National Tropical Botanical Garden

The National Tropical Botanical Garden invited me to attend its Environmental Journalism Fellowship program, http://ntbg.org/programs/education-crsint.php#18. It's a week of classes and field experiences on Kauai, the Garden Island of Hawaii.

The materials from the program explain: The NTBG is a network of five gardens in Hawaii and Florida, encompassing tremendous ecological diversity and a broad range of tropical plant species. The mission of the NTBG is to enrich life through discovery, scientific research, conservation and education by perpetuating the survival of plants, ecosystems and cultural knowledge of tropical regions.

One of the reasons I wanted to attend is to understand the tropical ecosystems better so that I can understand Avian Influenza better.

The NTBG includes a newly-incorporated not-for-profit Institute for Ethnomedicine, which studies plants used by indigenous ethnic groups for medicinal purposes. It is working to develpp village-based pharmaceutical industries in Samoa and Tonga and focuses on the preservation of indigenous cultures. The institute participates in equitable benefit-sharing activities for any discoveries made from its research.

The program includes meals made from traditional foods, so I look on this as a rare opportunity to learn about traditional Hawaiian foodways.

"Each day during this intensive course, we will leave in the morning and not return until late in the evening," the syllabus says. I'm packing my sandals.

Central Illinois Poultry Show

This Saturday, May 19, I will set up the SPPA table at the Central Illinois Poultry Show at Exposition Gardens in Peoria, Illinois. This show attracts Standard and Bantam chickens, Turkeys, Waterfowl and Guineas. So if you are in the area, come by. As poultry shows traditionally are, it is free to the public.

Coop-in starts at 6:30 am and judging begins at 9. The show concludes in the afternoon.

In this picture, poultry judge Butch Gunderson of Wisconsin shows how to place your fingers between the chicken's legs to hold it for judging. Additional photos in my book, "How to Raise Chickens," show how the judge examines a bird and tells what the judge is looking for.

SPPA will donate a Marans cookbook to the raffle. I'll have Backyard Poultry magazines as well as SPPA literature at the table, and of course I'll sign copies of my book.

Javas

Garfield Farm Museum in la Fox, Illinois, www.garfieldfarm.org, has been instrumental in recovering the Java, a breed that originated in the Indonesian island for which it was named. Javas came to the U.S. around 1835 and are considered an American foundation breed.

In this picture from Garfield Farm, Javas sit on the fence with Narragansett turkeys. Most Javas are black, but a white strain appeared during hatching large numbers of eggs, and eventually an auburn strain emerged.

Buffalo gnats, nasty biting insects, have hatched in such large numbers that they are killing chickens in West Central Illinois. A breeder in Golden, Illinois reports that 25 of his best Black Java breeding birds were killed by the gnats. Only two of his Auburn Javas were killed and none of his Whites, so color made a difference on his farm.

However, in a news story from the Qunicy Herald Whig, http://www.whig.com/335364747924294.php, a poultry farmer reported her entire flock of three-week-old Cornish Rock crosses, a white hybrid, was killed.

Pyrethrin sprays have some effectiveness against the gnats. DEET is also useful, but more toxic than pyrethrins. Physical means of keeping the gnats off birds, such as fans, are helping. The gnats are day feeders, so birds may be protected by keeping them in a dark barn.

The gnats' three-week life cycle depends on cool running water, below 75 degrees. As the land dries out and gets warmer, hatching will abate. Until then, these critters will be a plague.

Anyone with experiences with these insects is invited to share your story here.

Buckeyes

A local chicken owner contacted me the other day with some surplus chicks. She had ordered the requisite 25 from a hatchery, but was limited by Madison’s local ordinance to four hens. So she was willing to part with the extras.

Chicks are shipped in batches of not less than 25 because that number maintains the warmth they need to survive the trip. Newly hatched chicks are the best to ship, because they do not need food or water for the first 24 hours. They are still absorbing nutrients from their gestation, so they tolerate the shipping process without much disruption or mortality.

This chicken owner was getting started with Buckeyes, an impressive American breed named for its color and its origin in Ohio, the Buckeye state. Their feathers are a rich, deep chestnut. The limitations of electronic reproduction can’t do justice to the color in this excellent photo, taken by Corallina Breuer. Make it a point to seek out Buckeyes at the next show you attend and appreciate their color.

One friend adopted four of the chicks, hoping that his broody Cochin would take them on as her own. She started out a bit chilly, but the chicks were following her around. Slipping babies under the wing of a sleeping hen after dark can help the hen and chicks bond.

One can’t help but think about how miraculous such an event must be for a maternal hen. No setting required, here’s your family!

Another contact reminisced about the chickens he helped his mother raise back when he was a pre-schooler, in 1926-27. “I recall how proud the old hen was as she led her new brood across the yard,” he wrote.

Red Junglefowl

A remarkable young man with a taste for adventure and a passion for chickens is going to India to pursue the wild antecedents of domestic chickens.

Red Junglefowl still live in the wild state in India and other parts of Asia. Tomas Condon, a student at the University of Connecticut, will spend the next month traveling the area in search of these rare birds.

He has established a relationship with Dr. Raul Khul of the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun. He will confer with Dr. Khul before setting out to photograph and video Red Junglefowl in their wild state.

Although the birds can and do interbreed with domestic chickens, pure birds have been identified in northern India, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal. Mr. Condon hopes to bring some of these birds back to the U.S.

If he is able to get the requisite import documents, he will bring birds back to breeding programs at New York's Central Park Zoo, the Bronx Zoo and private breeding flocks.

Avian Influenza has not been reported in the areas where Mr. Condon will be seeking Red Junglefowl. Biosecurity practices require testing and quarantine to protect against spreading any disease.

I only wish I were going with him! I'll have to be satisfied with his reports, which I will share as I get them.

Conner Prairie

Conner Prairie, www.connerprairie.org, is a living history museum in Fishers, Indiana, just northeast of Indianapolis. The site manager there is an advocate of historic breeds and has a special interest in chickens, so the museum offers chicken events and makes its chickens available to visitors.

In this picture, costumed interpreter Mike Goss introduces young guests to a chicken in Conner Prairie's 1836 Prairietown. This chicken looks like a Light Brahma to me, which would be historically accurate for that period. Documentation for the breed indicates that birds of the breed, then called Brahma Pootra, were imported to the U.S. for the first time in 1846 from China. Their large size and regal bearing attracted many fanciers. They lay brown eggs and are known for their calm temperament, making them a good choice for their role as historic interpreters to the public.

We are traveling through Indiana and plan to visit Conner Prairie, which we first visited when we attended the Crossroads National Poultry Show in 2006. It is a wonderful site, well worth making time for a vacation visit.

Contaminated chicken feed

Chickens at around 30 broiler poultry farms in Indiana have been fed feed contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine and related compounds, http://tinyurl.com/38hmfb. The chemicals have been identified as contaminating wheat gluten added to the feed, the same route whereby pet food that has killed many animals was contaminated.

The chickens have already been processed into meat and are in stores and on your table. Commercial chickens are overwhelmingly Cornish/Rock hybrid crosses like the ones in this picture from the USDA.

The Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2007/NEW01621.html, have not initiated any recall of the chicken products in question, since there is no documented harm to humans from the chemicals, or from eating chicken contaminated with them.

More than 100 brands of pet food have been recalled since the contamination was identified March 16. Sixteen pet deaths have been confirmed, but the true total is unknown. The FDA is tracking around 8,000 reports.

This episode is shining the spotlight on how food animals are raised and how chicken meat gets to our tables. It’s not a pretty picture. These chemicals have been identified. What else are you eating along with your fried chicken?

The industrial model which American agriculture has adopted produces a lot of food at low cost, but its vertical integration makes it vulnerable to massive failure. Contamination disperses through the system rapidly and is then delivered to food retailers in many states within a short period of time. It’s on our tables and in our mouths, making us the test of what sickens us.

We need a strong food system to feed every American. The greatest strength lies in a diversified food system that offers fresh food from a variety of local sources, not a vertically integrated corporate conglomerate that treats animals as industrial units contributing to the bottom line.

Your own small flock of chickens, or the eggs and meat you buy from a local farmer, is the best assurance of safe, nutritious food.