Buck Cluck Squack A Doodle Do!

sustainability has been heavy on my heart for a good while now.

it's a common word in our culture today with the rising focus on green living. it's a great word, and one we should be focused on.

i'll have other posts about this, but i've been trying to approach most things from a sustainable viewpoint.

are my health habits sustainable? am i engaging in physical activity and nutritional intake that can be healthfully continued for years to come? are those activities feasible for the earth's continuance as well?

are our food habits sustainable? are we eating seasonally, are we composting and putting discard back into the earth?

are our financial habits sustainable? are we living within our means, are we planning for the future?

on and on and on.

one answer to these questions is our new friends:

In no particular order, Raven, Oriole, Blanche, Jane, Hedwig, Myrtle and Rosa Parks

after minimal research and maximum spontaneity, we came home one afternoon with 4 baby chicks. the brown and tan ones.

guys, they were the cutest thing that has ever happened.

our oldest. he would sneak into the bathroom where they were living every morning to hang out with them

SERIOUSLY CANNOT CONTAIN THE CUTENESS

guess what? chicken butt. get it?

obviously i was smitten. they're easy to care for and they have great little personalities. from the beginning i could tell who would likely end up being the top chicken in the flock order, and i was right.

it's jane.

how did i know jane would be in charge? because jane would wait for everyone to fall asleep. cuddled together. ball o' adorable fluff.

and then she wold open her little eyes ever so slightly. and look around, very gently.

and then take a running nose dive underneath everyone, waking them up and sending them scattering and then she would sleep in the middle of where they just were, nice and warm, as though nothing ever happened.

born politician, that jane.

"but wait," you are saying to yourself. "i see only 4 chickens in those pictures. there are SEVEN in your first picture. i just went back and double checked and there are 7 names as well!"

well done, observant one.

i couldn't control my feelings toward the cuteness and i bought 3 more.

the gray one and the black one were added to the flock when the bigger girls were about 2-3 weeks old.
jane was a dick about it and i took her out of the cage and made her watch everyone eat and she was
PISSED about it. but then she stopped nose-dive-running at the new babies and they were able to eat.

we had to get the next 3 as a straight run, which means we had no idea if any would be roosters.

turns out one is.

roosters are against city ordinance. but it's hedwig, and i love him, and he has ridiculous swagger. so we are going to put a crow collar on him and hope for the best.

so this brings me to sustainability again.

chickens are a sustainable thing. they eat tons of table scraps and their poop is great for compost, and they give us eggs. it's a win-win-win. sustainable system.

EXCEPT.

when one of the people in your house goes overboard and gets 7 chickens and then goes to the backyard chicken class at the extension office AFTER getting attached to 7 chickens, you find out some interesting information.

such as:

the breeds of chicken we have usually lay about 6 eggs per week. each. each chicken. 6 eggs per week.

obviously the rooster doesn't lay eggs.

we have 6 hens. 6 eggs a week per hen.

36 eggs a week.

friends.

that is not sustainable. WE WOULD ALL HAVE TO EAT 2 EGGS A DAY TO KEEP UP WITH THAT AND THE KIDS DON'T EVEN EAT EGGS!!!!!

but now i love the chickens. so the sustainability picture expanded to include sales and barters. whatever.

next problem.

the rooster.

who we are not supposed to have.

it got me thinking. chickens were made, like all other animals, to mate. studies and experience tell us that flocks are more complete with a rooster among them. roosters offer protection and are part of the flock order. and reproduction is certainly wise when it comes to a sustainable lifestyle.

if we can keep the crow quiet and don't get in trouble with the city, and we let the chickens sit on some eggs every now and again and turn them into babies……

well, then we can pick out the weak or aggressive chickens, or the extra roosters, and we suddenly have dinner. which, yes, means we have to kill chickens.

suddenly, even though i'm not necessarily excited about killing chickens, i saw the system from a much more primal stance. this is how people survived. daily eggs and what can be hunted provide protein. the chickens eat the scraps and produce poop and waste that become compost, which feeds the soil to grow better crops. the crops feed the family and the scraps feed the chickens. chickens who are poor producers, weak, or mean get killed and eaten because it's better not just for us, but for the flock. a chicken who is making no eggs is making no babies and is just eating food that could be going to productive ladies. mean chickens and weak chickens are a threat to their own flock. the rooster protects and fertilizes. two roosters in a flock is a mess. they fight and harm more than they serve.

it works.

it makes sense.

we don't need factories to feed us.

granted, balance is nice and i'm sure pioneers would have loved to have loved a hungry man or two on harvest days when mama was too sick to make dinner.

we survived this way for thousands of years.

we won't be killing the original 7 any time soon and we are a good 6 months away from the first time we will be looking at killing a chicken for dinner. i'm sure i will write about it.

i know we will face a lot of confusion and possibly a wee bit of backlash. but i hope more than anything that we can be part of a shift in this world. that we can be part of a generation that returns to the roots of ourselves, that values skill and knowledge and work, that remembers self-sufficiency and teaches it.

if not, i'm sure i'll end up homesteading somewhere, as a total social outcast :D