Rent-a-Chicken

Down Under in Australia, some chicken folks have come up with a good idea: Rent-a-Chicken:

CLUCKY Victorian families who want fresh eggs but are afraid to commit are renting chickens to try before they buy.

Sarah McKay, 37, dreamed of bringing up chickens in her Greensborough back yard, but was not sure she could handle them.

So when she heard about rental chickens she jumped at the chance.

"It was something I always wanted to do, but it just seems like a really big thing," she said. "I didn't want to just launch into it."

The mum of two convinced her husband, Nathan, 42, and at Easter they paid $150 to rent a coop and two female chickens, Maggie and Bianca, who have become part of the family.

"It really allowed us to see exactly what it was going to be like," she said.

This is a great idea, a way for interested folks to try out chickens as a home project without getting involved in building a permanent coop and making the full commitment. Thanks for finding another route to extend better chicken welfare and better food to more people. Every person who keeps a few hens for eggs is one less customer for the egg industry.

Hobby Farm Home

The September/October issue of Hobby Farm Home features my article about Chickens in the Classroom on the cover. It's also posted on the web site.

The article was fun to write. I talked with old friends and made some new ones about how they are using chickens in the classroom. There's so much to learn and chickens provide an entry point for every subject I could think of. Chickens engage kids' interest and get them focused on what's going on. Kids. like this boy, love chickens.

Find it at your local bookstore.

Pet Chickens

A local reporter has some fun with the Silkies who live there. This is Snooki and Gaga.

The article alerted me to the news that Tori Spelling carries around her pet white Silkie, Coco.
Chickens have been regaining the status that they enjoyed in past cultures. These high-profile chickens help acquaint the chicken-less public with the charming side of chickens. Thanks for brightening my day!

All Cooped Up

Dedicated poultry judge Pat Lacey has applied herself to the task of recording the history of the American Bantam Association. She has published it as All Cooped Up, available from major booksellers for $19.99. Order it from her personally and she'll sign it for you, as I got mine. I do that for readers who purchase books from me.

Pat has researched her subject thoroughly and has documented fascinating details, such as the inability of breeders to agree on standards at the first American poultry shows in 1849 and 1850. Imagine the uproar! That chaos and contention led to the establishment of the APA and then the ABA. Her chapter on the Pioneers, Artists and Illustrators of the ABA could inspire books in themselves, biographies of the amazing people who devoted their time and talents to poultry. Information on these individuals is difficult to find and Pat has done us all a real service by compiling it and making it available.

Pat has included a section of illustrations that I've never seen before, such as the 100 men of the APA in 1874 and pictures of F.L. Sewell and A. O. Schilling. I'm confident that I'll refer to this book for research in the future. It will enrich the work I do on history of poultry breeds. It tells a compelling story of the personalities and events that mark American poultry history.

It's also available as an e-book. Thanks for adding this important work to our poultry heritage, Pat!

New girls in town

The Speckled Sussex, here in front, is perhaps slightly more lively than her Partridge Rock sister, center, but they are a good pair. The two hens have taken a serious interest in educating these new girls. They are all getting along well. Buttercup hen Rosie keeps an eye on the young girls.

Barred Plymouth Rocks were recognized in the first Standard of Excellence in 1874, but the Partridge variety wasn't recognized until 1910, along with the Columbian. White, Buff and Silver Penciled varieties had already been accepted. The latest variety added was the Blue in 1920.

The Partridge color pattern is beautiful. Each feather has three or more pencil marks on it. The Standard specifies that "Pencilings in all Partridge varieties should be distinct in sharp contrast to the ground color, be regular in shape, uniform in width, and conform to the contour of the feather."

This young pullet has penciling that gleams iridescent green in the sun. I haven't been able to capture it in a photo. I find in the 1921 Second Edition of the APA Plymouth Rock and Standard Book that "Lustrous, greenish-black pencilings sometimes appear and are very pretty, though the Standard does not require penciling of such pronounced black." Only a pullet, and already a star.

New pullets!

Two new pullets joined my flock yesterday! A Speckled Sussex and a Partridge Rock, four months old, hatched in February. They are adorable, like leggy young teenagers. We introduced them to our current two girls, the White Dorking we hatched last June and the Buttercup we acquired from friend Barbara Bullock, last night before sunset.

We placed them in a cage inside the chicken house, where they could spend the evening and the early morning getting acquainted. We planned to separate them with a fence for a few more days, but these girls short-circuited that. They promptly flew to the top of the fence and over into the run with the grown-ups.

It's going well thus far. I put plenty of scratch along the run. The run gives them plenty of space to escape, when they need to. For now, everyone is settled down to scratching and packing.

I was excited to have the opportunity to acquire this Speckled Sussex from Larry Stallings, APA judge and local president of the Central Coast Feather Fanciers. She's a beauty -- I'll post pictures soon. This illustration was originally a free gift with Feathered World magazine back in 1912. It's reproduced in David Scrivener's Popular Poultry Breeds. From top left to right, it shows Brown, Light Speckled and Red varieties.

The illustration of Speckled Sussex was also included with your 1929 Feathered World magazine. The Sussex was developed from English flocks in that county in the late 19th century, recognized in the early 20th century as a distinct breed with four varieties.

Welcome to my flock!

National Geographic targets heritage breeds

Food Ark

"A crisis is looming: To feed our growing population, we’ll need to double food production. Yet crop yields aren’t increasing fast enough, and climate change and new diseases threaten the limited varieties we’ve come to depend on for food. Luckily we still have the seeds and breeds to ensure our future food supply—but we must take steps to save them."

The article opens with a two-page spread of heritage chicken breeds, including this Silver Gray Dorking rooster, and includes them as important to food security. I like to think my work helped influence featuring chickens prominently.

"People eat more eggs and poultry than ever, but the world’s reliance on a few high-yielding breeds is edging out hundreds of others: Nearly a third of chicken breeds are at risk of extinction. That’s alarming because many varieties have traits, like heat or pathogen resistance, that could be invaluable in the future."

The article also notes that the legacy knowledge of breeders is vital to conserving heritage breeds.

"Still, storing seeds in banks to bail us out of future calamities is only a halfway measure. Equally worthy of saving is the hard-earned wisdom of the world's farmers, generations of whom crafted the seeds and breeds we now so covet. Perhaps the most precious and endangered resource is the knowledge stored in farmers' minds."

The article takes a broad view of the subject and covers important points, such as the claim that only high-yield hybrid crops can feed the world. The opposite is true: those crops are depleting the soil and pointing the world toward food shortages. Thanks to National Geographic for taking on this important issue.