Chicken Challenges This Time Around

May comes, and I fall off the blog roll. Spring is just such a busy time of year on the farm. It's hard to come in when the light keeps me outside, thinking I can do a little more weeding, a little more planting... whatever. It's amazing how time gets gobbled up just puttering around, doing what seems like nothing but really adds up to something when you put it all together (like shelving my garden tools so I can find them again next time).

Anyway, with that as a beginning, I've been meaning to tell you all about some of the challenges we faced with our most recent crop of chickens (acquired March 23rd, harvested last week, this coming Monday (June 6th), and again in another 10 days or so... you'll see what I mean if you keep reading).

The first wrinkle began before we even ordered our chicks. The hatchery we ordered from last year had gone out of business, so Milan made more than a couple dozen phone calls to various hatcheries and resellers trying to get a batch of 100 White Cornish X chicks. Of course, we could always order from Murray McMurray, right? Yes, but one of our values is "local", and although the term is now almost as over-used and diluted as "free-range", to us, Iowa ain't local. I know they are a great hatchery in many respects, but it's hard for us to think of 100 little chickens traveling 2,000 miles without food or water. Call us softies, if you like. That left us with few options for getting 100 chicks at once, so we settled on getting them through our local Grange Coop (still, their chicks come from some hatchery in Texas -- not so local, either).

When our order arrived, we drove to Grants Pass to pick up 100 White Cornish X and 12 Red Cornish X (see"A Little Experiment: Part 1" and "A Little Experiment: Part 2"). At that point, it was clear that there were multiple ages of chickens in the box. Some were a good five-to-six days old, as they had lost their fluff and had their wing feathers in. Others were clearly only day-old chicks (as was the case with all 12 Red Cornish X birds).

The challenge of multiple ages is one that plagues the batch throughout its entire cycle. Plainly, older chickens are bigger and shove out the smaller ones to the point where the big just keep getting bigger and bigger and the small ones stay small because they can't bully their way past the bullies. This applies to both food and heat. We lost a couple of the smallest chickens early on to being crushed by their peers as they sought heat underneath the hover. Again, this was probably a result of multiple inputs: cold nights, not eating enough to get strong, not drinking enough to be well hydrated, etc., but then to be bullied out to the edge of the heat, well, that ends it. Chicks, and particularly the White Cornish birds, are anything but robust. Miss one element of their needs and it's curtains for them. They essentially give up, which comports with their manifested lazy nature as adults. It was such a striking contrast to me to watch the little Canada Goose gosling bounce back from his ordeal (see my post titled "One Little Gosling's Undesired Adventure"). A White Cornish X chicken would never have fought that hard to survive, and even if it would have fought to survive, would have probably crawled into a bush and died of exhaustion after being released.

As time passes, the big continue to get bigger, so they need to be harvested sooner. We harvest our White Cornish birds at 9 weeks. This time around, it meant we had to have two harvest days -- one last Sunday, May 30th, and one coming up June 6th. Actually, we'll even have a third harvest day to process the Red Cornish X birds, which don't grow as quickly and don't convert feed as well. Having them this go-round was an experiment on our part, and it's clear they cannot be raised with the Whites, which have to be ration-fed to even live to nine weeks of age (commercial facilities process their birds at 6 weeks of age because that's about when they start dying anyway, as their skeletal structure and organs begin to fail due to their incredible weight -- think of them as 200-lb human two-year-olds). The Reds, on the other hand, at 9 weeks of age and ration feeding, feel like the classic "rubber chicken" when you pick them up: the breast-bone protrudes way out and they feel like nothing but feathers. They need to be free-fed and grown to 10-12 weeks of age.

Setting up these harvest days is no small matter, so having to do three of them for one batch of 100 birds is deflating. We harvested the 50 oldest birds last Sunday, will do another 28 on Monday, and the remaining 10 Red Cornish birds... well, we're not even sure yet when we'll do those. Maybe in another 10 days or so, like I speculated in the beginning of this post.

The next and more depressing challenge we experienced with this batch of chickens was something we didn't even consider before we were faced with it. As I said, the first wrinkle was not being able to get our chicks from the same hatchery we patronized last year (Lazy 54 Hatchery in Hubbard, Oregon). Apparently, they had great chicks, because we never had a one with any obvious genetic issues. Well, that changed this time around. The genetics on this batch of White Cornish X was bad. We started to notice it around 4 and 5 weeks of age: more and more birds were turning up with legs turned out at crazy angles or crumpled feet. A few died for no discernible reason, so we suspect there were internal manifestations of their poor genetics to blame. Milan watched a few weaken and would always put them in the sick bay and give them special attention for a few days. Only two such chickens rallied; the others went down hill to the point that Milan put them out of their misery (did someone say farm life is "romantic"?!). In the end, we had over 20% loss for this batch, which is a horribly high number. Industry average is 10%, and we had less than 5% all last year!

White Cornish X with deformed feet.

Here's an example of the crumpled feet, and this isn't even such a bad one. The bad ones didn't make it past 6-7 weeks; this one is 9 weeks old (photo taken the day before harvest).

Suffice it to say, it's been a tough road this Spring. Even though we realize some things were out of our control, we feel responsible for the birds we lost, not to mention that it's hard to tell our customers we can't fill their orders this time around. We usually have 5-6 birds as back up, but we've long blown through those and are telling folks that ordered 5 to expect 2.  Not a message I like to deliver.

As a result of all this, we will probably move away entirely from raising the White Cornish X breed.  We were optimistic after raising them last year.  Some of last year's got as old as 12 weeks and were still up, pecking and scratching, hale and hardy, with all their feathers intact on their breasts (they're often featherless there because their breasts get so heavy they can't stand up, so their feathers fall out and don't grow back and as a result, the breast skin gets really dirty), but we must have just been lucky to get 200 really healthy ones.  This year was just a whole different story, and reminded us that the White Cornish X is a bird that's been highly bred and re-bred specifically for the Foster Farms situation: sitting in a cage in front of a feed trough (that's never empty) for 6 weeks of life.  Here's a good visual of how chickens have changed to meet the Foster Farms standard in the last 50+ years (courtesy of Nature's Harmony Farm in Elberton, Georgia):

White Cornish X at 68 days old in 1950, vs. 47 days old in 2008.

Pretty incredible, isn't it?

So, expect to hear more about Red Cornish X birds in the future, and maybe even Freedom Rangers at Sojourn Farms.  To all our loyal customers, thanks for sticking with us through our learning process.  We really are trying very hard to raise healthy, happy, free-range, organic, pastured chickens.  It's not always easy and definitely not glamorous, but hearing how much you appreciate our efforts means a lot to us.

One Little Gosling's Undesired Adventure

I was recently reminded again about the consequences of involving oneself in certain elements of nature.  Our ranch hand was out and about when he found 4 little Canada Goose goslings.  Out of interest, innocence and definitely some thoughtlessness but certainly not malicious intentions, he picked one up and brought it up to the house to show to Jack.  Since Jack was down for a nap, that didn't happen, and very quickly, Milan and Darin decided they needed to get going to town or they would be late for an appointment.  Darin went to "put the goose back".

I felt bad about it already.  Here was that poor little goose, grabbed away from its brothers and sisters, not to mention his parents, and being paraded around for us to ogle.  And, I'm sorry to say, I did: admire his lovely coloring, his delicate features, his cute, but very plaintive and pleading little peeps.  I even took a couple pictures.

Being in a hurry, Darin put the gosling down in the shop yard, across a ditch and quite a ways from where he found the little guy originally.  No parents or siblings were in sight.  When Milan discovered the situation, he was furious.  Although he doesn't like Canada Geese living here (farmers call them "rats of the air" because they can eat an incredible amount of new grass before the cattle can and cost farmers a lot of money), he will viciously condemn anyone without even batting an eyelash for placing animals in suffering, even potential suffering.  He asked Darin, "Don't you think he'll just die out there?"  To which Darin answered, "Probably."

Now, I know Darin.  He is not heartless and cruel.  He is gentle and kind to his horse and very sweet and friendly with our stand-offish dog, Cash.  He's a very good, upright, moral, hard-working, kind and seeking-to-be-righteous person.  He is the best ranch hand ever -- very conscientious and thorough, very invested and interested.  So, what happened?

I think it happens to all of us.  We get carried away by things in life without giving them much thought.  I know it happens to me daily. Darin just wanted to let Jack see a little gosling. No harm in that. But removing the gosling from its family, well, there's harm in that. Especially for the gosling -- potentially fatal harm.  His answer to Milan's question was a surprise, even to him, as it was the first time he had stopped to think long enough about what might happen to the little gosling in the long run.

Thankfully, Milan was able to catch the gosling, but not before very much tiring the poor little panicked bird and also getting himself torn up in a blackberry thicket.  The gosling actually managed to get into the ditch leading to the pond and even dove and swam for some length under the surface trying to evade being captured again.  Soaked, scratched and furious, Milan hastily plopped the gosling into the chicken run with our 100+, then-3-week-old chicks and raced out of here to make it to his appointment. At least the gosling would be safe.

I was on the other side of the house, dusting in the back bedroom, with the windows slightly cracked and the gosling on my mind. Within minutes of Milan leaving, I heard louder than usual, insistent peeping. I went around to another window to see the little guy struggling desperately against the impenetrable (and intentionally so!) wire-welded sides of the chicken run.  I worried he wouldn't last much longer.  He would completely tire himself trying to find his family and then die of weariness.

I dropped my dusting and prayed a trek out to the ponds would find his family. Sure enough, on the far side of the barn pond, momma, daddy and three little siblings were warily watching my approach. I prayed again that they would stay there and that I wouldn't have too much trouble catching the gosling out of the chicken run.

You've seen our chicken runs. They're very low to the ground, so getting around inside is a cramped and very, very messy business. Even after a few hours, the ground has enough little chick poops on it to make crawling on all fours under there a pretty darn unsavory task. We've only had to do it on rare occasions, as the way the runs are configured allows us to do everything from the top (not to mention that because they are moved once, and later twice, a day, giving us one or two clean opportunities per day to do anything that requires crawling around on the ground). I steeled myself, and in I went.

The chickens know us as the source of their food, so they're not very shy anymore. They crawled all over me while I was in there. The little gosling, however, ran from me. I had expected this, but even so, I felt a little desperate. He could get around so much more easily than I could. What should I do? I stopped moving, and tried to honk like a goose (I wish I had a video of this part... or maybe I don't!). I guess I was somewhat convincing, because the gosling actually approached me instead of running away from me. He got just close enough for me to scoop him up. I placed him in the darkness and warmth under my coat to calm him down, knowing that the more he struggled, the smaller his chances of survival would be. He immediately snuggled in and settled down. I carefully shuffled myself out of the chicken run, one arm gently holding my coat and the little gosling in place. What a relief to get out of there!

I walked quickly down to the pond, planning my release. I wanted to get close enough for momma and daddy to hear him peeping, which I figured he would do once I removed him from under my coat. I also thought that I would probably get closer to them if I stayed across the water from the family. The gosling could swim, sound carries well over water, and it also offered a clear line of sight.

With my approach, the two adult geese starting honking, and the little bird under my coat started peeping in reply. I knelt down at the water's edge and set him free. What a sight to see him beeline for his family and his family beeline for him! My heart felt like it swelled and got warmer, watching the reunion. I tried to imagine how happy and relieved that little gosling felt, and I wondered, do geese have what we understand as those emotions, or is it just instinct?

Either way, I'm glad for how things worked out in the end. Milan was relieved and happy, upon returning from his appointment, that the gosling had been successfully reunited with his family. Milan also had a follow-up conversation with Darin about the whole situation, and Darin admitted he just hadn't thought it through enough and that he shouldn't have been so thoughtless. I'm glad for the poignant reminder we all got about the delicate balances of nature and the opportunity to share this story-with-a-happy-ending. Most of all, I'm glad the little gosling is back with his family - back where he belongs.

This photo was taken several days after the gosling was reunited with his family. I was glad to see he survived the ordeal. Part of me had worried he would be so traumatized and exhausted that he would crawl into a thicket and breathe his last, even after coming back to mom and dad. We've seen that enough with our chickens, but I should have known these little guys are MUCH hardier than domestic meat chickens (especially White Cornish X). Clearly, he's doing well, eating our grass shoots where we reseeded the ground after it was leveled last summer. This brings up again how we actually have a love-hate relationship with Canada Geese. They are incredibly good foragers, meaning they're very destructive to areas of field we're attempting to renovate. Thankfully, only a few seem to hang around, and I must admit, I enjoy seeing the goose families in the spring.

If We Watched TV

We do not own a television, but if we did, there are a few things Milan and I would watch. Jamie Oliver's "Food Revolution" (airing on ABC) is one of them.

Go Jamie! Please help by signing the petition to "save cooking skills and improve school food".

Realities

This being our first farming venture, we definitely went into it romanticizing the lifestyle. In reality, the novelty wears off in a hurry. The chores are, well, chores, but the worst is losing chicks to causes we can only really guess at. We lost another one today, bringing the total number of losses to six.

We noticed this one when we moved the run, which we do about 2pm every day. I take up the rear while Milan hoists the front of the run with a handle. He pulls, and my job is to make sure the chicks move along as they should. I usually take a stick and wave it alongside the outside of the run to scatter them forward. I tell Milan what's going on, saying things like, "Slow down," "Okay, wait a minute", etc. This time, I hollered, "Stop!" At first, I thought I had missed seeing that one wasn't clearing out of the way and that we had dinged it. A second look, however, clearly indicated the bird hadn't moved for a while and wasn't in the mood to do so now. Milan then remembered having seen a bird under the hover at morning feeding (about 7am). He thought at the time, "Huh, that's one of the smaller ones," but didn't worry about it as the bird eyed him steadily and looked like any of the others do when they're resting.

By two o'clock, however, the bird was clearly weak and listless. Milan and I both felt a familiar sinking feeling. Having already lost 5, two that we force fed and spent the better part of the day trying to rehabilitate, we both dreaded finding that lifeless heap of feathers. We had to do all we could; we had to try to keep that little guy alive, even if we didn't think there was much hope.

I got out my coffee grinder and we powdered up some of the chicken feed. I made a slurry with warm water, and stole Jack's Motrin syringe. Milan dug through his hydroponic supplies (from his years in Palo Alto when the only "garden" he had was indoors or on the balcony!) and found some tubing. Off we went to force feed another little chick, hoping this time he would make it.

We both knew our jobs. Milan held the chick and gently pressed on the sides of his beak. I pried his beak open with my fingernail. Once open, I used a twig to hold it open while I got the tube in position. Thanks to the Rebecca and Meadow at Wildlife Images (our local wildlife rehabilitation and education center) for the instructions on how to force feed birds! The tube must go down the right side of the bird's throat (our left, if you're facing the bird). We fed about 2ml (or 2cc's) at a time, and did this at 3pm, 5pm and 7pm.

We also separated him from the other birds while the weather was good and the rest of the flock was scratching, pecking and relaxing in the sunshine. I can't really comment on what chickens are thinking, but by all I've observed, they certainly don't respect their sick siblings. They step on him, sit on him, jostle him, and make the possibility of convalescence pretty remote. Yet, chicks need each other, too. When we previously nursed a sick one here in the house, he perked up considerably when we brought in a couple friends.

With three successful feedings behind us, we optimistically marked the sick chick's head with a green marker: We hoped he would soon join his peers, where we wouldn't be able to recognize him without it. He couldn't stay separated at night; he had to go back under the hover. Milan placed him in a less-trafficked corner. We would be back again at 9pm for another feeding.

At 9 o'clock, Milan peered under the hover, saying, "Okay, which one of you has a green head?" I was ready, with syringe and warm gruel in hand.

"Oh, no," Milan said, and I knew: the chick had died.

People say, "It's just a chicken!" or tell us that up to 10% loss (over the course of time of raising them from chicks to slaughter) is "normal", but right at that moment, it doesn't feel like it's "normal", or "just a chicken". This was a life, a tiny, possibly-insignificant life, but it still had breath and blood and motion and senses. Now, it was a heap of flesh and feathers. It causes me to ask again, what is life, anyway? We believe that God gives it, but what IS it? Physiologically? Cosmologically? I don't know that I'll ever get a good answer.

Of course, my thoughts and perplexity may seem a little ironic in view of the fact that we're raising these birds specifically to be slaughtered. The difference in my own mind is that, when their time comes, it will be a humane, quick and purposeful death, not a random, unexplained, untimely, slow and probably painful demise.

No doubt, we're being initiated to the harsher realities of farming. Animals die, and sometimes you have no idea why. Did he not eat enough? Drink enough? Was there something else wrong with him that predisposed him to become weak? I felt when I first saw him at 2 o'clock that he wasn't going to make it. We've been told that by the time a bird looks sick, he's pretty far gone, because they disguise it until they just can't anymore (an instinct to keep predators away). Also, I have in my head that a "real" farmer has to make decisions based more on the bottom line than we do at this point. It certainly doesn't make economic sense to spend hours of our time trying to rehabilitate one chicken that's unlikely to make it anyway. But, in our situation, we can "afford" it, and so we do it, because of who we are and what we believe about life: it's precious; we have to try to hold onto it; once gone, it's never coming back.

Outdoor Chicks

We are so glad for the last few days of sunny weather! What a break for us and for the chicks. The forecast shows PM showers again tonight, with rain tomorrow and the next day, and the next day, and the next day...

From that first morning when it was pouring at 4am (read about it in "Got Chicks!"), the weather has really proven our biggest challenge and hassle factor. Our original plan was to have the chicks on pasture from the moment they arrived home, but putting day-old chicks on wet grass is sure to result in a high mortality rate. Most chicks are kept in a brooder for at least three weeks. The brooder is usually set up indoors -- somewhere out of the wind, rain and cold. It also needs to be secure from predators: from coyotes and raccoons to weasels and even large mice, which have been known to kill small chicks.

On Sunday, March 28th, the chicks were four days old. We got a little break in the weather and decided to go for it. Here, you see Milan and his dad bringing the chicks out and placing them in the run. The white structure inside with the shiny-underside door is the "hover". It's essentially an outdoor brooder. There are heaters and a heat lamp affixed to its ceiling. The whole hover is attached to wires and suspended from the ceiling of the run. It can be raised and lowered for cleaning, and also to accommodate the chicks' height. We placed an old sheet of 4'x8' plywood underneath the hover and bedded it down with dry shavings. We put down all the shavings and turned on the heaters before leaving for church so that it would dry everything out and warm it up before putting the chicks inside.

So, if other operations leave their chicks in the brooder for 3 weeks or more, why were we so eager to get ours out, especially considering the weather?

First, our research found that to successfully pasture-raise chickens, especially this breed of chicken (Cornish X, or "Cornish Cross", the classic, white chicken raised for meat), you need to get them on pasture as soon as possible. Getting the chicks out on grass early helps them become comfortable on pasture and learn how to effectively scratch and peck. If they spend three weeks in a brooder, that's a lot of time their instincts for pecking and scratching aren't kicking in. It's also three weeks they don't get the nutritional benefits of legumes, grass, bugs and worms, and the physical benefits of room to run, exercise, and good, clean, Oregon air and sunshine. Well, maybe not the sunshine just yet...

Second, they were clearly a little crowded in the horse trough we set up for their initial homecoming. We were adding pine shaving bedding twice a day to deal with the smell and keep the chicks warm, dry and clean, but it was clear that unless we set up another trough situation, they were going to outgrow it really fast.

So, at four tender days of age, out they went. Milan's dad came and helped move them while Jack and I manned the camera. It sure is fun having a wide-eyed, interested-in-everything little tyke around. He daily reminds us to marvel at things we probably wouldn't notice or spend much time thinking about.

You can see from these photos that it was still pretty wet outside. We got the chicks out between rain showers. We knew they would be warm under the hover, but the weather the week following their outdoor placement definitely put the whole run and hover design to the test.

Becoming "Real" Farmers

Why in the world do we want to become real farmers anyway? I say "real", because there are lots of folks these days that live on some property, have a horse or some livestock, maybe some chickens and a garden, and call their little place a farm. I guess the term generally applied in such a situation is "hobby farmer". But it's different to truly be a farmer. To me, a "real" farmer earns a good portion of his living by farming (kind of a "duh", I know).

Currently, Milan is a software engineer and works from home. I'm a stay-at-home wife and mom who is blessed to have the opportunity to keep one foot in the career world by doing a little marketing consulting, also from home. So, "inside", we have this one life going. It's a good life, too! Very comfortable, especially for me. I have to say that, on paper, it's about perfect.

For Milan, however, software is not fulfilling. Sure, there are days when it's exciting and invigorating within its own little bubble. Even then, Milan has a hard time finding any real, lasting value in what he does for 8 hours a day. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that software engineers aren't doing good things. I'm summarizing Milan's perspective. To him, being a certain kind of farmer has more lasting value than whether United's voice-prompt reservation system is fool proof.

That certain kind of farmer is conscientious, honest, hard-working and humble. He sees to the welfare of his animals, ensuring them the best quality of life he can give them. Even if they are going to be steak or chicken cordon bleu, he wants them to be able to be "real" cows or "real" chickens while they're alive. He values greatly his environment and works very hard to balance the ability to make a living with earth-friendly, sustainable agricultural practices, and if he can't viably raise something without compromising core values, he doesn't do it. He (or she!) believes in maintaining the land so that it will still be rich and fertile for generations beyond his own (Ever wonder why the "Fertile Crescent" is now a desert? Hundreds of years of unsustainable farming techniques).

In addition to seeing farming as an inviting way of life, we believe it's important to know where your food comes from. Locally grown food, whether strawberries from the farm stand or whole milk in glass bottles from a dairy in the next county is usually healthier and more sustainably produced than what you routinely get off the grocery store shelves. What's more, being in touch, on a local level, with how and where your food is produced and with the farmer that produces it, makes you more appreciative of the food and all the inputs that went into raising it. As a nation, we have completely lost touch with the fact that those chicken nuggets came from a living bird, or that those potato chips were spuds from a farmer's field. I could go off on multiple rabbit trails, at this point, about how knowing where your food comes from could be fundamental to lowering obesity statistics, heart disease, adult onset diabetes... I'll leave that for another blog, another day.

Lastly, why chickens? Why not beef, which seems easier and, in my mind, at least, is so much more glamorous? For that matter, why not anything else? Hops and bison were two other crops we seriously considered.

It came across in Milan's reading and research that any mono-crop farm is fundamentally not sustainable. This is hard to swallow, as specialization is what generally leads to greater profit. But to have a truly sustainable, eco-friendly farm, you have to be diverse. The model we're essentially mimicking is that of Joel Salatin's Polyface Farms, located in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. For us, that means starting small. We don't intend to be "chicken farmers"; we're just starting our farm business with chickens. We hope to offer eggs, beef and possibly pork in the future, and who knows what else: apples? pears? raspberries? They're all here already, in some form or another.

For us, being this certain kind of farmer pulls together our values and moral ideals about life and how it should be lived. I guess it does sound romantic. In reality, it's going to be a lot of long days of dirty, tiring and even gut-wrenching (butchering?! Hello!) work. But, we look forward even to that: good, hard, character-building work!

That's why we're doing this. Or at least, it's a start!