THE REAL CHICKEN TRACTORS

CHICKEN TRACTOR by Andy Lee & Pat Foreman

PASTURED POULTRY PROFITS by Joel Salitin

These two books, CHICKEN TRACTOR and PASTURED POULTRY PROFITS have spawned a revolution that caught like wildfire and gave thousands of families across America the inspiration to begin raising their own pastured poultry. They have also given a model to follow that changed our eating habits by offering those of us on small land holdings a chance to raise healthy, hormone free meat. All of the sudden it was no longer out of the question to raise 75, 100, 150 or even 200 or more birds to meet the annual needs of our families. For my own family, who have always had a large garden and raised a few laying hens, this seemed like a natural continuation of traveling down this agrarian path. And so we found ourselves the caretakers of a bunch of cute, little fluff balls. Tiny yellow chicks that filled the farm store with their cheeping, beckoning all the children to come oooh and aaah at the sweet little animals, and causing even supposedly sane adults to hover over the tubs with warming lights positioned above, smiling sweetly at the helpless little chicks saying things like “Oh, aren’t they cute, we should get some of those!”. And our dominion taking instincts kicked in. We found ourselves happily carrying out a box of the little peepers along with a few bags of chick starter and some warming lights, and we were all set. Well the 1^st day or two went well and then they began to grow. And grow, and grow, and grow! And they ate voraciously. Our schooling had began and we quickly learned the ins and outs of raising your own broilers. You learn quick or they over run you! Yes, we were on our way to self sufficiency!

But there still remained a large obstacle in the path of reaching the imagined self sufficient ideal. And that was…How do we get all these birds from the pasture to the freezer? How do I process them all? I had never cleaned more than a few pheasants at a time during hunting season, and to process 50 birds at a time seemed to be an impossible task. Reality quickly set in and I knew that this was not a task that I really wanted to tackle at this point. So if you were like me you fudged a little and began to look for a commercial processor in the area. Luckily I found one who does thousands of birds each year. These folks are few and far between and we rose up and called her blessed! Just load up live chickens and in the morning we had a trunk full of frozen chickens. But as more and more people began raising their own birds, processing fees rose with the demand, we began to realize how much could be saved by doing it all ourselves. And the plucking began. The learning continued and we made it through our first year of processing our own birds.

About that time I discovered a weblog called “The Deliberate Agrarian” and his plans for the “Whizbang Chicken Plucker” Courage welled up within us and we knew that we not only could process all our birds, we could enjoy the process! What a revelation! We now had control of the whole process – from pasture to plate. And to think, it all started with the Chicken Tractor.

But that name? “CHICKEN TRACTOR” That doesn’t make any sense in my little brain. When I think of TRACTORS the picture I get is one of machines with large traction tires, turning and tilling the ground. Tractors can range in size from “HUGE” that will sleep a family of 5, down to little guys like these old 8N Fords.

But they are all used to till the soil. So putting word like chicken and tractor together conjures up visions not of birds confined to a movable cage, getting fat ,lazy and large – but of industrious, hardworking, outdoor birds, turning, tilling and improving the soil. It only stands to reason – right?

Enter the laying hens, and their rooster of course. These girls are THE REAL CHICKEN TRACTORS!

These are not lazy loafers who lay around all day in pens getting fat. These are lean, hardworking girls. Ours is a working homestead and everyone has to pull their own weight around here. We all have chores to do. These hens are multi-taskers who not only supply us with eggs, but they also spend their winter scratching, turning, and tilling the soil of our now empty garden plot. They scratch for hours, breaking up the added layer of mulch, mixing in the compost and adding their own manure to boot. They also crawl all over the compost pile digging for bugs and flattening it out so that half of my job of turning it is done before I ever pick up a pitch fork. These hardworking employees of ours greatly reduce the human workload in springtime by scratching out and eating weed and grass seeds, insects and their larva that overwinter in the soil.

At the height of the growing season we greatly appreciate these chickens for all their hard work. The difference they make in the condition of our garden is very noticeable. During the winter of 2006-2007 we didn’t let them into the main garden area because of garlic planted there in the fall and we didn’t want them destroying the green shoots. As a result, we had a much greater problem with both weeds and bugs this past summer. And all the mulch we put down in the fall had to be tilled in by the humans in the spring. We have learned our lesson and plant the garlic in a separate area away from the hens.

Note: We would never dream of letting the chickens in the garden during summer. They are very indiscriminate about what they eat and would destroy the whole garden. They instead spend their summer under the fruit trees eating grass, bugs and dropped fruit. Keeping the orchard clean.

The benefits of ranging our hens in the winter garden are also realized in a marked increase in the nutrition of the eggs they supply. According to a study sponsored by Mother Earth News, free range eggs contain;

• ½ the cholesterol

• 2 times the Vitamin E

• 7 times the Beta Carotene

• 2/3 more vitamin A

• twice the Omega 3 Fatty Acid

OUR CHICKEN TRACTORS

improving the soil

improving the harvest

improving the eggs

improving our health

They are indeed hardworking girls! It doesn’t get any better than that!

Allen