Backyard chickens have enjoyed a renaissance in popularity in recent years, and with a rise in popularity comes a rise in costs — for hens, for feed, for all things chicken. This trend has touched Farmcolony as well as we have seen the costs of raising chickens on the farm continue to go up.
And the craze is only getting worse. Raising chickens has become one of the hottest trends during COVID-19. Google searches for the term “live chickens” recently spiked to the highest point in five years, interest in backyard chicken coops has exploded, and hatcheries across the country have sold out in the wake of runaway demand. We’ve all read about toilet paper and dried beans. Now people are stockpiling chicks, too.
Brace yourself! Backyard bird owners are entering a new phase: Pampering their chickens as if they were, like, pets or something. They are building more elaborate coops with chandeliers, artwork, painted ladder roosting bars and hand-made curtains for nesting boxes. They are indulging their feathered friends with gourmet treats and dressing them up in designer outfits. Startups such as pamperyourpoultry.com sell chicken dresses and tutus, and colorful, hand-sewn diapers for chickens (should you want to bring them into the house).
I’m sure Dieter would agree. People have lost their clucking minds! And their ride on the cray-train is affecting all of us with higher prices on all things chicken-related. (My apologies to anyone who dresses their chickens in tutus, but you gotta admit…)
The Farmcolony Deed of Dedication says we should cover the direct cost of what we produce. The cost of what it takes to raise our chickens has gone up and that has meant an increase in our egg prices as well. But, as Roberta explains, “There’s a quality to our eggs and to the life of our hens that you’re not getting in a lot of other eggs on the market. When you look at the price of our chickens and eggs, you have to know a little bit about what makes eggs really be free-range, really be pastured and all these other terms that are used as marketing terms that don’t reflect chickens (like ours) who are checked twice a day, living in a clean environment, being tested for disease, living in the proper numbers for their flock size and all these kinds of things.”
It’s a fact. There is a big difference in the eggs and the chickens that are sold today versus eggs sold 10 years ago. Changes in the quality of the birds raised for the mass production of eggs have reduced the overall physical quality of standard egg-laying hens. “Rhode Island Reds have been so commercialized and so crossed that it’s really difficult to know what you’re going to get,” according to Roberta. “They’ve also been bred to breed out their sociability, so you get roosters that have no idea how to be roosters and tend to be very violent towards their girls and toward each other and towards those who tend the flock.”
To address the changes and the costs of raising our chickens, the chicken committee is a’changin to reflect the times. With an eye to the future, Kathy and Roberta, using their own funds, are piloting a new flock of heritage birds that could potentially reduce costs to the farm. According to Roberta, “Unless we can reduce the costs of raising chickens—and we are cut to the bone now—we need to learn to do it smarter. While there is much to be said about how important it is to raise all animals humanely and with respect for their own species’ needs, it’s also important to see how that can be cost-effective, as well as environmentally enriching at the same time. That’s why we are looking at heritage breeds.”
The idea, Roberta adds, is to phase out the farm’s use of high production but short-laying chickens. “Industry practices dictate that at the end of a year the birds we get should be culled. Keeping them means declining yield from birds that keep eating the same amount. Humanely raised birds of this kind from experienced individual growers usually are around $20 per bird (they used to be $8.00 in 2008, considered shocking then). This price is reasonable; it costs nearly the same for us to raise them here. Either way, it gets expensive quickly. So you want your birds to last.”
“The literature suggests that heritage birds can produce nearly the same number of eggs, of better quality, and they lay for many years, even up to 5, 7, and even 10 years,” Roberta continued. “They work well on pasture, which we have. They are good foragers, which cuts down the cost of feed.
“Also, and the most exciting thing to me, there are no heritage breeders in this part of the country. They just don’t do it,” Roberta added. “We’re getting our eggs from Chicago. If we manage do this right, and we can raise those birds here, especially our Swedish Flower Hens, which are amazing birds that are endangered, we could sell the eggs in utero for people who want to hatch eggs. We could sell baby chicks. Baby chicks cost $23 a chick. With our current birds, we can’t produce our own chickens because they’re hybrid birds and do not produce good second-generation chicks. As our pilot program starts to gain a little bit of footing, we think, we hope, we might be able to bring more money to the farm than we are spending now.”
What exactly are heritage birds?
According to the Livestock Conservancy, “Heritage breeds are traditional livestock breeds that were raised by our forefathers. These are the breeds of a bygone era, before industrial agriculture became a mainstream practice. These breeds were carefully selected and bred over time to develop traits that made them well-adapted to the local environment and they thrived under farming practices and cultural conditions that are very different from those found in modern agriculture.”
Today, breeds used in modern agriculture have been specifically selected for intensive production including rapid growth, feed efficiency, or other targeted production characteristics and many of our heritage breeds have fallen out of favor with large scale agriculture and are in danger of extinction. Efforts are underway to conserve these breeds whose genetics retain essential attributes for survival and self-sufficiency – fertility, foraging ability, longevity, maternal instincts, ability to mate naturally, and resistance to diseases and parasites. They are well-adapted to their environments, and thrive in pasture-based settings.
The Livestock Conservancy’s sole purpose is “to protect endangered livestock and poultry breeds from extinction.” Why? According the Conservancy’s website, “Rare farm animals represent an irreplaceable piece of earth’s biodiversity and offer incredible variety that may be needed for future farms – robust health, mothering instincts, foraging, and the ability to thrive in a changing climate. These farm animals are a vital part of ensuring food security for our planet – now and for the future.”
Heritage breeds store a wealth of genetic resources that are important for our future and the future of our agricultural food system. “Developing a marketplace for endangered breeds is a critical piece of conserving them for the future and central to the Livestock Conservancy’s mission,” according to the Conservancy’s website. The Livestock Conservancy recognizes that many of America’s once-common farm animals face extinction if we do not take action now.
Swedish Flower and Ohio Buckeyes
Roberta and Kathy have chosen two heritage groups to raise on the farm–Swedish Flower and Ohio Buckeyes.
The Swedish Flower hen has the distinction of being a landrace chicken, meaning a breed that adapted naturally to the environment in which they lived. The weak did not survive (Darwin’s principle at work). They evolved to become very adept at survival in the sometimes-harsh climate of southern Sweden and became the traditional farm hen of that region.
The Swedish Flower Hen is beautiful to look at and comes in a wide variety of rich and striking colors. The name translates as ‘Skane Bloom-hen’; appropriate since the color feather patterns evoke the image of a mesh of wildflowers.
The Swedish Flower hen is said to be a confident, calm and poised bird that loves to free range, is predator savvy and enjoys its independence, although they do tolerate confinement. They are curious about their surroundings and enjoy investigating new things. They are also described as quick learners and very smart birds. The hens produce a decent amount of eggs per week.
Although the bird can function well independently when foraging for food, they seem to seek out and enjoy human interaction and could become a pet very quickly if allowed! (Bring out your tutus!) They are a non-aggressive breed, friendly and quite social, so acceptable for children.
The origins of the Swedish Flower can only be guessed at, but it is likely that seafarers and settlers brought chickens to remote settlements in trade for other things and also as a food source. It has been written about at least 300 years ago in various documents from that period. They would have contributed eggs and meat to the farmer and the feathers were used to fill comforters, it’s unlikely that they were cared for as livestock. They would have fended for themselves and did a respectable job of it too.
As with many older breeds, the rise of the industrial hen almost saw the extinction of this lovely, hardy bird. By the 1970s’ very few were left in Sweden. A few isolated flocks were found and a restoration and breeding plan was put into place by the Swedish Genetic Project. The object of the Project is to raise the awareness and numbers of this endangered species and to preserve their status as a heritage hen.
Ohio Buckeye chickens are uniquely American. They are the only American chicken bred by a woman, Mrs. Nettie Metcalf of Warren, Ohio. She described their color as “garnet”, but named them Buckeye because their color resembled that of the ripe buckeye nut from her home state.
Buckeyes were bred specifically to thrive under harsh conditions, withstand heat and cold, and are excellent foragers. A dual-purpose breed of chicken with a deep, lustrous red color of plumage, the Buckeye adapts readily to a variety of living conditions, but they do best under free-range conditions or conditions where they have room to move around.
Buckeye egg production is typically described as being between 150 – 200 eggs per year; however, egg-laying has improved in recent years to 175 – 240 eggs per year. Some breeders continue to work at selecting Buckeyes for egg production, and today there are Buckeye lines that are known for production rates that are even higher.
They are very active with a personality all their own, and are especially vigilant in the pursuit of mice – some breeders compare them to cats in regard to this ability. Being very inquisitive, Buckeyes tend to run toward humans, rather than away like many chickens. They also seem to lack the tendency to feather-pick each other.
Buckeye roosters are known for their gentle dispositions, excellent flock protection skills, and a wide range of vocalizations. The males emit a full range of sounds beyond those typical of many other chicken breeds. It’s not unusual to hear everything from a purr to a roar from a Buckeye.
Ohio Buckeyes were a very popular homestead chicken for nearly fifty years because of their hardiness, productivity, foraging ability, and inquisitive nature. However, after World War II, poultry production commercialized and moved indoors, and the Buckeyes were never selected by commercial producers. That, along with the demise of backyard flocks in the US during the last half of the 20th century, Buckeyes became classified as critically endangered. In 2003, there were less than 72 known breeding birds left in the United States.
In 2007, Buckeyes shocked the chicken exhibition world by winning Reserve Grand Champion in the American class at the Ohio Nationals. Since then, Buckeyes have won numerous Reserve Grand Champion, Champion American, and Champion Large Fowl awards, and in May of 2013, again made history when a Buckeye was awarded “Best of Show”.
Buckeye chickens are increasingly popular, and in 2011 Buckeyes were upgraded from “Critical” to “Threatened” status based on 2010 census data reporting more than 2,400 birds. Today, it’s estimated that there are more than 5,000 Buckeyes, and Mrs. Metcalf’s “garnet” birds have become, in the words of Better Hens and Gardens, the red-feathered jewels of the chicken world.
Heritage birds, like the Swedish Flower and Buckeye, have a lot of qualities that should eventually cut the costs of raising chickens on the farm and still raise the quality of the egg, according to Roberta. “That’s what we hope, anyway. That’s what the experiment is about.”
