Originally published by Howling Hill
Last month WNDiN asked our readers what you’d like to see more posts on. One of the requests was for more information on chickens. I’m going to address this topic from my limited knowledge base.
First off, let me remind everyone that although Howling Hill is in a rural area of New Hampshire, we own but an acre of land. The majority of the acre is on the side of a hill so it’s unbuildable. Thus, we have limited space here. Howling Hill is surrounded by trees, predominately pine, and is heavily wooded so lots of wildlife live amongst us though mostly unseen. What I do see is tracks in the mud and snow. If it’s dry out there usually isn’t any evidence of animal life unless I see with my eyes. Generally mammals steer clear of the open space of my yard no matter how small that open space is. For example, in the four years I’ve lived here I’ve seen exactly one deer, one bear, and one fox. I have never seen a moose in the yard though I did see moose tracks in the driveway about a week after we moved here.
Despite really, really wanting chickens I was afraid they’d be a ton of work. Chickens are not. What I found is they are largely self-sufficient. I would let them out of their house in the morning and they’d put themselves to bed at dusk so all I had to do was close the coop door. Wolf built a chicken coop for the four chickens we had. We found the coop was bigger than what the four need so easily another four can be housed in the same coop. The wood Wolf used was from his work but I’ll let you read his words regarding the materials.
We got chicken feed and scratch at the feed store in Bristol though it wasn’t a lot of money. I think maybe $50. The feed went into a plastic bucket in the house and the scratch in a metal trash barrel outside. The bear tried the scratch but s/he must not have liked it because it’s still there.
The chickens we got were a cross between New Hampshire Red, Rhode Island Red, and Cinnamon but don’t quote me on that. Basically we got birds which were good meat birds and layers. All laid brown eggs. The reason we chose this breed is because they do well in the cold New Hampshire winter. It doesn’t seem to matter though, we culled them before the fall even set in. But I’ll get to that in a minute. My point is this: choose a bird for your needs. If you’re vegetarian and don’t plan to eat your birds get ones which are better at laying than at providing meat. If you want dual-purpose birds but don’t want to have them over the winter then get a chicken which will fatten quickly and lay good eggs.
Chickens need a red comb and waddle before they can produce eggs. Think of it like this: A girl won’t get her period until her pubic hair and underarm hair comes in. Same with the chickens. They won’t lay until their combs and waddles get big and red. Bright, bright red. You’ll know when they’re getting ready to lay because they will stamp their feet then squat which opens up their egg canal (vagina?). This is their way of inviting the rooster to service them. I found the Chicken Ladies doing this all the time, especially when I first let them out of the coop in the morning, so I put my hands on their back end and pushed down a little bit while simultaneously shaking their butts. I was firm but gentle when I did this and I found each of them would come to me looking for a little lovin’. They also looked to Wolf for this and he would service them also.
Our chickens mostly laid in the morning. Wolf picked up a couple fake eggs to put in the box to trigger their instincts and it totally worked. We found one chicken, Buffalo, picked up right away what she should do. The others learned from her I think. They do let out a squawk when they lay but it’s not super loud so you might miss it. I did more often than I heard it. I didn’t let the chickens out of the coop until after the laying was done or 12 noon came, which ever came first. Wolf made a door for me to open which was the back end of their laying boxes so I could see if their were eggs or if they were sitting. I found if I interrupted the Ladies they would go on strike and not lay in the box and lay somewhere else. Most of the time I didn’t find the eggs though sometimes I did.
The biggest problem we had was Ms. Mouthy Foxy-Fox. She ended up getting two of the four so we took the remaining two up to the Gitches who held onto them for a couple weeks then Wolf slaughtered them. We learned there is just no way we can free range chickens in this yard unless we get about 50 chickens, a couple — or at least one — roosters, and a dog or two who won’t eat the fowl but will chase off the fox. Having four was just too enticing for Ms. Mouthy Foxy-Fox. There is just too much woods around Howling Hill so flushing the fox out isn’t going to happen. Wolf’s solution is to shoot the fox but I see that as short term solution to a long term problem. After all, shooting the fox will kill the one in the yard currently but another will move into its territory once it realizes the first one is dead. My solution is to fence in a part of the yard, including the compost bins, burying the six foot fence a foot or two so the fox is prevented from climbing under it. The reality is there isn’t much you can do about the predators. The only answers I’ve come up with is “safety in numbers” and “get a fence.”
The only other problem we had, and it wasn’t a problem so much as it was a confusion, was the Chicken Ladies would take off running down the hill for my neighbors yard. Everything I read about chickens says our feathered friends stick close to home but ours were an anomaly I guess. I did train them to come to the sound of my voice. I called out “Ladies!” in a sing-song way as I banged my hand on the lid to the can of scratch. After a minute or two they would come running to get some of the scratch. I think this is why Ms. Mouthy Foxy-Fox was able to get them so easily. I called them multiple times a day and they always came running. I couldn’t think of a way to keep them closer to their house without locking them into their house. This is another reason I want to fence in part of the yard next year.
Chickens are not loud but roosters are. If you’re in the city or suburbia don’t worry about the noise. They do squawk when they lay and when danger is around but it’s not an overbearing noise like dogs who constantly bark.
Regarding house pets I was really worried Francesca (above) and Harley — our cats — would stalk and chase the Chicken Ladies but that fear was put to rest almost immediately. Both cats wandered up to the chickens in attempts to sniff and all the chickens raised their wings, squawked, and charged the cats. After that Francesca and Harley gave the chickens a wide birth. Our dog had already died so I don’t know how he would’ve reacted. I think the best advice I can give you is to “claim” the chickens as your own and to desensitize your dog. I know the Dog Whisperer has addressed dogs and chickens on one of his episodes so I can only assume he’s addressed prey drive in his books. Honestly I don’t feel I can answer questions on dogs and chickens so please don’t hold it against me! (I know you won’t =)
The chickens were happiest when there was pile of leaves to tear apart. I had this one pile I kept raking back up and every morning the four rushed out of their house, got serviced by me, then over to the leaf pile and happily ripped it apart looking for bugs. They also ate the mice and chipmunks my cats caught but didn’t eat. If I was in the garden the chickens hovered around the fence because I threw grubs out the them often. 2008 wasn’t a bad year for ticks and I’m not sure if that’s because I had the chickens or if just wasn’t a bad year. I’m hoping the former and not the latter. One thing which surprised Wolf and I was how they didn’t eat the ants. This really bummed us out because we hoped they would be a good form of ant-control. However they were completely uninterested.
That’s about all I can think of to tell you. To sum up let me say this: chickens are easy. Don’t be afraid. Go get some immediately if not sooner. And once you eat fresh eggs there is no way, NO WAY, you can go back to store bought. Ewww.
I have a dumb question for you. I’m getting some chicks this weekend and I’m thinking ahead to fresh eggs (yum!). I’m wondering is it safe for my kids to eat their eggs sunnyside up? My mom says no because they won’t be pastuerized. But I’m not sure??
Last year we started thinking about getting chickens. I did a lot of research online and read many articles. We decided that this spring we would get some chicks. Appartenly many people in our area is also interested in getting chickens because I had been trying to get this book from the library called Living with Chickens Everything You Need to Know to Raise Your Own Backyard Flock for the past couple of months. Finally I got it the other day and have found that many things I had already read online but then some of it was new information. As soon as I’m finished with it hubby is going to read it. This post has been very helpful your land sounds like ours. The way you discribed it you discribed what I look at everyday. Thanks for sharing your first hand knowledge! Take Care
So interesting, especially for one like me who has never experienced anything like this. My small-farm CSA provides eggs as part of the shares, but as I don’t eat eggs, I’ve been giving them away to a friend. She too has said that fresh eggs just can’t compare to the conventional mass types in stores.
Trish: to my knowledge eggs aren’t pasteurized to begin with. Pasteurizing, I believe, is heating up the product before it’s sold to the consumer in attempts to kill off bacteria. If the eggs were heated up then you’d be buying cooked eggs.
Anyone offer a second opinion?
Vickie: thanks!
Mangochild: We’ve been buying store bought for the last month. Not only has the grocery bill gone up but the quality of the egg has gone down.
Egg production reduces significantly during the cold months. Mostly it’s the lack of light not the cold so much (though you have to get the eggs before they freeze) so the Gitches’ chickens aren’t feeding us. Wolf and I are reluctant to keep chickens during the winter though it’s something we’ll look into for next year.
Fresh eggs vs store bought. I wrote and article a few years ago on eggs. There is a lot of false information out there about diseases and eggs. You are less likely to get sick off your own eggs than you are from eating in a restaurant. I eat my eggs sunnyside up, love it!
HH is correct, you can’t pasteurize an egg. She might be thinking sterilizing, which that process is nothing but washing the egg and coating it in oil. When you gather your own eggs, don’t wash them, you can brush off the yucky stuff, but do not get them wet unless you are going to use them right then and there.
Here is the link to the article I wrote on this subject; Everything about eggs.
Thanks everyone! I thought pasteurizing would cook them, but you know, it’s my mom and all
Off to pick up my chicks 
Trish, you can buy pastuerized shell eggs in some stores, and maybe that is what your mom is thinking of. She might be assuming that all eggs should be pastuerized, but it isn’t necessary at all in a home setting.
Washing the eggs removes the “bloom” which is a natural protection on the egg. You can dry-rag remove feces and dirt, but, as Phelan mentioned, don’t wash them because without this protection the eggs are more vulnerable to bacterial invasion. It’s important to keep your hens quarters clean (especially the nest boxes) to keep the amount of dirt off of the eggs (and collect them regularly-this is our bad habit and the longer we wait to collect, the dirtier the eggs).
I think is was Mother Earth News that had some research on the nutritional quality of store bought (i.e. cage raised hens’) eggs vs. small scale, free range. The latter had more nutrition, including Omega 3′s, than the former due to a more complete diet by the hens. Personally, I wouldn’t be afraid to eat semi-cooked (or even raw) eggs from my chickens. However, all eggs can have/grow bacteria, including those subjected to partuerization (over time).
Eggs can be pasteurized in shell. They are heated (I think it’s a hot-water bath sort of thing) very briefly, but just long enough to kill the salmonella. It is not long enough to cook the egg.
Estimates are that 1 in 10,000 eggs is contaminated with salmonella. I don’t know if that rate is the same for home-grown eggs. (I’ve heard someone say that eggs have a lesser incidence of salmonella if the chickens are not fed the ground up chicken feathers that are in some feeds.) The problem with salmonella in eggs is that it can be inside a perfectly intact egg. The salmonella infects the ovary of the chicken and can infect the egg before the shell is formed. Since the risk of an egg having salmonella is so small, lots of people get by with consuming undercooked egg products, but even though the risk is small, the stakes are high. Who would want to be responsible for someone getting salmonella? I have licked many a cake batter bowl in my time, but no longer. Also be alert for cross contamination – in other words having raw eggs on your hands after you’ve cracked them and then taking the toast out of the toaster with that same hand, for example.
It’s your choice, but I would advise you to research it some before you make a decision about feeding sunny side up eggs to your kids.
If you’re not sure about sunnyside up, just cook the whole egg. But that’s no reason to switch to pasteurized, at least in my opinion.
I’m not sure where I heard this, but it did stick with me…there is a difference between sterile and clean. In my generation, we were taught the conventional knowledge of “progress” that by killing all germs, i.e. bacteria DEAD, we’re healthier. I’ve had to undo that deeply-rooted assumption in the past couple years as I’ve relearned about real foods and eating foods that can remember where they came from. Cleanliness is a must, but sterility is not a plus for health…it kills the beneficial bacteria and enzymes that help our bodies defend themselves from the pathogens. It is not a fair leap to assume that if animals are cleanly raised and their products are consumed in traditional manners as they have been for at least the last 3 or so thousand years that they are suspect unless they are sterilized. In fact, in a lot of cases, I think over-sterilization practices are quite unhealthy…just my opinion, of course…we actually culture some of our own foods, such as kombucha and yogurt, to help up our bacterial count in our bodies in order to more robustly fight pathogens.
I buy my eggs from a farm that lets their chickens run free and eat whatever they please as well as leftover veggies and some feed that doesn’t contain any soy or preservatives. My take on consuming raw foods is this. Pasteurization was created to sterilize large quantities of food produced in a limited space where infection and disease are more rampant. I drink raw milk and often put raw eggs in my smoothies. I feel safer drinking and eating these foods raw than eating store bought, pasteurized sterilized foods. There is more nutrition and greater health benefit and lower risk of contamination and sickness in food raised properly, with care in a clean environment than food that is confinement raised food. There is always chance for sickness, because that is life, but I would rather risk it with food that nourishes than food that undernourishes and is chuck full of chemicals and oversterilization. My family gets sick maybe 1-2 a year, where as someone was sick every month before we started eating a more traditional and less conventional diet! I so appreciate all you women (and men) that are doing yourselves and so many others good by raising food and animals that are well cared for and humanely treated! For those of you who are on the fence about eating real farm raised eggs, I highly encourage you to do so! Or even raise your own! I can’t wait till I have the space to do so.