Holy chickens

From the Bible, the New Testament:  How often have I desired to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings… Luke 13:34. The same analogy is reported in Matthew 23:37: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

This mosaic is from Warner Memorial Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, Maryland. Thanks, Donna Ross, for bringing it to my attention!  

100 top birds at ALBC show

Backyard Poultry Invitation

The Mother Earth News Fair, a sustainability festival, will be held in Seven Springs, PA, September 21-23. A backyard poultry display will be on exhibition Saturday and Sunday of the Fair for more than 15,000 attendees, and the fair would love to include your birds and their eggs. Here’s your chance to show off your poultry … and your birds will be eligible to win a variety of prizes!

Here’s what you get for participating:

• Automatic entry for our Grand Prize Package: $500 from Manna Pro and an ALBC membership package
• All other prize winners win a Manna Pro gift basket filled with poultry products
• Free entry for all your birds
• Sell your birds with no fees (regular sales booths start at $399)
• Free 3-day admission to the Fair for you and your assistants ($35 value per ticket)
• Register to win a flock of heritage chickens with the Mother Earth News Heritage Chicken Starter Kit Giveaway (more than $1,000 value)
• Share your experience, expertise and enthusiasm with beginners

Please note that this is not an official APA-sanctioned poultry show.
ALBC will judge birds in the following categories:

• Prettiest Hen (or female bird)
• Most Handsome Rooster (or male bird)
• Best Crow
• Most Flamboyant Bird
• Largest Eggs
• Smallest Eggs
• Most Knowledgeable Owner

The Grand Prize Package will go to the People’s Choice winner, which will be chosen by Fair attendees.

All birds must be NPIP-certified. An Official Owner Endorsed Poultry Health Certificate (OEPC) must accompany all out of state poultry, waterfowl, upland game birds, ratites, and pigeons. The Fair will provide food, water and overnight supervision for your birds during the event. Cages will be provided by request.

To display your birds, email Erica Binns at ebinns@ogdenpubs.com or call 785-274-4307. Only 100 birds can be admitted, with a maximum of four birds of each breed type, so act quickly!

Learn radio with the Kitchen Sisters

For those of you on the West Coast interested in learning to use radio as a reporting medium, here's a great opportunity:

Dear Friends,

Davia Nelson of The Kitchen Sisters is holding two recording and interviewing workshops on Thursday, July 19 in San Francisco. These three-hour sessions are designed for people who want to acquire and hone their skills in an array of audio projects--radio, online storytelling, oral histories, audio slide shows, family histories, news, documentaries, podcasts, and other multimedia platforms.

In the workshops, Davia will cover interviewing, miking techniques, sound gathering, use of archival audio, field recording techniques, how to make interviewees comfortable, how to frame evocative questions that make for compelling storytelling, how to build a story and how to listen (which is harder than it looks).

The workshop is customized to fit the projects you are working on. People who attend come from radio, film, multimedia, newspapers, journalism, photography, oral history, historical societies, farms, music, writing, libraries, archives, web design,detective agencies, restaurants, health care organizations, and beyond. The groups are always lively and good contacts are made.

The workshops are held in Francis Coppola's historic Zoetrope building in North Beach at 916 Kearny St. Of course, a snack will be served.

Morning Workshop: 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Afternoon Workshop: 2:30 PM - 5:30 PM

Each session is $115.

If you, or someone you know is interested, email kitchen@kitchensisters.org. Please pass this along to your community.

Expand your skills, meet new people, support the work of The Kitchen Sisters.

See you there,

The Kitchen Sisters

Win a chicken tote!

Terry Golson is giving away one of her attractive tote bags, made from empty feed bags. Nothing wasted at Terry's farm!

This one is made from a Purina Layena bag showing a Barred Rock on the front.

"To enter, simply tell me here what you would put in the bag. You can enter a second time on FaceBook – simply click “like” on this post in FB. You can enter a THIRD time by forwarding the post to your FB friends. If you’re not a FaceBook friend, do become one! I post photos there that you don’t see at HenCam. I’ve got a busy week – it’s Brimfield again, and I’ll be looking for more finds to post on The Vintage Hen – so I’ll let this contest run through Friday, July 13. The contest will close at 9 PM EDT. I value my international friends, so, yes, I’ll ship this to anywhere in the world! Good-luck!"

This bag is large enough to carry my Speckled Sussex hen and her Coronation Sussex chick, now five weeks old!

Farm Street Chickens

Jim Hightower reports on a feral flock in Texas:

 

Some people complain that their town has gone to the dogs. Bastrop, Texas has gone to the chickens — and Bastropians are proud of it.

Well, most Bastropians.

While other cities might boast of their historic sites or cultural offerings, the good folks of this easy going, free-spirited community near Austin have chosen to highlight a flock of feral chickens that has lived for years on (the appropriately named) Farm Street. No one owns these roosters, hens, and chicks. They take care of themselves, eating bugs and clucking contentedly from yard to yard. Yes, they cross the road for no apparent reason.

It's a quirky phenomenon that fits right in with this town of delightfully quirky folks. Three years ago, some of them got the city council to enshrine the quirkiness by designating their area "The Farm Street Historical Chicken Sanctuary." This proclamation provides protected status for the flock. Everyone smiled, the chickens clucked, and all was well.

 

Until this spring, when Beverly Hoskins raised a ruckus in the henhouse, figuratively speaking. As the owner of several rental houses along Farm Street, she wants the council to consider repealing the proclamation, complaining that "a lot of chicken waste" was being spread by the daily promenade.

The denizens of Farm Street, however, flocked to defend the fowls, asserting that wild chickens are an integral part of "Bastrop culture." One lady who rents one of Hoskins' houses said of the chickens that roost in a tree in her yard: "I welcome them." Another neighbor pointed out that "Hey, the chickens were here first… And it is 'Farm Street'!"

The flock's fate is still up in the air, but the council recently hinted at its sentiments by authorizing some banners on Farm Street telling motorists to slow down. After all, they're driving through a chicken sanctuary.