed golf balls in the laying nests as a hint. I checked the nests every few days for eggs. My hen friend Denali reported, "I got my first eggs!" I was green with envy. All I wanted was a few eggs for months of effort.

Last night, I grudgingly checked the nests again, with low expectations. It was a chore. Nest one had a golf ball and some chicken shit in it. Nest two, the same. Nest three, WAIT! Amid a little chicken shit were TWO BROWN EGGS!

I gathered them up, took them into the kitchen and called an emergency family meeting in the kitchen before dinner.

"Did either of you lay these two eggs?" I held them up victoriously to my husband and daughter Kristen. "Did either of you place these in the hen house to make my day?"

We whooped with celebration. Bob put on the frying pan and we ate them immediately.

Those two eggs were ALMOST worth the six-month wait! They were delicious. Today I gave the birds fresh water with a little more joy, a bit less resentment, and a great deal more anticipation and appreciation.

I love getting eggs from nests in my backyard!

The chickens have come before the egg

2009-07-27T16:18:00.006-04:00

We've been on the chicken adventure for a few weeks now.

Many of my chicken illiterate friends (a group I have left!) have asked during the barnyard tour, "Do you have any eggs yet?"

"No," is the answer because our birds are pullets (one must learn chicken lingo). Pullets are only 4 months old and won't start laying until they're 6 months old. So that is a disappointment.

However, I might be getting a few eggs a week from a chicken trade. Chicken keepers are like soccer moms -- we share information and children and rides. It's good to know each other.

"I would like the dark rooster back for breeding," said Lori, the chicken mama who sold me my 7 original birds, including three roosters, to be butchered when they're mature at 6 months.

I can't remember what breed my chickens are, and don't really care, I agreed to the trade. Hens are imminently more valuable than roosters, who are loud and pretty much useless except to occasionally breed, for amusement (they like to dominate!) and to butcher and eat. Yes I intend to learn to butcher chickens. I already know how to eat them.

Lori violated chicken etiquette. She dropped off the hen into the yard while we weren't home, a major faux pas. New birds, particularly older birds, should be sneaked into the hen house at night, when allegedly, none of the other birds will notice.

Big Red, as we have named her, has been ostracized. She spent the first night roosting in Bob's lumber house because she was afraid to go into the hen house. By the time I got out after dark to check on them and shut the door, I couldn't find her. Bob found her in the morning. The next night, she joined the flock inside, but still separate.

I feel a little sorry for her. Having been a dash of salt in a bowl of pepper during high school, I feel compassionate for lonely creatures, who are excluded for whatever reason.

Big Red has not laid a single egg in her debut week. I need to put some golf balls in the egg-laying nests to give her the hint. Hopefully she will settle in and produce. Chickens are very susceptible to stress.

Maybe I'll play her some nice elevator music to relax. I just want a few fresh eggs for the several hundred dollar investment, to date! In this case, the chickens come before the egg. Gimme a few eggs!

It's shocking how many chicken allusions are in the English language, even though we don't raise chickens any more. I'm curious -- give me a few in the comment section.

The chickens have arrived - finally!

2009-07-09T13:14:00.006-04:00

My chicken odyssey finally reached a climax: I GOT 8 CHICKENS on Sunday! My friend Lora had ordered 15 chickens and been delivered 30. She gave me eight that she didn't want that are three months old. The four hens will lay eggs in three months.

After talking, reading and researching, and chickening out more than once about getting chickens, I finally decided against getting chicks because of the work involved and fear that some would die on my watch because of negligence.

Some have already died. The night before I picked up the chickens, a fisher cat attacked the cage they were staying in and killed about eight. It was a bloodbath. The chickens stuck their neck outside of the wire cage and the fisher cat chomped it off for sport, according to my friend Ruth, on whose farm the chicks were living.

So I didn't get as many chicks as I anticipated. I'm going to get some more. One of my eight died unexpectedly, inexplicably. I'm not sure of the breeds of my birds, and don't really care. I can tell the roosters. They are amusing, assertive and aggressive. I guess the Y chromosome influences behavior in the animal kingdom. "And the hens love it," someone said.

Our dog Gonzo has taken quite an interest in the birds. She wants to sniff and nip them. That's her watching me with interest on the first day we adopted them .I made it clear to her that they belong to me and she is banished from the chicken coop and yard.

So much has happened since I got fed up waiting and took a hiatus from blogging. We had to build the coop and get permission from the town and decide when and how to get what kind of chickens.

In January when I embarked on this chicken adventure, I didn't expect it to take until July to get them. The un-named guy in Groton said, "Chickens are easier than children and dogs." He was right. They are very low maintenance. The hardest part about the whole advent was building the coop.

I'll catch you up on the coop details later. Gotta go feed the birds now.

Organic lawns are easier than you think

2009-05-15T09:06:00.003-04:00

All drinking water in the USA contains traces of pesticides and herbicides – that we spread on our lawns regularly. Such poisons have been directly linked to ADD and ADHD.

These chemicals kill bugs by toying with their nervous systems. They’re endocrine disruptors – which means they interfere with the sexuality, nervous systems and mental abilities of living things – including us. These legal and liberally applied chemicals are lynching us.

Joann Bisetta of the Concord, MA Water Dept. and Frank Koll, owner of GreenScapes Lawn, an organic lawn service in Arlington, MA, know how to battle dandelions, grubs, acidic soil, and crabgrass using compost tea, corn gluten, hummus, a Weed Hound -Hound Dog dandelion picker, oatmeal, [yes oatmeal!] and milky spore.

When you stop using Scotts or Chem Lawn, anticipate that your lawn will get worse before it gets better because it is addicted to the drug, according to Frank.

It will require several years of natural lawn care to establish deep roots and healthier soil to support grass and some weeds. Once it’s in recovery, your lawn will become healthier and more rugged because it will be thicker and deeper roots.

“Ironically, after a few years of natural lawn care, customers don’t need me,” Frank said of his organic lawn treatments. The grass grows so strong and healthy, it doesn’t need chemical treatements. You will save money in the long run too. Even though organic fertilizer is somewhat more expensive initially, you can make your own compost tea. [http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/airwaste/wm/recycle/Tea/tea1.htm]

Joann and Frank recommended a 5-step process:

1. Start with a standard soil test with organic matter -- $13, from UMass Extension, soil testing lab -- 413-545-2311, www.umass.edu/plsoils/soiltest.

2. Create an environment for healthy soil to crowd out the weeds. Use compost tea – made with compost in water – to fertilized a few times a month or season.

3. Grow the right kind of grass- Fescue is recommended in Mass. It’s more native than Kentucky Bluegrass. Don’t attempt to grow grass in the shade. It won’t happen! Come up with other garden plants for shady areas.

4. Grow grass at the right TIME. Feed and seed your lawn when forsythias come out in spring. Rake the dirt spots and sprinkle Fescue seeds in spring. Don’t expect an overnight transformation. In fall, fertilize generously with hummus and compost tea and put more seeds down.

5. Sharpen your lawn mower blade every 10 times and leave the grass 3 inches high to crowd out the weeds.

Changing our lawn care practice is part of the overall scheme of changing our paradigm about how we use energy and treat the earth. Organic lawn care can grow a healthier and safer lawn than when chemicals are used.

West Chester County, NY and some parts of Canada have outlawed chemical lawn fertilizers. The trend among golf courses is to go organic.

Make sure the “organic” brands of lawn care at garden stores really are organic and don’t have nitrates or urea. We need to get our state legislature to pass similar laws to ban those chemicals. Educate yourself and your neighbors on the benefits of organic lawn care.

The Egg and I

2009-04-14T17:14:00.002-04:00

Looking back with nostalgia to when time were simpler -- is usually with selective memory or false information. There have been multiple return-to-nature eras, glorifying farm life. Read "The Egg and I" by Betty MacDonald, and she will annihilate your nostalgia.

Her hilarious best-selling memoir was first published in 1945. She also wrote four Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle early readers for children, which are delightful. In 1945, America stood on the brink of crossroads of departing from slow-motion farm life sustainably anchored in the four seasons, to shooting fast-forward like a rocket towards electronic consumerism, founded on greed and economic growth -- that is impossible to sustain.

Betty makes light of farm life -- without electricity, central heat or running water. "I estimated that I carried a minimum of 16 buckets of water a day--16 ten-quart buckets or 160 quarts a day for about 360 days. Is it surprising that my hands were almost dragging on the ground and my shoulders sagged at the sight of anything wet? That I was tortured by mirages of gushing faucets and flushing toilets?"

Her distaste for the hardships of a rustic farm in Washington State extends to the chickens she and her husband raised. One chapter is titled, "I learn to hate even baby chickens.

"I learned to my sorrow that baby chickens are stupid; they smell; they have to be fed, watered and looked at, at least every three hours. Their sole idea in life is to jam themselves under the brooder and get killed; stuff their little boneheads so far into their drinking fountains they drown; drink cold water and die; get W.W.D.; coccidiosis or some other disease which means sudden death. The horrid little things pick out each other's eyes and peck each other's feet until they are bloody stumps."

Betty found gathering eggs, a task usually relegated to children on a farm, challenging. "Gathering eggs would be like one continual Easter morning if the hens would just be obliging and get off the nests. Cooperation, however, is not a chickenly characteristic."

Luckily, most hens in the new millennium have had "broodiness" bred out of them. They don't realize their eggs are their offspring.
Roosters are still the same. The rooster pictured above is doing what he does best: dominating and intimidating.

"The rooster, now, is something else again. He doesn't give a damn if you take every egg in the place and play handball. He doesn't care if the chicken house is knee-deep in weasels and blood. He just flicks a speck from his lapel and continues to stroll around, stepping daintily over the lifeless but still warm body of a former mistress, his lustful eye appraising the leg and breast of another conquest."

Betty immersed me in her life with hilarious and heart-rendering descriptions of a hard life, dependent on nature. I kinda like modern amenities.

My chickens -- if they every arrive -- will be a hobby. My livelihood and next meal don't depend on them right now. Someday we'll finish building the chicken coop and yard for them.

Honey bees prefer a low-stress lifestyle

2009-04-10T08:13:00.014-04:00

The humble honey bee is in trouble. The mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder is wiping out bees by the droves.

Beginning in October 2006, some beekeepers began reporting losses of 30-90 percent of their hives. Einstein predicted humans would starve within four years without bees. An estimated 80 percent of our food depends on pollination by bees.

(The fantastic bee photo comes from Autan in Japan.) We're copious consumers of fruit in our home, so we're indebted to bees for their magnificent pollination skills.

Nature writer Rowan Jacobson documents the bee predicament in "Fruitless Fall: the Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis." Researchers cannot pinpoint ONE cause of the colony collapse disorder. So I like Rowan's analogy of the quandary of the beleaguered honey bees (page 138-139). It sums it up marvelously.

"You stagger off a coast-to-coast red-eye flight and chug a Pepsi for breakfast to revive. You hop in your rental car and head for your business meeting, but wouldn't you know it, the GPS is malfunctioning in the car and you get lost. You show up for the meeting late, edgy and shaking.

"You have to excuse yourself to hit the bathroom because you've got a stomach but and the antibiotics just aren't helping. Not to mention the fleas that seem to be leaping from the carpet into your socks. Halfway through the meeting a pest-control guy steps in and sprays the room with a white fog that makes you retch.

"You are useless throughout the meeting and don't make the sale you'd hoped to make. But you can't dwell on that because you have to head directly to another meeting. In fact, you have meetings all day, until late at night, and then you have to hop another red-eye home. No time to sit down and eat, so you wolf down a box of doughnuts as you drive.

"You're in bad shape. Not only are you constantly irritable because of the impossible schedule, but lack of sleep, a sugary diet, and chemical contamination are taxing your immune system.

"You'll probably get more illnesses, and your work performance will continue to suffer. When you finally make it home to your mate, you won't be terribly interested in romance, because you've got too much on your mind--such as the fact that your kids seem to have some sort of learning disabilities."

Most commercial bees are trucked around the country to work various harvests, including the "Almond Orgy" (credit to Rowan) in California, where 82 percent of the world's almonds are harvested -- super-intensive-mass-harvesting at its best -- or worst.

Almond growers contract to bring in 1.5 million full-strength hives to pollinate the crop. Beekeepers like the fast and seemingly easy cash. However, the dark cloud is the "brothel effect" (credit to Rowan): the bees can catch all kinds of communicable diseases.

The colony collapse disorder is another "canary in the flock of canaries in the coal mine" that we humans are ignoring while our ecosystem systemically weakens and sickens. Because pesticides are a contributing factor to the Colony Collapse Disorder, it has influenced me to start buying more organic produce.

My son Ian, the organic farmer said, my friends Brittany and Mark decided they could afford to buy organic produce if they gave up cable, about $60 a month. Me, too. Except I don't have cable. I can give up something else, for Lent, forever.

The last frog on earth?

2009-04-06T13:07:00.005-04:00

"Did you see the special on PBS last night about frogs?" asked Mike, a painting contractor, when he saw a book on my kitchen counter about global warming.
"They're dying of a fungus that inhibits them from breathing through their skin. About 5 percent are immune, so workers incubate frog eggs of the resilient ones and hope they'll survive and reproduce," Mike said.
Of course, no one knows why. They do know that frogs are ONE of our "canaries in the coal mine." Are humans next?
"What do we have to do to start thinking and acting differently?" I asked Mike.
"Critical mass," he said.
"What have you done to green up your painting business?"
"I wish the paint manufacturers would take back the cans. No one will take them. They end up in landfills," Mike said.
"Why don't you initiate a movement to change that?"
"In my free time?" Mike said rhetorically.
All of those small steps add up to a healthier environment, but no one is willing to take a few extra minutes to initiate a movement to change our systems.
"Mike, do you have children?"
"Yes, two babies."
"Some people say they'll change for the sake of their children. Every other organism on Earth survives by leaving a clean environment for their DNA to reproduce."
"Not geese!" my husband interjected.
"They leave THEIR environment clean," I said.
"What can you do in your realm, Mike, so fairy tales isn't the only way your kids know about frogs?"
It gave him pause for thought -- which is the antecedent to changing behavior and critical mass.

Flip-Flopper

2009-03-27T10:03:00.008-04:00

Call me a flip-flopper. It's true. I'm having a hard time deciding what kind of chickens to get and when.

When I first embarked on this chicken adventURE, I thought I'd be part of a herd. Groton Local would make some key decisions and I'd comply: Pick up XX chickens of XX breed on XX date.

No such luck. Groton Local made their order without me. So I formed my own Hen Talk group and we've been researching, visiting chicken raising operations, reading, talking, and asking questions.

I FINALLY decided to buy 14-16 week pullets that would be ready to lay in a month or so. It would give me immediate gratification in the form of eggs -- my purpose in this adventure, and eliminate the nursery stage of caring for cute little chicks.

However, I called the Townsend chicken farm so I wouldn't have to get them mail-order from the Midwest, and found out they administer the chicks antibiotics.

Michael Pollan, a modern-day Cronus or Saturn [Greek and Roman Gods] of agriculture, reports that 70 percent of all antibiotics used in America are on CAFOS - Commercial Animal Feeding Operations. They don't qualify as farms -- they are factories. Without the antibiotics, the animals would not survive in such close quarters, and grow more slowly.

Put that piece of the puzzle together with MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus bacteria [Strep Throat] that infects 100,000 Americans a year and killed 19,000 in 2005. More people are dying of MRSA than AIDS.

Recent studies point to CAFOS as MRSA breeding grounds. MRSA also thrives in hospitals. For the full story, click on Michael Pollan link for his 2007 article in the NY Times Magazine.

Either way, I'm going organic, even if it means losing a few chicks to death and disease. One of the most common ways of sharing disease among chickens is if I visit other chicken keepers and track home their ailments on my shoes.

I'm going with a heritage or endangered breed, too, because of a Yahoo Group on Organic Chickens. After stern admonitions in the welcome-to-the-list-serve-rules, such as "Don't ask stupid questions," such as "What breed should I get?"

They say, "We will make one recommendation: choose a heritage breed" and help save a breed. OK, I've flip-flopped to a new plan. There are no rules!

Fresh-Air Poultry Houses

2009-03-25T16:01:00.004-04:00

This remarkable book, "Fresh Air Poultry Houses," by Prince T. Woods, M.D., has made a comeback since its original printing in 1924. Yes, 1924.

Readers can enjoy the humorous and archaic writing style while gleaning relevant information.

"Dank, dark and smelly" is a lethal combination, according to the book's introduction.

"If fresh air and sunshine, instead of being free to all, were delivered by meter and charged for at high rates, both would be in greater demand and much more appreciated," writes Prince.

(What parents name a son "Prince"? He is surely destined for greatness or a music career.)

"It is pretty well-known that when so-called un-civilized naked savages, who live in the open, are taught to wear clothes, live in closed houses and adopt other habits of civilized white men, they soon sicken and die of 'white man's diseases,' often of tuberculosis," writes Prince.

The wise doctor practices what he preaches. "Here in the variable climate of Eastern Massachusetts, often bleak, blustery and very cold in winter, my own family have used an open-air sleeping porch, with wire screen front, on the south side of our house, both summer and winter for the last ten years. The results have been entirely satisfactory and some of our neighbors have followed our example."

BRRR! Sleeping outside in the winter in Massachusetts? He's a bit crazy.

Prince provides a plethora of photos of open-air poultry houses and diagrams of how to build them. His missive convinced me to add extra ventilation, even though I've been warned that chickens are sensitive to drafts.

Raising chickens is a lot like raising children. There are many theories and practices, and ways to insure good health among children and chickens.

I do recall that every fall when we closed the windows of the house for winter, my children would get sick from breathing inside air. They didn't get TB, like the savages, but they did catch respiratory infections.

Prince would approve of the ventilation in my coop.

Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance

2009-03-24T10:16:00.010-04:00

A good book is one that can't be put down. I couldn't stop reading Martin Gurdon's description of the antics, expressions, elegance, absurdity and atavism of keeping chickens in his "garden" in England.

It's edutainment -- he entertains and informs readers about the adventures of Psycho, Mrs. Brown, Satan, Wimpy and Bossy.

My hen-talk buddy Denali picked it up at the library and it's available online, too. Martin is a good storyteller and a better chicken keeper than I will ever be.

Martin views his birds as pets who produce eggs. I will view my birds egg producers who live in my chicken coop.He regularly took his birds to the veterinarian. My birds will live by the doctrine: survival of the fittest.

I've finally decided how and when to get birds. As soon as the coop is built and fence erected, I'm buying 15-week old Rhode Island Reds and Araucanas raised on a nearby family farm. They will produce eggs within a month. Rhode Island Reds are hearty and Araucanas produce green eggs.

Like spouses, there's no perfect breed. Some are heartier and easier to live with.
Getting them at 15 weeks eliminates the nursery stage. Chicks are cute, but my four children exhausted my broodiness.

Denali and Bernadette will adopt Speckled Sussex and Wyandotte chicks in June, by mail order, nurse them through infancy and wait 6 months for eggs. With a renewed interest in chicken keeping, there's a higher than usual demand for some breeds.

"You'll have chick envy when we get our babies," Denali said.
"You'll have egg envy when my birds start producing eggs," I said.

I'm psyched. Even psycho! My chicken advent is almost over. The adventURE is about to begin. Does anyone have thoughts on the breeds we've chosen?

Low Carbon Connections

2009-03-23T09:03:00.014-04:00

People don't that get using less fuel means we're more connected to each other and our communities.

When I get chickens -- next week, I finally decided! -- I will get to know my neighbors better because I will sell them eggs and ask them to look in on the chickens when we're away.

That's Tom Doherty, a chicken farmer in Westford, MA, talking to Denali and Bernadette (holding Leila) about chickens. The three of us women get together for Hen Talk, to share information and plans for what kind of birds to get, when to get them and how to take care of them. There are dozens of decisions to make, and we're helping each other. It's fun.

At left are carpoolers. I made some wonderful friends by carpooling to work two to four days a week. I got to know people I never would have met through carpooling. They would make me laugh at 7 am and it insured that I almost always arrived at work in a good mood.

At my Unitarian church we have fun washing dishes together after a pot luck dinner for 10 or 100 people. [Unitarians aren't regular churches. We must think for ourselves. Unitarian Universalists accept all beliefs: aetheism, Buddism, Christian, Jew or Pagan.] By using china plates and real silverware, we generate less waste.

I belong to Ayer Local -- which is planning and taking action to transition when peak oil inevitability becomes a reality. We have fun together. I'm getting to know people in my neighborhood.

What are you doing that's local and sustainable that connects you to your community?

The truth about chickens and WHY CHANGE?

2009-03-23T07:46:00.012-04:00

One the most refreshing things about young people is their honesty. During Sunday School, it was my job to shepherd a group of boys from 10 to 16 years old to figure out an Earth Day project that could be accomplished during a Sunday morning.

"What about raising chickens?" I asked. "Has anyone raised chickens?" Calvin, 15, scowled and shared his second-hand knowledge.

"They're stupid and they're a lot more work than you think. You give them fresh water and they poop in it immediately. They are stupid. They smell and they're dirty. You have to shovel out the poop from their coop to keep them clean. You have to take care of them a lot. My sister keeps them in our barn."

After the condemnation of chickens, it was hard to muster enthusiasm from the rest of the class. Like most Americans, they are so far removed from the experience of hunger, or from the intellectual possibility of peak oil and a social collapse, chickens are no more than an inconvenient pet.

The youths reflect the values of their elders -- chickens smell and they require regular care and feeding, which should be avoided and left to the CAFOs -- Confined Animal Feeding Operation.

I asked them what motivated people to take action. Calvin answered, "Our moral compass." I suggested fear, which they rejected. Money was also suggested as a motivation and similarly discarded.

The main reason people change is because everyone else changes. We are herd animals, we follow the trends. We do act out of fear of not fitting in and to save money.

What makes you change the way you've always done things? Why do you -- or do you not -- recycle, wear seat belts, not smoke in public?

BTW- they decided to either work on a community garden project or pickup litter in town in honor of Earth Day.

A new paradigm

2009-03-20T16:37:00.007-04:00

My friends the Sheingolds allowed me to rescue this wall-mounted chicken nest contraption from their century-old barn. It hasn't been used in decades, so I'm happy to recycle it and install in my new coop.

Having grown up in the city and never raised chickens, I had no idea of the purpose of the wooden slats in front of the openings. Neither did Carol Sheingold or anyone in my family. I felt like I should know, but that kind of knowledge is fading away. Looking at the nesting boxes is kind of like looking at a typewriter or rotary telephone.

When I cleaned it, I realized the slats are on hinges, meant to be folded down for roosting. Now it's obvious. They double as a way to close off the bottom row of nests, if desired. My chicken education and adventURE continue.

Going public about my chickens adventUREhas all kinds of rewards. My optometrist said he gathered eggs on his uncle's chicken farm when he was 5 years old. He would have known what the mysterious slats were for.

The Power of Community

2009-03-16T14:25:00.005-04:00

I watched "The Power of Community" on Friday night at a public showing, about how Cuba re-organized its food production and transportation after losing losing half of its oil imports when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990. Dubbed "The Special Time," food supplies dropped by 80 percent. There was no food available.

Without oil, the country coasted to a stop and changed how they grow food. Instead of big state-supported agriculture, they created a network of small organic farms using oxen to pull the plows.

"An ox won't work for eight hours. When it's tired, it just lays down," said an old farmer who taught new farmers how to train oxen to do the plowing. Oxen are better than tractors for the soil because they don't compress the dirt. Oxen also provide natural fertilizer. Today, 80 percent of Cuba's agriculture is still organic.

People started using bikes to get around and ate more vegetables and less meat. The country got healthier. The rate of diabetes, heart disease and stroke went down. The average Cuban lost 20 pounds! People got to know their neighbors and began living more locally, with more connection.

Cuba's "special period" is a look into the future of what will happen in a post-peak oil culture and oil costs $150, $300 or $500 a barrel. People act crazy when they're hungry. Maybe that's what we need to wake up to the coming post-oil era -- a little hunger-induced craziness.

Has anyone seen the movie? NetFlix doesn't have it. This movie's site -- http://www.powerofcommunity.org/cm/index.php -- lists public showings and distributes the movie.

New ideas are typically first ridiculed

2009-03-12T15:53:00.008-04:00

That's a sculpture of a Delaware Blue Hen.
My city friends politely snickered at me last night when I mentioned I'm planning to adopting baby chickens in April to keep in my back yard.

"Why?" they said, trying to contain their mirth.

"So I can grow my own food and eat more locally," I answered seriously.

They sort-of understood that motivation.

Keeping chickens is so far outside of their paradigm, it was humorous to them. I can take it. I have my hen-talk group. We are creating a new "normal." We humans are a lot like chickens. We like to belong to our flock. We don't want to be the first to do something, for fear of ridicule.

I got the idea from a group of people -- Groton Local -- who endorsed it and offered support and guidance. It seemed normal and even cool to them. So I jumped on the group's train. It's easier to get on someone else's train than to build my own locomotive and engine house.

New ideas are typically first ridiculed before eventually being accepted as truth.

Twenty years ago, the notions of curbside recycling, banning smoking in restaurants or an African-American president would have been dismissed as ludicrous.

They're the new normal.

I can relate to my city friends. In the 1990s, I bought eggs from two neighbors who kept chickens in our apple-orchard-farm-town-turned-Boston-commuting-suburban. I thought they were a little fringe.

Their eggs were mighty fresh and delicious. My city friends will be clamouring for my home-raised, free-range eggs. And I'll get the last laugh.

Green Acres is the place to be

2009-03-10T13:33:00.008-04:00

Farm life is noisy and smelly.

Roosters in particular, can be loud and unruly. Some areas prohibit chickens by zoning regulation.

"Be a good neighbor," said one of the chicken gurus at the chicken training on Sunday, so chicken ownership stays legal and accepted. In my town, chickens are considered pets. Still, pet owners have responsibilities.

One of the chicken coops on the tour smelled. I couldn't stay in there very long. It was a sunny, muddy, spring day, so most of the chickens were outside at the watering trough, left.

Most Westerners are disconnected from the production of food, which involves smell, sound, killing and dependence on the weather.

We're also disconnected from the rhythms of the earth. We protect ourselves from and complain about bad weather. I live in New England and love to ski, both cross-country and downhill. For optimum conditions and comfort, I watch the weather and respond to it.

This morning, I squeezed another day on my cross-country skiis before everything melts. I went out early before the sun melted the fresh snow. It was beautiful, pristine and quiet. I prefer going skiing outside of my back door instead of driving to the health club.

When we move away from the land and into cities, we're cut off from the rhythms of nature. Green Acres becomes a myth, a backwards, far-removed place with rustic noises, smells and barnyard animals. Small farms have been able to survive by becoming museums.

Maybe we need a TV show called Reality Farming?

Minimalist chicken keepers

2009-03-09T14:10:00.007-04:00

Yesterday was Chicken 101: my hen trio visited chicken keepers and attended a free lecture [sponsor - Westford Farmer's Market]. The coop on the right was on the tour sponsored by Groton Local.

This is what I learned.

1. The chicken adventure is more fun with my "hen talk trio" -- me, Bernadette, and Denali. We help, laugh with and teach each other. A century ago, farm women got together for "hen talk." That's us.

2. We're trendy. About 70 people attended the chicken meeting, and some came a distance. Anybody who is "with it" eats organic and local, composts, and raises some vegetables and fowl. If you're really somebody, you've been doing all three "forever."

3. It's simple and frugal. The biggest challenges are building/buying the coop and choosing what variety of chickens to get.

"Make the coop so predators can't get in, it has no direct wind, and ventilation. Chickens will die from overheating sooner than they'll die from the cold," according to Tom Mahoney, who has been raising chickens since he was 5 years old. He's a regular chicken guru.

The coop can be made from recycled materials. It can be a retro-fitted garden shed. All the coop needs is a private place for laying eggs and roosts for sleeping. He really simplified it.

Tom recommended Rhode Island Reds, which can be bought for a buck or two each, which is chicken feed, so to speak.

4. Chickens don't need much attention, and they're entertaining. I asked one of the farmers on the Groton Local Tour, "How many chickens do you have?" She answered, "I don't know." That's my kind of chicken keeping. Laid back and low key.

They need to be checked once a day, sleep outside all winter, and don't like stress, which is simpler than a dog's needs. They do stupid things to make us laugh, especially roosters.

5. Chickens will help compost. Terry Golson, author of "The Farmstead Egg Cookbook," built her chicken run adjacent to the compost pile. Vegetable and fruit scraps first get heaped in a corner of the chicken yard, beside the compost pile. The chickens get first dibs, and they enjoy the pecking, then it's a short throw into the compost pile. That's my idea of a low-tech compost pile. Just toss it on.

Next step
The final decision is whether to get chicks or to buy the more mature pullets. I think it will be a more complete experience to raise them from the beginning. That's not saying I want to bond with them. The chicks at the lecture were mighty cute, so I'm leaning towards adoption at birth. Time to order the birds and build the coop!

We vote every time we buy something.

2009-03-06T13:11:00.011-05:00

"I like to shop where the clerk says, 'Hi Bob,'" says Reliable Bob of Red Oak Renovations. (Disclaimer: he's my husband.) Bob shop almost daily for supplies when remodeling customers' kitchen and bathrooms.

Bob doesn't get "Hi Bobbed" at the big box stores.

When he shops at Moore's Lumber -- where the sign at right is posted, clerks say, "Hi Bob!" Moore's is convenient -- 2 miles away -- and has good service. The inventory is less than the box stores, but a smaller store is less overwhelming.

I'm in charge of the town's annual spring roadside trash pickup in April and needed to track down plastic bags for the effort.

Following the mantra of "We vote every time we buy something," I started my online search with "plastic bags + Massachusetts."

The first place I called in couldn't help, but he connected me to Kurt at Eastern Packaging in Lawrence.

Kurt donated two rolls of bags for the cleanup. I wonder if he would've done the same thing if I was in Oklahoma, not just down the road in Massachusetts.

Thanks, Kurt.

Biomimcry for my offspring

2009-03-05T13:03:00.006-05:00

If you haven't seen "The 11th Hour," rent it immediately and watch it with a group. Watch the extra features that have in-depth interviews.

The people in the photo above are my family and friends -- the most important people on the planet to me.

Janine Benyus studies biomimicry -- a new discipline that studies nature’s best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems.

This is what Janine said in "The 11th Hour." It relates to the photo and survival of the fittest.

Organisms have learned to take care of their environments so their offspring will survive the next 50 billion years.

Organisms manage to build soil, cleanse the air, filter water and exhale a cocktail of gases that is exactly what we need to breathe.

Life has managed to create conditions conducive to life. It's nothing special. It's part of the system.

They do it without the Environmental Protection Agency or lawyers or corporations.

Organisms create a place that will support offspring.

One drop of water does not make an ocean

2009-03-03T16:24:00.004-05:00

My dirty laundry is at right -- hankies and cloth napkins -- part of my campaign to reduce what I consume and throw away. The hankies and napkins will be used hundreds of times, compared to ONCE using paper products that have to be grown from trees, manufactured, shipped, stocked, bought, transported home, used and disposed of.

I picked up 20 dinner plates at the Transfer Station -- from a shed to leave and take excess household goods. I keep them in the garage for parties to avoid buying paper products.

I bike, carpool and use public transit when possible. Most of the light bulbs in our house are florescents. My husband, Reliable Bob of Red Oak Renovations has a green business plan. He attracts customers within a 30 minute drive from our home in Ayer, Massachusetts.

We've super-insulated our house and are investigating installing solar. I have a high-efficiency washing machine that uses 9 quarts of water instead of 36-gallons. I avoid using my dryer in favor of a drying rack. We have a small garden. I buy at the local farmer's market in summer. I'm getting chickens -- you can't get more local than that!

I'm only one person. We're only one household, one business. Do our solo actions make a difference?

I'll let Michael Quoist's poem provide an answer.

If each note of music were to say:
One note does not make a symphony
There would be no symphony.

If each word were to say
One word does not make a book
There would be no book.

If each drop of water were to say:
One drop does not make an ocean
There would be no ocean.

If each seed were to say:
One grain does not make a field of corn
There would be no harvest.

If each of us were to say:
One act of love cannot save mankind,
There would never be justice and peace on earth.
Begin now, why are you waiting?

Neither snow nor rain not heat nor gloom of night

2009-03-02T16:04:00.007-05:00

What happens when it snows? What happens when I go away for the weekend? What happens if they get sick? During the advent before my chicken adventURE, I have time to fret over these questions.

It's snowing about a foot today. That's me at left, emptying the compost bin with Gonzo, who will hopefully evolve to be a chicken protector, not attacker. Photo by Reliable Bob.

The chicken coop will be attached to the brown out-building at the left. That's not very far to go in the snow. "The cold doesn't bother the chickens, but you have to protect them from drafts and provide fresh water daily," according to Doug, a fellow chicken keeper.

I can see why old New England farmhouses are connected to the barn. The buildings inbetween housed the outhouse, and the series of outbuildings provided a buffer and an enclosed path from house to barn throughout the winter.

It won't be that inconvenient or difficult to visit the chickens once a day during snowstorms and keep them cooped up and protected from drafts during the winter. It will be one more thing on my radar to manage. I'm anticipating that keeping chickens will be fun, interesting and productive.

Nowadays such a fuss is made over driving in snow. Perhaps it's because we can anticipate the storm coming. It only disrupts things for 24 hours, then it's over.

What if we all lived locally and didn't have super-long commutes on super-highways? What if we had chickens in our backyards and could collect some eggs for dinner and avoid the pre-storm trip to the grocery store?

An extravagant coop on the Chicken AdvenTOUR

2009-02-26T09:50:00.013-05:00

Bonnie's chicken coop reflects the well-kept suburban development she lives in -- see right. That's Bernadette getting Lila out of her car for the chicken advenTOUR. Bonnie painted the chicken coop, below, the same color as the house.

Bonnie's spent $800 on the new materials to construct the chicken building (coop seems too cheap a term for it) and fencing. which she buried to discourage predators.

I did like the setup.

I didn't like the price tag.

I liked how there are doors for humans and for chickens.

When humans can easily enter, it's easier to clean and maintain the coop.

Her coop is not on wheels.

Turns out that chickens like to scratch in the dirt. They even have special feed called "scratch" to give them something to scratch for. They're easily amused.

The chickens have room to roost on the bar. The slanted box on the left gives chickens a private place to hatch eggs. The silver can is a heated $40 water can, that Doug thinks can be replaced by pans of fresh water.

Hatching an egg is kind of like human love-making. Well-socialized chickens don't like to do it in public. They seek a safe, dark, covered nook to deposit their eggs.

AHA! The chickens have been fooled into thinking they had a safe, quiet, remote place to lay eggs. Bonnie built a waist-high hinged door to their love nest so she could easily rob the hen-house! THANKS for the tour, Bonnie.

Brilliant. My chicken coop will be convenient for humans to get the eggs and clean because I want this to be as easy as possible.

There are two upcoming chicken advenTOURs. During the information-gathering period, Bob and I are building a mental layout of our coop.

Live and let live

2009-02-25T09:22:00.004-05:00

My friend Doug, the bike commuter, has a marvelous play yard for his chickens.

"They don't need heat, just protection from drafts," said Donna, Doug's wife.

They're laissez faire chicken owners -- an approach worth mimicking.

They disdain the fancy heated water container to prevent water from freezing in winter. It's sitting abandoned in his chicken yard.

"It got clogged and didn't work. So I just bring out a pan of fresh water in the morning when I feed them," Doug said.

Cool. Doug just saved me $40 on the fancy heated water basin. I like his kind of chicken farming. Basic. Doug used recycled construction materials for the chicken housing. The chickens didn't complain.

I can do this!

New paradigm for the chicken adventURE

2009-02-24T15:16:00.008-05:00

I've been finding people who have chickens and visiting their domiciles to develop a frame of reference about chickens. Seeing where they're housed helps us plan to build our chicken coop.

The rooster at right "rules the roost." We met him during a chicken tour at Doug's house. Doug shares my passion to bike to work.

The rooster is proving his dominance by stomping on the chicken at right. I've read that the main purpose to have a rooster is for entertainment. Because I don't need them to fertilize the eggs, they're superfluous.

Bob asked, "How do roosters fertilize eggs so eggs grow into chickens?" I don't know. This shows the shallowness of my chicken-raising knowledge. I don't need to know now, but what if my survival depended on it?

DOES ANYONE KNOW THE ANSWER to how roosters fertilize eggs?

My friends Bernadett and Denali are coming with me on the chicken adventURE. We decided to get Rhode Island Reds because they were the ONE "highly recommended"breed among the 44 Jeremy Hobson and Celia Lewis described in their book "Keeping Chickens."

The adoption date is April 16, after Denali gets back from a road trip. It gives Bernadett and me time to build a chicken coop. We have to order them. They will NOT be given antibiotics, but we do want them vaccinated. All of these decisions.

Denali said the breed is not too friendly. "We don't want to get attached to them as pets before we kill them."

It is like having a baby or getting a dog. All of the sudden we notice chicken coops and chicken owners so we can talk chicken with them.

We have determined that chickens are considered pets by town government, so we won't be breaking any laws by setting up our chicken operations.

The anticipation of the chicken advent is building. There are so many unknowns, which is why it's a great adventure. Bernadett reports, "I stayed up for three hours last night thinking and planning for my chickens."

Bob and I figured out where to build the chicken coop -- at the end of an existing out-building, downwind from the house. When the snow melts, we'll start construction. Bob thought the recommended 4 square per "heavy" bird was excessive. We'll see. The chicks will start out in a box in the workshop, where it's warm.

Doug gave us an old plastic watering and feeding device for the chicks. Our first shower gift.

Hee Haw Culture

2009-02-23T07:57:00.010-05:00

I’m a late baby-boomer, born in 1958. I grew up at the zenith of abandoning cities and plundering cheap farmland to build suburban tract homes and office parks.

My parents and grandparents were educated city dwellers – engineers, physicians, chemists and social workers.

There is no farm blood in my immediate lineage. It’s inevitable that I have farming ancestors because I can trace one branch of the family back to the Mayflower. Maybe I’m related to Dick Cheney, too, like Obama.

I never visited Grandma and Grandpa on a farm. By the time I came along mid-century, the USA was fully consumed with consumer culture. Americans abandoned farm life to fairy tales and CAFOs – Commercial Agricultural Feeding Operations, and industrialized farming using big machines, nitrogen fertilizer and migrant workers.

Children of farmers knew how much work it was to farm, and they headed to college and the cities. Their parents couldn’t afford it.

As the ultimate insult to insure the demise of the family farm, our culture relegated farmers as backwards hayseeds, memorializing them in the TV show “Hee Haw.”

So when my third child, Ian, announced, “I want to be an organic farmer,” the image came to mind of a slightly plump balding white guy in overalls speaking slowly in a southern draw -- Hee Haw.

I didn’t want my son to be Hee Haw. It contradicted my value system and lifelong socialization to be a consumer.

Simultaneously, the “localvore” movement took off. I read Michael Pollen’s “Omnivore’s Dilemma” and Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable Miracle," and “Plenty,” by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon, their one-year challenge to eat foods produced within 100 miles of their home. It was rough because there was no flour source nearby.

After a century-long exodus away from farm life, we're returning there again, like refugees. It's almost like going to a foreign country because it's so unfamiliar, but we're heading back to our agrarian roots.

This time, the code words are different – organic, local, sustainable, free range, community supported agriculture [CSA].

All my life’s a circle. To hell with the century of so-called progress. And it turns out my farmer son is doing what he loves to do -- surf -- and ride on the crest of the wave of organic and locally grown food.

It's about as far away from, and as close as he can get to Hee-Haw.

Raising chickens will give me hope

2009-02-20T08:47:00.004-05:00

I've just read "The Unthinkable: Who Survives Disaster and Why" by Amanda Ripley. She writes about why people survive disasters -- and why they don't. 70 percent of people in the Trade Centers took their time to make a few calls and gather things from their desks before evacuating?

The book is fascinating and frightening. It shows we humans are more prone to care about what our peers think than taking action.

At the swank Beverly Hills Supper Club outside of Cincinnati on May 28, 1977, an electrical fire broke out. Of the 3,000 people gathered there tfor special events, 167 died, most in the Cabaret Room. Employees had to scream at people in the dark of other rooms: "Get the hell out!" get them to take action.

Walter Bailey, an 18-year-old busboy saved hundreds of lives because he didn't care what other people thought He told his supervisor, "There's a fire in the Zebra Room." The supervisor did nothing. Walter was going to find the club's owners, and found 70 people waiting to enter Walter led them to safety. He told his supervisor again, "We need to clear the room." The supervisor ignored him.

Thinking, "I'm going to lose my job," Walter went to the stage, took the microphone from the performers, and calmly pointed out the exits and announced, "I want everyone to leave the room calmly. There's a fire at the front of the building."

His action saved hundreds of lives. He violated social protocol and hierarchy because he saw danger and took action that he had no status to take.

Our society is headed towards danger, and we're like the patrons of the Beverly Hills Supper Club. We're too busy worrying about our 401Ks, what we're doing this weekend, and going to the mall than to worry about planning for life after peak oil.

The busboys -- climate scientists -- are yelling, "WAKE UP!" but we ignore them because it's too overwhemling. How would we get around without our personal polluters?

My chicken adventURE is giving me hope that I might be able to survive post-peak oil.

I can't do it alone. We all must go on a 12-step program to give up our energy addiction and re-design how we do business, build buildings, get around, grow and transport food, and create local community.

Like a chicken with its head cut off

2009-02-19T09:19:00.007-05:00

“The worse part of killing chickens is the reflex reaction that causes them to flap and twitch a few minutes until after they’re dead,” writes Gail Damerow in my new bible, “A Guide to Raising Chickens.”

This thought has sustained me, “I’m raising eggs, not chickens. I will not be butchering chickens.”

I'm changing my approach. For the best investment, it’s practical to slaughter layers after 8-9 months. Because I'm planning a small backyard operation, I may learn to kill chickens to eat them.

The easiest way is to break its neck.

With Reliable Bob at my side and some coaching, I birthed four big babies, without anesthesia.

With Reliable Bob at my side and some coaching, I can raise and kill chickens. Raising children didn't end with killing them, although I came close.

Gail reviews killing methods with little emotion: hand, ax, knife, gun. The goal is to keep the meat tender by protecting chickens from stress and fear, by using proper technique.

There’s an intriguing art to killing chickens. I anticipate a satisfaction of raising a tender bird, butchering, cooking and eating it.That's self-sufficiency.

Our affluent society is so far removed from the realities of hunger from bad weather, crop failure, and animal illness, we have the luxury of disdaining the act of killing to eat.

The 12-year-old son of a friend, call him Jim, has been pining to raise chickens. His mother suggested he warm up to it by being a farm hand to my small flock -- when it arrives.

We interrupted his playtime to chat about it. He cradled a plastic gun during our conversation.

“Yeah, my mom said I could have chickens. This is cool,” Jim said, holding the gun casually, like a banana.

“You can keep one or two of your own chickens with my flock,” I offered.

“Sure, okay,” Jim said.

“Jim, will you be able to help kill them?” I asked, as he walked up the stairs, with his plastic gun.

“Oh, no! I could never do that. I can raise them, but I can’t kill them,” Jim said, pointing his gun upstairs.

Hmmm. How ironic. Jim will play with his plastic gun for hours and “kill” his friend over and over, but kill for a meal?

“Do you eat meat, Jim?”

“Yes.”

“Then someone else is doing your killing for you.”

No reply.

Gail Damerow prefers to kill the chickens with the bullet of a .22 gun “because it’s fast and clean.”

Like a mother hen

2009-02-17T08:44:00.009-05:00

Our descendants are going to ask, "What were you thinking, why didn't you act?" according to a talking head on Leonardo DiCaprio's movie "11th Hour" about climate change and impending environmental catastrophe. The trailer will give you a taste of the movie.

The trouble is that our society is built around cars, planes and things that go. It's overwhelming to start changing, and we must start to change, even and create a tipping point and make energy conservation COOL.

I've read that people will change their behavior for the sake of their children. This gives me some hope. Especially because mothers feel so protective about our little chicks. We will do anything to insure their survival.

Which brings me back to my chicken adventURE and self-education. My chicken guru, Gail Damerow , writes: “The loving keeper may coax out more eggs; the neglectful keeper will get fewer."

More love, more eggs. Just like motherhood. Givers gain.

I can calm the mounting overwhelm when I remember providing 24-hour care to four infants and successfully raising them to adulthood is harder than my chicken adventURE.

"Think about all of the diseases our children could get and didn't," my friend Denali reminded me. Chickens have a LONG list of potential maladies -- physical, dietary, predatory, social and psychological. They can easily get stressed out.

Keen observation [like I used to do for my babies] insures optimum chicken health, Gail writes. “You’ll readily spot problems in the making if you become fully familiar with these characteristics,” Gail writes. She really knows these birds.

Appearance – “Healthy chickens look perky and alert.”

Activities – “Healthy chickens peck, scratch, dust, preen or meander almost constantly.”

Sounds – “Well chickens ‘talk’ and ‘sing’ throughout the day.”

A loving caregiver observes the scent, weight, food consumption and excrement of their flock.

Attentive mothers do all that. And the stakes are lower. Much lower.

If my chickens die because of my incompetence, I will not go to prison for chicken endangerment. The only law I have to abide by is not being cruel. I can manage that.

[PHOTO: My friend Denali is hanging out her laundry on a circular moving clotheslines. The clothespins are in the lovely shoulder bag, recycled from a thrift store, of course.]

Excited and scared

2009-02-16T10:38:00.003-05:00

En route from Massachusetts to Delaware – the Blue Hen State – and where I grew up, I read aloud to hubby, Gail Damerow’s excellent book, “A guide to raising chickens.” I got it from the library. Note to self: Buy a copy on http://www.half.com/, an excellent source for used books.

Gail covers everything – feed, housing, disease, bird personality, economics, record keeping, egg production, butchering, molting. I’m learning a new vocabulary.

Pullet -- female less than 1 year old
hackles – cape feathers [don’t get them up!]
Clutch or a setting -- a batch of eggs hatched together; and all the eggs laid by a hen before she starts a new laying cycle
Brood – a hen that covers eggs to warm and hatch them. Some hens lack this maternal instinct.

Too much reading and I feel overwhelmed by my lack of knowledge.

I grew up in a city. Our backyard had a basketball hoop, volleyball net, swing set and playhouse. We grew a few tomatoes for diversion, not sustenance. The grape arbor attracted bees and looked cool. A crab apple tree came down to make room for the basketball hoop.

Food came from the A & P and occasional farm stand in summer. Once a year, we picked apples at an orchard about a half-hour away in the country. We had no pets. Nine children occupied all of my parents resources.

The one thing we had in our backyard that chickens like was DUST where our constant activity had worn down the grass. The only place I have ever seen baby chicks hatch was at the Museum of Science in Boston, with my children. That's ironic. Chickens in a museum. That's how far removed we are from our agrarian roots.

I'm immigrating to a foreign country where I have to learn the language, eating habits and culture of something for which I have zero references or knowledge, other than quiche, scrambled eggs and meringue.

Some of the sayings are familiar and I’m finding out their literal meanings – pecking order, don’t get your hackles up, nesting, run around like a chicken with your head cut off, chicken out, chicken feed.

In the advent preparing for my new birds, it’s like a pregnancy or the time before Christmas.

I’m getting ready psychologically, educating myself, and will be altering my house for the new critters. I’m also thinking, “I’m crazy! I don’t need another hobby.”

But it feels right. Merry Chicken Advent.

Gross things escaping

2009-02-12T09:29:00.015-05:00

When my son's girlfriend Jackie is not studying for her PH.D in physics, she worries about composting.

She wrote. "Do you have any suggestions for a compost bin? I think I have to use worms since I do not have a yard and no grass clippings and I do not want those gross things to escape."

"Gross worms" are near the top of the "essential to gardening" list, just below bees. Worms eat their body weight daily in compost and dirt.

Casey, also 20-something, is interested in composting in her city apartment. Santa delivered her a composting machine -- about the size of a hard drive. She blogged about it.

"Mom, it wakes me up in the middle of the night," Casey said. "It goes off about every four hours."

Casey and Jackie touch on a bigger topic: how do we create a system for composting?

In the back of Casey's 1925-era apartment building is a round 3-gallon bin, buried so only the metal flip-top lid shows, intended for city dwellers to deposit their kitchen scraps. Once upon a time, a pig farmer would collect the food waste and recycle them to pigs. It's a way of life that might be sprouting out of the compost pile with peak oil hovering.

Both women live alone in a bigger community and don't generate a huge amount of compost.
How about thinking bigger -- and connecting to the community?

What if Jackie asked her condo association in Ann Arbor, Michigan to consider creating a compost pile -- that can be as simple as a hole in the ground on the edge of the property. Grass clippings treated with traditional lawn fertilizer is not welcome if the compost is intended for a garden. The condo association could buy and take care of a worm composter.

What if we all had a system to recycle fruit and vegetable waste [NO ANIMAL PRODUCTS ] back into the soil without much help from us or the worms. The photo above is my very low maintenance compost pile. Collect it in the kitchen, carry it 50 steps to the yard, throw it on and forget it. We barely stir it and the worms arrive naturally.

What if Casey inquired about neighborhood community gardens to donate her compost?

Both initiatives require connecting to community, an essential ingredient to survival in the new millennium. Reading about predictions about Peak Oil and the demise of society is enough to scare me into meeting my neighbors and becoming a chicken keeper.

I like that both Jackie and Casey CARE about composting, have changed their thinking about waste, and are taking action. That's progress.

The new thinking and action must become contagious and communal. Buy a worm composter for the condo complex and connect to a community garden, which connects us to the earth and each other. That's a concept worth recycling.

One small step to dry my undies, one giant leap for the planet

2009-02-10T09:18:00.006-05:00

The drying rack is in. At right, I'm tightening the clamps at the end of the super-strong stainless steel cable -- which is about 10 times stronger than necessary, but it was on hand and using it kept it out of the solid waste stream. There is no away in thrown away.

I used it to dry some towels from washing the dog. FANTASTIC! It's silly to be excited about something so simple, however, it will make the mundane task of drying laundry more convenient. It's not a huge energy saver, but it's the point that I'm setting up a system to use less energy.

I read more about chickens and their social instincts. Chickens invented "pecking order" and they implement it. I must have more than three chickens, otherwise they are like humans and gang up -- two-on-one.

According to Jeremy Hobson, "The pecking order starts with the 'top bird' and extends down to the youngest and weakest, which survive as best they can. The top bird is usually an old hen, although sometimes it is the most aggressive bird."

The chickens will provide a source of food, work AND amusement. Laughter contributes to a long life, so that will be a bonus.

It's nesting time! These birds must have a place to live. My brother Stephen, an inveterate cheapskate and fan of Craig's List, suggested I start looking there for a free or reduced price coop. If we can't find the right hen house or one to modify, we'll have to build our own.

In addition to the chicken books, I'm reading "Peak Everything" by Richard Heinberg. He starts off with the obligatory graphs showing rise of population and global temperature, and the fall of oil production and civilization. It's tough going.

The Boston Globe published a story Feb. 9 -- "Climate Change Takes a Mental Toll."

"Last year, an anxious, depressed 17-year-old boy was admitted to the psychiatric unit at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne [Australia]. He was refusing to drink water. Worried about drought related to climate change, the young man was convinced that if he drank, millions of people would die. The Australian doctors wrote the case up as the first known instance of "climate change delusion."

"Robert Salo, the psychiatrist who runs the inpatient unit where the boy was treated, has now seen several more patients with psychosis or anxiety disorders focused on climate change, as well as children who are having nightmares about global-warming-related natural disasters."

I can relate. My defense against depression and hopelessness is to:

Build a drying rack
Prepare to adopt chickens
Bike/walk/carpool/take public transit
Eat less meat
THINK differently about how I use energy
Take action with others to change thinking to change behavior on energy consumption

Which is why I like The "Transitional Town Handbook" by Rob Hopkins. He optimistically lays the case [with required catastrophic graphs] AND provides a road map for how to transition from a culture dependent on cheap oil, to a post-peak society.

We have to start NOW to smoothly transition to a local economy, sustainable energy sources and a following a new [old] way of life in villages.

Chicken advent[ure] 2 -- rolling coop plans?

2009-02-06T10:42:00.006-05:00

Son Ian, an organic farmer and surfer, emails from his winter home in the Bahamas, "I'm going to be building a rolling chicken coop when I get back to the farm [That's him working a concession during the Tomato Fest at Red Fire, Farm in Grandby, MA]. And I'll probably be helping to take care of them Patrick, the chicken guy, says his chickens are particular about their feed, and he drives to Sudbury to get it."
That's 73 miles! My chickens will have to eat the same way my four children did: from what's put in front of them, or scrounge for something better!

I started reading "Keeping Chickens" by Jeremy Hobson and Celia Lewis. Some of the breeds are astoundingly beautiful. There's a sub-culture of chicken enthusiasts. I'm not in their class. My goal is simple: to raise chickens to eat their eggs and have a modicum of self-reliance. MAYBE I'll learn to butcher them, especially if they taste good.

Jeremy's book is giving me confidence I can do it. "Keeping chickens is an excellent hobby for children, teaching them responsibility through feeding and general care."

If a child can do it, I can do it. I've been a 4-H leader. The only animals we focused on were dogs. DRAT. Another missed opportunity. I wonder if I'm too old to join a 4-H group?
This weekend, I'm going to install the drying rack and talk to hubby about us building a chicken coop. Does anyone have any plans for a modest chicken coop on wheels? My plan is to wheel it around the lawn so they can feed, fertilize the lawn and peck the pests from the lawn.

Building a drying rack

2009-02-05T09:13:00.004-05:00

To cut down on dryer use, I'm building a drying rack for my little utility room that also holds the central heater, so it's super dry and hot in there. It's right next to my washer/dryer on the first floor. I have a wood floor rack, but need more room.

We live in a renovated lakeside cottage without a basement-- which would provide more indoor drying room, c'est la vie. I love the coarse feeling of an air-dried towel.

That's hubby at left, clamping the stainless steel wire at the ends to create the indoor drying line. I would've used 15-gauge wire, but he had some heavy-duty stainless cable on hand -- which will be strong enough to hang an elephant to dry.

Next step is to mount it on the wall. Stay tuned.

Mr. Electricity says I'll save $141 a year by using the drying rack.

That feels low. I guess it's the principle that counts.

Energy Hogs

4400 watts Clothes dryer (electric)
4400 watts Electric oven
3800 watts Water heater (electric)
3500 watts Central Air Conditioner (2.5 tons)
1500 watts Microwave oven
1500 watts Toaster (four-slot)
900 watts Coffee maker
800 watts Range burner
500-1440 watts Window unit air conditioner

200-700 watts Refrigerator [surprisingly low]
60-100 watts Light bulb

Real chickens

2009-02-04T15:08:00.000-05:00

My new friend Ruth said she'd be the godmother to my chickens.
She knows a lot and has goats and a horse. They look docile.
These chickens are in her mini-barn. The eggs laid by them are fresh and delicious.

Light a candle for my chicken advent

2009-02-04T12:45:00.001-05:00

"Chickens are much easier to take care of than dogs or children," said the chicken guru at the Groton Local meeting. I presume he had brought the delicious deviled eggs to the potluck dinner.

The baby chicks will arrive in about a month. I'm literally nesting. I need to get some books on how to raise them, build a hen house and gather a support network.

I wonder if I need a chicken shower so I can be given all of the accouterments of raising chickens.

It's very exciting to anticipate the animals joining our house. At the least, we'll have delicious fresh eggs to eat and share. Already, it's interesting conversation at gatherings to announce, "I'm adopting chickens in March."

"You'll have to watch out for predators," came one warning.

I will become intimately acquainted with foxes, racoons, fisher cats and other hungry beasts in my pond-side location. It might be interesting to see what and who the chickens attract.

I wonder how my dog Gonzo -- black Labrador-mix -- will react. As a girl, my neighbor Michael Sedgewick got a baby chick for Easter. A dog that visited chased the chicken all over the city backyard until the chicken lost the battle of the survival of the fittest.

Maybe Gonzo will protect the chickens from predators. Right now, Gonzo is trained to come to the kitchen every time she hears me crack an egg. She hopes she'll get an egg yolk.

If I reward her with an egg yolk for protecting the chickens, that could be a motivator. We all have our ulterior motives.

BTW-- I mean Chicken Advent, not Chicken AdventURE. Advent is the time before, the anticipation, the building up before a city slicker adopts chickens.