eggs. High in phosphorus and potassium, but especially in nitrogen—the critical elements for healthy, fertile garden soil—chicken waste is one of the most perfect manures of the animal kingdom. It is easy to harvest from the coop for use in composting, and your flock will naturally spread it on the land as they range freely or forage in movable coops.
Chickens will also happily aerate your compost pile through their pecking and scratching. Just make sure they have access to it and that there are no dangerous chemicals or garden waste that have been treated with pesticides, fungicides, or synthetic fertilizers in it. Not only are these dangerous for your birds, but these toxins could also pass through their bodies, into their eggs, and into your breakfast.
Chickens make quick work of clearing weeds and grasses if you need bare soil for a garden space or other project. Just fence your birds in that spot for a week or more, and they’ll happily demolish any greens, leaving behind aerated, fertilized, and gently tilled topsoil ready for planting.
Your Insurance Policy
Keeping your own flock of laying hens means you have your very own sustainable and reliable source of food, no matter what may be happening in the larger food or transportation industries. Our food travels far and wide to get to us; any disruption to the trucking industry can mean no food on marketplace shelves. Droughts, cold winters, or heat waves can mean food shortages or skyrocketing prices, too. Despite product recalls or salmonella outbreaks, for example, you know you can rely on a safe source of food for your family, direct from your own backyard. With a substantial flock of laying hens, you may even have a source of income from selling eggs to friends and neighbors.
The Low-Maintenance Pal
We all have one. Someone we’re so comfortable being around that we can really be ourselves—no pretenses, no judgments. The chicken is that kind of friend.
Sure, she may be flighty and unpredictable at times, but mostly she’s funny, chatty, quirky, and endlessly entertaining. One of my favorite ways to spend a lazy summer evening is in the backyard, cool drink in hand, watching my flock peck around the yard, perch on my lawn chair arms, investigate my flip-flopped toes, or coo when they find something tasty in the grass. Each bird has a distinct character, and it shows. Each has a distinct personality, status in the group’s pecking order, food preferences, roosting space, favorite dust-bathing spot or nesting box, and so much more.
If you don’t care for long walks, litter boxes, or dog parks, you’ve found the perfect pet. An entire flock of hens is easier to care for than a single housecat, and they’re far less temperamental. With certain methods and styles of housing, coop maintenance can be a breeze. Daily watering and feeding are quick and easy, and when left to forage most of the day, a flock can easily find much of its food on its own. Once you make the initial investment, a flock’s upkeep is inexpensive and doesn’t take much time at all. By taking preventive measures and paying attention to cleanliness, chickens will rarely fall ill and can remain spunky, healthy, animal friends for up to ten years or more.
This Black Australorp forages in a compost pile. When properly composted, chicken droppings make a great addition to your garden.
The Educator
The chicken reminds us that our food is a living thing. The animal that produced that egg, meat, or dairy product was a living creature. The plant that grew the produce on your plate lived in soil and swelled under the sun (unless it was grown hydroponically or in a greenhouse). These food products came from living things that were grown, raised, harvested, and cared for by other living things—people, farmers.
This may seem obvious, but too many of us have lost touch with the origins of our food. In our busy day-to-day lives, it is easy to disconnect from these basics. The chicken can remind those of us who have forgotten and teach those of us who are just learning.
The chicken is the mascot for the back-to-the-land movement for good reason. She teaches us that food is precious and should not be mass-produced. Mass-produced food and food products lack nutrients, integrity, and heart and soul. Recent recalls of factory-farmed eggs have shed light on an industry stealthily growing ominously right under our collective noses. The evidence is contained in the white foam cartons stacked beneath fluorescent lights on the grocery store shelves. The hens that laid those eggs were crammed six or seven to a cage the size of a standard sheet of paper, their beaks trimmed to keep them from cannibalizing their compatriots in the cramped quarters where they pass their lives. Once “spent,” they are trucked off to become broth or soup for another industry that considers this living being a “product.”
Chicken Chatter
Sayings from folklore have been passed from one generation to the next for thousands of years. Many have a certain rhythm and are most often rooted in explanations of things happening in the natural world. Despite centuries of change, many of these, like the familiar chicken sayings below, remain in the modern lexicon.
As scarce as hen’s teeth: to be difficult or impossible to find; a rarity.
Mother hen: a matronly mother figure.
Nest egg: to save a bit of money over time.
Chicken scratch: a small amount of money.
Henpecked: to be picked on or nagged.
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket: a warning against investing all prospects or resources into one venture at the risk of losing everything.
To be chicken: to be afraid or cowardly.
Walking on eggshells: the need to be careful or tread lightly around the feelings of another.
Something to crow about: to have exciting news to share.
Have egg on your face: to be caught in a lie; to be guilty of a shameful act.
Fly the coop: to have left home; to be gone.
Like a chicken with its head cut off: to have no direction; to flail, literally or figuratively.
Made from scratch: handmade; to create something using raw materials.
Empty nest syndrome: a feeling of sadness, loneliness, or melancholy after grown children leave home.
To brood over: to worry or fret over a problem or situation.
No spring chicken: an old, tired person.
Shake a tail feather: to get a move on; hurry up.
To ruffle a few feathers: to annoy some people when making changes or improvements.
Birds of a feather flock together: those with similar personalities or attributes befriend and spend time with one another.
Not all it’s cracked up to be: when a person, thing, or event does not live up to expectations, reputation, or popular hype; a disappointment.
As if that weren’t reason enough to bring your dollar closer to home, those eggs are not what they could be. Without variation in their diet, eggs from factory-farmed hens plummet in heart-healthy omega fatty acids and soar in “bad” cholesterol. And because these eggs have to travel far and wide to get to thousands of supermarkets across the country, they are often several weeks to a month old by the time they reach your shopping cart.
Keeping
