Chickens At Work

The Fat Ewe Farm has a lot of chickens. Well, about 25 are chicks, Ameraucana chicks to be exact. These are spry, thin birds that are capable of flight and lay blue eggs, though none have yet to lay, or at least I have not found any blue eggs so far. The value in the Ameraucanas is their ability to forage. They are quick and agile and can travel in and out of pens very quickly. They are less apt to be eaten by the pigs too, since they pay attention to their surroundings. I really like them, along with the Polish/Ameraucana bantams that live here. The heritage breed hens are fine too, busy, but slow and much more docile. The other birds are everywhere and have proven their worth keeping the ant population down. The ducks do a remarkable job gobbling up flies and eat any spilled grain, however; the chickens also scratch through old manure and straw which helps cultivate it in the earth. They also pick up any maggots in the bones that the dogs are not quite finished with. These maggots do provide excellent protein for the birds, even though to humans the sight of maggots squirming in an old bone is disgusting, let alone chickens gobbling maggots. Ewwwwwe.
The 25 chicks will turn out to be half roosters and will be sent to freezer camp if good homes for them cannot be found. That is the sad part of raising animals. The males' fate is more often than not, meat.
I am thankful that I have overcome my phobia of birds by raising chickens for the past two years and am grateful to the chickens for their work around the farm and of course for their eggs. There is nothing quite like a bright orange egg yolk from a farm fresh egg.

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