New birds
Now that we’re doing well with our chickens and planning to expand our flock to include enough chickens to provide us with meat as well as eggs, we are also adding more types of birds. I have four Bronze turkey poults in the brooder that I picked up the other day. We hope that they will turn out to be at least one boy and one girl, ideally, one tom and three hens. If so, we’ll hatch the eggs next year and sell most of the poults, but keep a few for the dinner table.
I also picked up 10 Guinea hen eggs for hatching. These will go into the incubator today, and similarly, we hope to hatch out mixed sexes so that we can not only have Guinea hen eggs to eat, but also some to hatch next spring. We’ll sell these, keeping only the best breeding stock. While Guinea hens naturally tend to roost outdoors in trees at night making them susceptible to predation in this neck of the woods, I’m told that if trained from youth to roost inside a closed coop they will retain the habit throuh adulthood. There are just too many things around here that will eat them if they roost outdoors. Bobcats, raccoons and owls can all get up into the trees to take them as they sleep. Another benefit to Guinea hens is that once they reach maturity, they derive about 90% of their food from foraging according to what I’ve been told. They walk around the yard and through the gardens searching for insects and seeds, but leave the plants alone. I couldn’t think of a better insecticide than a group of Guinea hens carefully picking insects out of the garden each day. They don’t generally scratch up the ground like chickens do so they are safe for vegetable gardens and flower beds. They are also said to be very fond of ticks. It is shaping up to be a very bad year for ticks in this part of New Hampshire, at least. Any natural aid in combatting them will be welcome.
Pheasants require annual licenses, inspections and much hassle. While we’d certainly pass any inspections with our set-up, it’s just too much trouble. So pheasants are out for the foreseeable future. Quail are very small and seem as though they might be too much effort for too little return. Perhaps, I’ll change my mind at some point. Geese are just too ornery. they are very efficient as a source of food, but I don’t want anything that aggressive. The roosters are bad enough for those that are accustomed to being around them. My goal is to select roosters with lower levels of aggression as we move forward to lessen the problem overall. They don’t pose a problem for me, but for most people the natural reaction tot he roosters behavior looks like a direct challenge from the rooster’s perspective and results in confrontation.
If I ever get around to expanding the tiny little pond that I put in last summer, then I’d like to add ducks. Duck meat is my favorite bird meat of those I’ve tried and it would be a nice change over chicken and turkey. If I can make it big enough and get the nearby stream to flow through it, I may consider adding an edible fish. The yield would be very low, but I like the idea of using the habitat to its maximum potential as long as it’s there.
Eventually, we’d like to produce all the meat we eat right here on our property.
Raising the different birds is a lot of fun. I’m a big fan of not only eating locally to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with transporting food over long distances, but also of controlling one’s own food supply. There is simply no other way to guarantee the safety of what one eats. i saw recently that only 1% of the fish being imported to the united states is actually inspected and of that 50-60% fails the inspection and is deemed unsafe for human consumption. It is certain that of the fish that isn’t inspected similar percentages are in the same condition, but end up in the supermarket and on the dinner table of unsuspecting families. Fish isn’t the only food that’s at risk. Things like spinach, tomatoes, peppers, hamburger, chicken, eggs, and many other commercially produced foods have caused major outbreaks of serious illness and thousands of deaths in the United States on an ongoing basis. It usually doesn’t even make the national news unless people are dying in multiple states and someone is able to make the connection to the source.
Gardening, raising meat and egg birds, and preserving the food you raise over the winter are the best ways to insulate yourself and your family from that. We are a long way from growing all of our food on our property, but we try to get a little closer each year. It’s also a great way to lower the amount of processed foods, sodium and chemical additives in your daily diet as well.
That’s probably enough rambling for today…
Tags: chickens, diet, fish, fish pond, gamebirds, Geese, guinea hens, health, menu, pond, quail, self-sufficiency, turkeys