We lost Sassy Red a week or two ago.  She was our oldest laying hen at 3 years and was only laying occasionally.  She’d gotten more and more lethargic so we’d examined her a few times to make sure she hadn’t prolapsed (when part of the oviduct actually exits the body in laying an egg) since her eggs were larger and much less frequent.  She’d still eat and drink but had less interest in leaving the coop, being first to bed every night and last to exit in the morning.  She started not leaving the coop at all a few days before and I’d check on her and make sure she was eating and drinking but one morning we came out to the coop to find she had died.  I was a bit sad as I do tend to get attached to the chickens that find names.*

* We don’t name our chickens generally unless they exhibit some specific personality so I consider them to be finding their name rather than us finding a name for them.

In the last few days we’d noticed one of our other laying hens acting a bit “droopy”.  I don’t know how to describe it.  She wasn’t holding her tail feathers up right.  It’s been hot and she was still leaving the coop, eating, and drinking with the rest so we didn’t examine her closely.  Yesterday I found her sitting on the ground in front of the coop which was odd (it’s gravel there, normally they sit in the dirt or grass).  I called to Bengt that something was wrong with her and asked him to get some surgical gloves so we could examine her.  While he did that I went to retrieve the coop waterer to refill it and she got up and walked to the waterer.  While she walked she was dragging her butt on the ground, definitely not a good sign.  At that point Bengt came out and picked her up so we could examine her (a two person job).  As he rotated her over on her back we could see bone protruding through the skin and a severly maggot infested wound.  She had clearly suffered some sort of internal injury including, at a minimum, broken bones that there were no chance of us resetting and the infestation (and accompanying odor) of the wound indicated it was dire.  We made the unfortunate decision to dispatch her as there was little we could do to remedy the situation even if we had caught it sooner.

I’m disappointed and have been feeling a bit “off” since we found her yesterday.  I can’t get the image of her infested wound out of my head.  We have quite a few chickens and are not in the habit of examining them individually and closely on a regular basis.  Perhaps we should be.  While I know that the injury she suffered was absolutely not something we could have remedied I feel guilty in not identifying it sooner.  I’m troubled by what happened to her as well.  She had no missing feathers to indicate an attack of any sort so I don’t suspect foul play, but suspect she was hit or crushed by something.  Did she get hit by the car or tractor?  Did we do it?  The unknown is always so troubling.

To add to my unsettled state, one of the upcoming layers dropped dead as far as we can tell.  It seems to happen on occasion up until laying age, but it’s always troubling.  We give them fresh grass, water, food, shelter but yet sometimes they mysteriously die.  It’s hard to shake the guilt that I might have done, or not done, something to cause the mysterious death.  We haven’t quite graduated to the point where we autopsy our chickens.  It’s not a bad idea, but when there are no external signs of cause it seems unlikely we’d be able to determine cause of death and quite frankly when we’ve lost a chicken the last thing we really want to do is get knee deep in chicken guts with the particularly visceral odors that go along.  It’s a lot to ask.

Add to all of this that the ravens/crows have been haunting the farm again.  They have a very specific call and they’ve taken to sitting in an evergreen in the backyard.  They flew off just as Bengt got the gun to take a shot at them.  They aren’t likely to blame for anything that’s happened recently, but there was definitely some low-level rage in me that really wanted to take them out less for the threat they pose, but more  because I wanted a little bit of vengence for the lives lost. 

I woke up in the early hours this morning to their disturbing calls in the trees again…

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the
floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted- nevermore!

-Edgar Allan Poe

Rumor got around that the local family owned farm store that we frequent had laying hens that ranged in age from 2.5 weeks to 4.5 weeks that they were looking to get rid of.  It’s not so much chick-buying season anymore and these were the odds and ends that hadn’t sold.  We heard about it and I contacted them to find out the details and they offered to cut us a really good deal.  So we now have 25 new laying chicks in the brooder box, despite the fact that I had promised Bengt we wouldn’t brood anymore this year   I got his permission first, honest!  They are Buff Orpingtons, Buckeyes, I think a couple of another variety (like this gal in the picture), and one Silver Laced Wyandotte.  It will be interesting to see how they all feather out!  The “pink flock”, what was left of it, starting laying a couple weeks ago and the “yellow flock” should start laying in August or September.  This flock should start laying in October through November and brings back closer to where we had intended to be with regards to number of laying hens.  Hopefully we’ve learned our hard lessons with the predators and will do better with this flock.  The “yellow flock” is using the hoop coop now and has been doing great in there, no predator issues.  So we plan to move these kids in to the same one or make a second when they are ready to go out.  We’ve started working on clearing the area that we hope to be the future home of an appropriate pasture for everyone.  Our goal is to have it ready and fenced by the end of the summer, before the next flock starts laying.

Having just spent a full day slaughtering chickens, I’d reacquainted myself with every part of the bird. The parts that you don’t see in a grocery store were as familiar as the shoelaces on my favorite red sneakers. I’d smelled guts, butts, and that chickeny chickeny smell that you just don’t get from any other animal. One of my favorite (yes, it’s weird to have a “favorite”) part of eviscerating a chicken is opening the crop and the gizzard. I love seeing that the animals raised were eating real food. Finding a bird full of grass, worms, and bugs makes me feel like we’re doing something right. I get used to the sight of Western Buttercup leaves, as I’m splitting open chickens.

Day two, I’m standing over a cutting board breaking down the meat we intend to consume over the next year. Hindquarters in that pile, breasts in that, wings over there, and the carcasses, largely stripped of the big bits of meat go into the stock pot. After a few birds, either eviscerating or butchering, I drop into the rhythm of the work. My hands move more deftly than they’re typically capable. I start to find the tendons and separate the feet from the body in two quick moves, instead of fumbling around. The knife seems to know exactly where to turn at the bottom of the breast meat, just before the ribs. I get confident; a really good feeling for something oft deemed antiquated.

Toward the end of today’s butchery session, something interrupted the flow of my work. There was a little more resistance than usual… then, after I exposed the breast meat… green. GREEN!? How did a leaf get … into the meat? I look closer. As if a play on “Green Eggs and Ham,” this really is a swath of green meat, right in the middle of this broiler’s breast. Cutting down the other side, I see exactly the same thing. Green meat. WHAT… THE… HELL!? Is it spoiled? The birds have spent the night in our freebie fridge on the porch. Did it fail to maintain temperature? Did it rot overnight? Nervous, I take a sniff. Nothing. Not spoiled?! What foul fowl is this?

Washed the hands and took a quick gander at the magical internets and, after reading several alarmist blog comments (“OMG, MY WHOLE FOODS CHICKEN BREASTS ARE ROTTEN!! MY DINNER PARTY IS RUINED!”), I found references to Oregon Muscle Disease. Oregon Muscle Disease, also known as Green Muscle Disease and Deep Pectoral Myopathy, is most commonly found in heavy meat chickens. I was able to find a few descriptions of the condition and one or two that discussed the cause at length:

It has been estimated that, in turkeys and broilers, the supracoracoid increases in weight by about 20% during activity for the huge blood flow into the muscle. The increased size of the muscle is so marked in the heavy breeds that the muscle becomes strangulated and ischemic, because the increased pressure within the muscle occludes the blood vessels and causes a necrosis of the muscle […]. The resultant necrotic muscle has a characteristic hemorrhagic appearance, with a swollen reddish-brown lesion (early developing stage) that later becomes green and shrunken and then pale green (old stage), depending upon the time of induction of the vigorous wing exercise […]

(The Occurrence of Deep Pectoral Myopathy in Roaster Chickens from the journal “Poultry Science”)

These chickens are bred to maximize the size of the breast muscles; American consumers have learned to expect tidy heat-shrink wrapped packages of huge chicken breasts. Producers, processors and retailers are eager to serve the demand with the highest margin cut of the bird. In intensive poultry operations, meat birds are raised in large warehouse-like coops. The birds are kept in almost complete darkness to minimize flight/flapping instincts and the occurrence of deep pectoral myopathy (DPM). Our birds are kept outdoors and on pasture: certainly more likely to flap.

After a few minutes of surfing the poultry information superhighway, I went back to parting out the rest of this years’ meat birds. Left with thoughts of what I’d learned, I reconsidered a question that’s become quite common, since we started the farm… “are we doing the right thing?” We’re raising our own food (plus some for others) and are trying to “do the right thing” in every decision we make. I’ve commented on our decisions to let chickens “behave like chickens” and this years’ flock was most certainly allowed to behave like it wanted. Some of that behavior included… well… flapping and, apparently, some of that flapping led to “strangulation” of the pectoral muscle. While all the research I’ve been able to find states that it “does not appear to affect the general health of the bird,” it can’t be pleasant. So I’m left with a query and a quandary; our decision to raise the chicken we like to eat in the way we think is “right” has resulted in something most decidedly “not right.”

In commercial production, incidence of DPM is as high as 1-2% (higher in “free range” plants) and us Americans buy almost all our meat parted out. Our addiction to ‘boneless skinless chicken breasts’ means that most people are unlikely to ever see bright green chicken meat; processors find it and discard it during deboning. So, given 1 bird of the 33 birds we slaughtered this year had this issue, it’s not surprising that we had one… but does that make it “OK?” Nothing else about commercial chicken production is OK with us, why would this be?

In our quest to provide food for ourselves and those around us, we’ve taken chickens with breasts so big that they’d be well suited for Hollywood and thrown them into the forest to “behave naturally.” It’s a case of doing the right thing with the wrong bird. The Cornish Cross flock from this year (and certainly their Jumbo brethren from last) may just be the wrong birds for us.

If nothing else, this has spurred our interest in finding a heavy meat bird that’s well suited to this environment. We’ve discussed finding a bird that we can sustainably (both meanings of the word) raise in the way that we think is “right.”

Oh, and in case you find green meat in a “free range” roaster, from our farm or another, it isn’t spoiled, it isn’t poisonous or bad to eat… in fact it may actually be more “green” than you’d thought.

We completed this year’s round of meat bird/processing two weekends ago and I’m just now getting around to posting a final “round up”.  The key news is that I’ve got Bengt’s agreement to go forward with sales again next year!  I can’t do it with out his help! 

The other key piece of news is that because of the sales this year I am going to be able to purchase an egg incubator for the farm.  This is a significant milestone for both our meat and egg production.  This will allow me to narrow in on a non-hybrid meat/egg breed for the future which will ensure that the chicks we raise are treated the best way possible, including the often unwanted male chicks.  I’m very excited and starting my research immediately!

So now on to the final round up of this year’s meat sales…

Our first slaughter dates in April were for “fryer” sized chickens at a little over 8 weeks of age.  The average weight came in at 3.54lbs per bird which was spot on with the estimates for the breed at 3-4lbs for that age.  All of the inspection related processes went swimmingly and we ran in to no problems.  We actually found that my very conservative time management estimates were extremely conservative which made for a leisurely pace throughout the actual processing process.

We were a bit surprised to realize that we had more females than males in our “straight run”.  This may have factored in to the slightly lower average weight for our second slaughter dates in May which were for “roaster” sized chickens at around 12 weeks of age.  Their average weight came in at exactly 6lbs which was a little shy of the 7-9lbs expected for the breed.  Our intent had been to slaughter the females in the first round and leave the males for the second round since they are typically a little bit larger.  We ended up with slightly more than half of the final batch being females still.  We had family and friends out to help for the second date which made the process go much faster and the friendly chatter was a welcome distraction.

Our friends over at F3 decided to process a couple of their standard breed males that were delivered in the same order as our meat birds with the second batch in May.  Despite being the exact same age, they weighed in at approximately 2-2.5lbs.  We also discovered the unique challenges of trying to pluck clean dark feathered birds.  I was surprised at such a significant size difference.  Something I certainly need to consider as we try to find a multipurpose standard breed.

The chickens processed on the second slaughter dates included the chickens we had reserved for our own freezer.  We are required to sell our chickens whole, but for our own use we part them out and vaccum seal them.  They keep extremely well that way.  Our intent was for this to be our only source of chicken for the next year, but with loses it was only 9 chickens.  We had processed 14 the year before for ourselves and it certainly wasn’t abundant so we will have to see how it goes.  Our 9 was part of the 6lb average (whole) which is 54lbs of chicken before parting.  The weight doesn’t include the offal (livers, hearts, gizzards, necks, and feet) from our own birds and the ones that customers weren’t interested in.  If you  assume ½ lb of chicken per serving, 54 lbs means chicken once a week for the two of us for the year.  Between both slaughter dates we put away an additional 3 1/2+ pounds of liver.  I didn’t even weigh the hearts and gizzards.  Necks and feet went immediately in to the stock pots along with the carcasses from our parted chickens.  The resulting “demi-glace” was pressure canned and resulted in approximately 2 gallons of concentrated stock.  That will actually get us quite far and is a staple for a lot of our favorite “faux” vegetarian dishes such as: Faux Chicken Pho, Chicken and Chive Dumplings, and Chicken Posole.

All in all I’d call this year successful!

We are having a bit of a predator problem. 

We had been monitoring the diminishing chicken population for the free-range laying flock (the “pink chickens”) farthest from the house, but it kind of came to a head a couple weeks ago when we actualy saw a full size coyote kill what turned out to be his second chicken for the morning.  Excitement abound as the dogs take their role as farm protectors quite seriously and need little encouragement to understand what wild life we consider “bad”.  We’ve had some very tired, dirty, (and slightly uncontrollable) dogs of late as soon as the lab, Mars, gets the faintest whiff or sight of the coyote and takes off like the wind in pursuit. 

We’ve been held up on clearing to get up fencing due to issues with both the chain saw and tractor so we haven’t had too many options, and the situation was slowly but surely tipping from the ‘live and let live’ to the ‘need to protect our livestock’.  The flock count has dropped to a fraction of what it was and several had taken up living in the goats barn and fenced yard.  Two more started showing up on our front porch, prefering to sleep on the porch light above our front door bell rather than take their chances elsewhere (not a bad plan really). 

So we’ve moved the remaining hens in with the “backyard flock” in the coop next to the house under Boot’s care.  I’m just really hoping the coyote doesn’t deside to venture so close to the house now that his buffet has disappeared.  He hasn’t shown interest, that we can tell, in the meat birds as they are enclosed in a chicken tractor (portable pen), but I also can’t image that poultry netting would really be that much of a hinderance if he changes his mind.

I’ve become less resistant to the shot gun being in the house in light of this turn of events.  I can say that with certainty.

In other news we sowed out all of the direct sow vegetables this past weekend and some of the transplants we started in side.  I also moved some more transplants from the house (under the growlight and with heat) to the unheated greenhouse to start their transition to the garden.  I’m still really pleased with the garden plan and guidelines provided from www.growveg.com.  It certainly made things a bit quicker and easier, particularly with Bengt’s help. 

We still need to get started on the front beds/container garden for all of our warmer weather vegetables/herbs.  I need to build two more bean teepees and plant those since I ran out of materials this weekend.  I also need to plant the few annual flowers I’m trying this year (sweet peas, nasturtiums, and poppies).  I realize the nasturtiums are actually edible, but they are going in the flower bed regardless.  We also added a few marigold seeds to the vegetable garden in the hopes of discouraging some of the bad insects.

Currently in the garden/containers/or beds:

Head and Leaf Lettuce, Miner’s Lettuce, Spinach, Mustard, Brussel Sprouts, Radishes, Carrots, Storage Onions, Sugar Snap Peas, Green Beans, Kale, Parsnips, Rhubarb, Storage Onions, Chives, Cabbage, Sorrel, Lavender, Oregano, Cascade Hops, Sage, and Blueberries.

Still to (trans)plant:

Soy Beans, Beets, Cucumbers, Summer Squash, Potatoes, Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplant, Herbs, Corn, Sunflowers, Nasturtiums.

Currently running wild:
Alpine Strawberries, Salmonberries, and Thimbleberries.

* Things we are currently harvesting.

We couldn’t have asked for a better weekend to do the bulk of our meat sales this year.  It was mild, even if a bit rainy on Saturday, and sunny and gorgeous on Sunday.  With our pre-planning of the process and our past experiences the pace I set ended up being quite prudent so things weren’t stressful.  We’ve determined we can probably process twice as many birds in the time we had scheduled.  We also learned a few more things this time around like the perfect scalding temperature/time as well as the fact that we need to invest in some professional killing cones.  The one that we had made ourselves worked okay for the larger “roasting” birds but worked somewhat poorly for the “frying” sized birds.  We had a couple instances of dislocated wings during the final death throes because we had to remove the birds from the cone.  It doesn’t impact the usefullness of the product but I was not happy with the presentation.  I am going to rectify the situation by ordering cones this week.

The Dept of Ag inspector came out on Saturday morning and was quite pleasent to chat with while we got started.  I was also quite pleased with the weights on the birds.  They came in spot on for what the breed was advertised to produce and I feel pretty good about the supplemental feed to weight conversion.  Also when isolating them to the slaughter pen (to keep the ones to be slaughtered off food for about 12 hours before hand) we were able to observe their behavior more closely and I was quite happy with how chicken-like and happy these birds seemed.  I still want to research breeds more and try to find a standard breed we like, but these didn’t seem like the franken-chicken of last year.

So now we have another weekend of work in mid-May for the “roasting” weight chickens which also includes the chickens for our family’s yearly consumption as well.  I’m not sure I want to do “frying” birds again.  They are actually a little harder to handle due to the smaller size and the aren’t any less work to slaughter.  It may sound a little weird, but we really do look at a lot of things in the terms of getting the most for the life taken.

Now I need to get focused on the garden again.  My peas are just starting to come up and it’s about timet to start transplanting, direct sowing, and succession planting some of the cooler weather vegetables.

Ok, so now that we’ve discussed that matter, you can hear about MY baby chicks! First off lemme tell you that one of mine died. =( It was a pom-pom chick aka Golden Polish. We have one little chick who isn’t doing good, she/he has spaz attacks my dad thinks it has to do with it’s nervous system. Other than that my flock is doing great! I bought 2 Dark Brauhmas, 27 Barred Rocks, and 4 (now 3) Golden Polish. We had to get up at 5 in the morning over spring break while visiting dad!!!!

We finished the hoop coop early last week and moved the meat birds in to their new “home”.  The tarping could use some work, but I was trying to save a little using some tarp scraps we had.  Despite the ugliness it seems to be keeping the chickens dry (if not terribly warm).  We will probably rework the tarping soon.  Otherwise the chickens seem much happier to be out of the brooder.  We expected to need to move the coop with the tractor but instead moved it both with the truck and by hand and it’s pretty easy to move (on flat ground anyway).  We need to reinforce a few things, but otherwise I’m quite pleased.

The tractor is supposed to be back this week, but it was also supposed to be back last week and a few weeks before that.  The dealer/service seems to find something new each time they look at it.  I’m not terribly pleased with them right now.  We’ve not had it for almost two months.  Thank goodness we don’t rely on it at this point.

I’ve got almost all of my seeds started that need to be started indoors at this point.  The girls even planted a few while they were here so I have some rather early corn (it was Eva’s choice) so we’ll see how that holds up.  I’ve already had to pot it up.  About the only thing not completely sprouted are my peppers, but that’s pretty normal.  We are scheduled to start direct sowing and getting things ready to transplant in the next few weeks so it’s time to break out the tiller and potato boxes.

• Trim goat hooves: This has to be done regularly and has historically been a two man job because we didn’t have a goat stand.  It’s MUCH easier to do with the stand and some grain to distract the girls.
• Clean chicken coop:  We do a full litter change of the cedar shed chicken coop by the house about twice a year.  We also scrubbed and sanitized their feed and water, scraped down the roosts, and refilled everything including their oyster shells and the bedding in the nesting boxes.
• Fence and reseed backyard: This isn’t really farm related but needed to be done.  Last year’s leaves suffocated the grass and the chickens have been keeping it well turned and any hint of reemerging grass eaten.  The moss was starting to take over as well.  So we fenced it off from the chickens so we could add some garden lime and reseed.  Once everything is established the chickens won’t be able to keep on top of it.
• Planted more seeds: It was time to start my tomatoes and peppers inside.  So far the only real failure I’ve had for seed starting was some chives and onions, but I already have chives so that’s not a big deal.  I may try starting onions from sets since starting from seed is so problematic.
• Scrubbed the back patio: Chickens traverse the back patio alot and even like to hang out right outside the back door.  This leads to lots of “presents” on the patio.  I still need to scrub off the front patio.

It wasn’t really on the chore list, but Mom tends to bring out the gardener in me.  We broadcast a bunch of “wildflower” mix and seeds I’d saved in to the front flower garden now that it’s been fenced off from the chickens.  Maybe I’ll have a cut flower garden after all!

About the only spring chores that are left right now are to do the spring cleaning of the goat shed (waiting on the tractor for that), finish the hoop coop, and to prep the garden.  We are off work next week so I’m sure there will be lots of activity.