Posted by admin | Posted in Country Know-how, workshops | Posted on 21-01-2010
Keeping a few chickens
The Country Know-how column for the week of January 21 . . .
Can you keep a few chickens to give yourself fresh eggs and a little meat with personality? Sure you can. It requires some work, a bit of money and quite a bit of know-how though and we’ll just touch on a few basics here. An upcoming Country Know-how mini-workshop with Laurie Brownlee and wife Pat Furlong’s heritage Elphin farm will enable you to have another look.
The hundred acre property near the heart of Elphin has been in the family since early in the nineteenth century. A Brownlee married the original Stokes family’s daughter and it’s been Brownlees ever since. I was amazed at the number of breeds among the fifty or so chickens in the coop. Apparently, keeping the lovely and distinctive breeds apart so that they don’t all devolve into one McChicken is an art all by itself. These are heritage chickens with exotic names (e.g., Buff Orpington ), not the modern breeds that mature for the table in 12 to 14 weeks. Those varieties are raised in incubators and are unable to set on fertilized eggs to grow a new generation. .
Pat and Laurie’s chickens, like many in the area, don’t run around outside where predators can snatch them. Hawks from above, foxes, weasels, minks and fishers for example. Even the coop or the “chicken tractor,” a little houseful of chickens on wheels that is moved over fresh grass, must be kept tight so invaders can’t get in. One mink can wipe out the the whole bunch though the polite fox will just take one! So in winter the chickens are inside a coop, the hens separated for the most part from the roosters; in the summer they move in the chicken tractor over fresh grass. Egg production goes way down in winter’s depth and starts to pick up when the days lengthen.
Chickens eat grass, bugs, some kitchen scraps, fruit and grain twice a day. The grain is the main expense (a buck a kilo for the organic stuff). They’re fed grain year round, the amount they can eat in about ten minutes. Grain really increases egg production. A half-dozen birds will give you four or five eggs a day, beauties with deep yellow yolks that stand up on their own. Some of their eggs have green shells by the way – Dr. Seuss had it right all along!
Hens lay most frequently the first year, less the second year and much less after that. They can live for ten years but are usually destined to become meat after two or three. One option is to buy one-year olds for two dollars or less, house and feed them for the eggs for a year or two and eat them after. Preparing them for the table is a job you should be prepared to do yourself!
Pat and Laurie welcome you to admire and talk chicken at a mini-workshop based on your questions and answers on Monday February 1 from 2-4 pm. Call them for directions at 613.278.2868.