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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Back Garden Organic Poultry
  • Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:35:34 -0700


Back Garden Organic Poultry

http://nickykylegardening.com/back-garden-organic-poultry

Written by Nicky Kyle

It's early December as I write this, there's a foot of snow on the ground and
it's freezing hard! Dozens of hungry sparrows, chaffinches, blue tits,
blackbirds and starlings are squabbling over the feeders in the garden, and
even a song thrush - normally so shy, is on the kitchen windowsill looking
for food. It all looks beautiful through the window, the trees look as if
they've been dipped in icing sugar and the hedges are spangled with frost
glitter like an early Christmas card. The polytunnels are decorated with
incredibly intricate frost-ferns like William Morris wallpaper, and I daren't
even look at the lettuces inside them, even under fleece! Brrr....Your hens
will really need some TLC now if they're to keep laying in this weather!

The main thing with hens at any time of year is to keep them warm and as
clean and dry underfoot as possible. I have my 6 hens in a converted small
wooden dog-kennel, with a couple of orange box nest boxes, a perch and roof
that lifts, so it's easy to get into and keep clean. I don't like those
trendy looking plastic ones, I think they sweat and are cold compared to
wooden ones. I take out the droppings every morning, to avoid a build up of
ammonia which is bad for their lungs and can burn their feet and legs (in
industrial broiler chicken houses the chickens routinely get horribly painful
burns on their legs as they're crammed together with no choice but to
unavoidably sit in their own droppings) I then put in a scattering of fresh
shavings as these are good at absorbing any damp and fumes from the droppings
overnight. They also need good ventilation but without draughts.

A friend of my son's made me a terrific set of four wheels for the house, so
that I can push it easily round the garden every day to fresh ground. That
gives them lovely fresh grass to graze every day, which they do eagerly, and
also stops them 'souring' the ground. At the moment however, their run is
welded to the ground by the frost, so can't be moved. Anyway there'd be no
point as I would just be moving them to fresh snow - which they hate! Half
the run is covered with heavy clear polythene so there's always somewhere dry
for them to stand around even if it's raining. In this weather I put some
straw in that part of the run to keep their feet dry. Both the discarded
straw and shavings can then be put onto the compost heap - they're a great
compost activator and brilliant to get it heating up because of all the
nitrogen in the droppings. The hotter a heap gets, the better it rots..

Putting straw in also keeps them busy scratching around for the green food I
throw in several times a day, particularly if they can't be moved to a fresh
patch of grass. They need plenty of green food to stay healthy and give
wonderful orange yolks to the eggs. The hens convert all that food into
perfect, nutritious little packages including protein, omega3 fatty acids,
zinc and sight-enhancing lutein, which they're then transmitting to you via
their eggs. It's so funny to see them rush to the fence when they see me
coming with a bundle of greens, although it can be irritating when I go to
shut them up at dusk - if they hear my footsteps they come flying out
thinking "yippee, more goodies" - and I then have to wait another 20mins for
them to settle down again before I can shut the door! It's vital to shut
them up every night even in small urban gardens, as they won't last ten
seconds if the fox can get in easily and have himself an evening's
entertainment killing them all. It's an urban myth that foxes only kill to
eat - they do it just for the hell of it most of the time! To try to deter
them a bit, it's a good idea to keep the hens a bit closer to your house at
this time of year.

A lot of people think hens don't have brains - but they are surprisingly
intelligent, that's why I can't bear to see the poor things constricted in
the incredibly cruel strait-jacket of battery cages, unable to do what hens
are genetically programmed to do - make nests, scratch around, sunbathe, dust
bath to keep their feathers in top condition, spread their wings and fly up
to perch at night. They're very social animals, enjoying the company of
others, so don't keep one on it's own, they need company. You can't breed
those natural instincts out of chickens in relatively few years of
domestication.That would take many thousands of years of evolution. Seeing
how quickly an ex-battery hen will adapt to freedom and exhibit it's natural
behaviour, after the first couple of days of stunned amazement, is quite an
education, it makes one realise just how ingrained and vital for the hen's
well-being that natural behaviour is. If you bear in mind that their original
natural habitat is warm, S.E.Asian jungle, scratching around in the leaf
litter under shrubby undergrowth for grubs and seeds, you can understand
their basic needs far better.

It's vitally important now, and I think all year, to feed them a proper well
balanced layers ration, with the right proportion of protein. That way
they'll keep laying more reliably, just easing up a little in early Dec. due
to the lack of light but getting back to normal in mid Jan. If you're only
just thinking of getting some hens, I find the best time to get them at
'point of lay' is in mid July - mid August, then they'll go on laying all
winter perfectly well without any artificial light. Most feed merchants are
now selling organic layers pellets, they are a bit more expensive than
conventional layers pellets but otherwise you'll be to eating genetically
modified soya protein via your hens (which is in all conventional layers
pellets and any other animal feed containing soya protein). GM products are
not allowed in organic rations and all the ingredients have to come from
certified organic sources, which by the way, also contain more good omega3
fats (Newcastle University study). A young hen in it's first year of laying
will lay almost every day. As certified organic feed retails at around
18euros a bag at the moment, work it out and you'll find you're getting your
eggs for less than a quarter of the shop price of organic or free-range eggs,
and if you also either sell your surplus or barter to relatives and friends,
even if you give them a discount you'll still be getting yours for virtually
nothing - you can't beat that. Many people think that 'Free Range' is the
same as organic, but the 'so-called free range' hens are fed on exactly the
same layer's ration as battery hens (containing GM soya) and are allowed less
room both in their houses and outside than organic ones. Whether you care
about eating GM or not, there are many ethical questions also attached to the
GM debate. That's a subject that I'll talk about in the future. Always keep
the feeder in the hen-house to avoid attracting rats and to avoid waste.

The other thing that's most important is to make sure they've got clean fresh
water available all the time. In freezing weather, tip the water out of the
drinker at night, and refill again in the morning, otherwise it will freeze
solid and you won't be able to get the top off to fill it up. It's also a
good idea to put a clove of crushed garlic in a little bag of muslin, tights,
or old net curtain, done up with a piece of string or a rubber band - to stop
the bits clogging the water outlet - this is a good tonic and keeps diseases
and internal parasites at bay. However, if you always keep them clean and
move them to fresh gound as often as possible, those shouldn't be a problem.
Wild birds can carry parasites and this is another good reason for keeping
the feeders in the house, so as not to attract them. The garlic doesn't make
the eggs taste! Many years ago someone who didn't believe I kept my hens
healthy with garlic called in unexpectedly one day and asked if he could see
my hens - they were in a polytunnel at the time and the smell of garlic hit
us as we opened the door! They were wonderfully healthy looking broiler
chickens, a couple of dozen, mostly 9-10 pounders, sunbathing luxuriently in
the warmth of the early spring sunshine, on deep straw in a spare polytunnel.
They were reared for eating though sadly all that garlic didn't transmit to
their flesh either! So I still have to put the 'forty cloves of garlic' in
with the traditional French recipe - worth a try though!!

By the way, on the subject of broiler chickens, most (uninformed) food
writers will tell you that it's impossible to rear 'conventional' breeds of
broilers outside on free range - and that they're more suited to be reared
intensively indoors. That is complete and utter rubbish!! In intensive
broiler houses, they are forced to be unhealthy 'couch potatoes'- they
haven't got the room or the opportunity to be anything else. The same would
happen to us, if we were reared in those foul (sorry!) conditions! I have
raised hundreds of broilers over the years and they thrive and grow well on
good organic food, with clean houses to sleep in and plenty of fresh air and
excercise outdoors. When they get to 10-12lbs they do get a little bit
tougher on all that excercise though! A flock of those running towards you,
when they think you're bringing a few tasty treats, is some sight to behold I
can tell you!

That's all for now. Next month I'll talk about ducks and in February I'll
talk about raising your own chicks from day-olds in March, which is when I
normally do it, so that they then come into lay around the first week in
August and will go on laying all through the winter.






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