By Anita Benedict
There has been a lot of returning to raising your own food these past few years, although it has remained a way of life for some of us.
The first fallacy is that it is cheaper. If you think a whole skinny chicken in the store is expensive, then just wait till you get the bill for one of mine! The lovely part is, when you raise it, you know what it has been fed, and that it had a good life, barring being cursed at for tripping you or pecking at your boots.
We were gifted 7 beautiful roosters one year and I let them loose to eat bugs around the yard. They were lovely to look at, mean to the little guy of the group and noisy. In the immortal words of Forrest Gump, “and that’s all I have to say about that.”
We raised guinea fowl for two years to control the tick population. It worked for our wonderful and understanding neighbours much better than for us. We fed them turkey grower, made sure they had water, and they spent most of their day eating ticks and occasionally gardens at the neighbours. Sadly, between a fox, and disgruntled drivers (sorry about that) we finally had to rehome the last two. If you are going to raise Guinea, they are effective tick control and fun to watch, know that you need to be far
away from the road and people who hate them. Penning a guinea is quite useless as well as futile.
We moved on to turkeys because they were interesting. Those heritage breed birds that look like wild turkeys are indeed interesting, but they are not ready to be food for at least a year! That is a lot of turkey grower and shavings, Guinea made much less mess. We brought in a male for our girls because he needed a place where he was king. He is quite glorious, but he is not as fun as the girls. They enjoyed
my Myrtle White impression singing “Good Morning” and often chortled back. Big Tom on the other hand, puffed up and started playing drums in his chest. I thought it was great till he started for the door and me. I wasn’t sure if it was aggression or if he wanted to take the gig on the road. I let my hubby feed him after that.
We are hoping to raise a few meat birds this summer. They won’t be roaming the yard eating bugs or ticks but will fill the freezer, if they survive to full size. I can be heart breaking work when the little baby chicks do not make it, and then they can be finicky with feed. You can’t count your chickens before or after they hatch!
It usually becomes an argument here, I believe in letting them eat what they want when little and growing, then cut down a bit so they aren’t fatty. If I am feeding them, they do not starve, but the things still peck at me. I warn them I will get even at processing time.
We always processed our own and my best tale is of the chicken who keeled over while I was cleaning/processing one of his pen mates. I finished that one and went in to remove it from the pen, thinking it had died. The little faker was not dead and when I turned my back it leaped to life and began to run off. Thank goodness for a dog who liked to herd, or give chase.
If we get those chickens, there will likely be more tales.
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