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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Free Range Chickens in the Garden

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  • From: Leigh Hauter <lh AT pressroom.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Free Range Chickens in the Garden
  • Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 07:16:16 -0400

With all due respect to anyone that would believe we should make our fields a sterile factory floor, I must say, there are big differences between a food processing plant and a field of vegetables. The idea that a 'farmer' is going to cut down all the trees on his/her farm to 'discourage' birds from dropping guano on his/her fields would be humorous if it isn't so sad. (actually, I would suspect the real reason anyone would really do this is to discourage crop damage - this is a really big issue, did you know the USDA poisons hundreds of thousands of birds each year to prevent crop damage to, get this, bird feed crops).

If the real reason was to limit guano in the field what are they doing about the field mice? How about earthworms? And I would be especially worried about that large black snake crawling across by vegetable field in search of the wayward rodent. And if this is all in order to protect against e-coli (what's the number of the e-coli that is dangerous?) they should be concentrating on the correct vectors, which isn't blackbirds to humans.

Yes, we all want sanitary practices but I doubt that it is anyone's science based policy to kill off a natural level of animal life in vegetable fields to promote food safety. Most of the hysteria about compost/manure/disease/e-coli is based on sloppy science (ie stossel/avery) who can't seem to get their e-coli's or vectors straight.

So, let's get back to why you wouldn't want chickens running loose in your vegetables. You don't want to do it for the same reason the USDA is spending your tax money to poison birds. Crop damage. It isn't that a couple chickens in the vegetables are going to 'poop' all over the vegetables (if it were, as anyone who has ever come in contact with these paradigms of cleanliness knows, the idea that humans would eat a chicken, especially a chicken raised in a commercial chicken house, would be quickly nixed). You don't want chickens, or for that matter guineas in your vegetables because they damage certain vegetables. Particularly tomatoes. A peck here and a peck there soon adds up to an awful lot of damaged fruit.




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