We are DOOMED as a Society able to feed ourselves.
We are DOOMED as a Society able to feed ourselves.
Also - wouldn’t it make great sense for all no-kill shelters to keep chickens as a matter of course, anyway? Eggs are a great source of protein for dogs and cats that are off their feed due to stress or recovering from injury or illness.
$20K on Vet bills for CHICKENS? Zoykes. I have literally raised HUNDREDS of chickens from chicks to layers and have yet to take a single one to the vet - for anything. WTH are people doing to their chickens? They’re like the easiest, healthiest, self-contained critter there ever was. PLUS - they eat icky BUGS!
Oy! If only there was something you could do with a chicken you didn't need anymore!
"Other organizations" like KFC or Popeye's.
Those birds just flu away.
Certain breeds of meat chickens only take about 12 weeks to reach harvest age/weight.
My first thought.
What a load of chicken shit. We have over a 100 chickens on my farm and I have never spent 1 dime on veterinary care on any of them. This is shameless appeal for people to donate to these “sanctuaries or rescues” places.
My horses and dog are a different matter
“Of course, there could be other reasons that people have had to surrender their backyard birds other than “I just don’t want them anymore.” As NPR previously noted, some armchair farmers could’ve learned about local regulations that affect their flock—or specifically prohibit roosters from living within city limits—after they brought the animals home, or the hens that they bought to lay eggs have stopped, you know, doing that.”
This part is what’s really sad you done need a Rooster to make eggs!!!!
I prefer to spatchcock birds. Cooks more evenly.
Another thing just turn them loose. When I used to live there was flock of ‘wild’ chickens down the street from me. Most had gotten loose from their coop and were just running around being chickens. They were making more chickens and lived just fine on their own.
Eating the chicken is easy. Dispatching one for the first time and then prepping it to eat is the hard part, especially if it’s your first time and you only have a handful of birds that were until recently treated as pets and not livestock.
I’m not going to fault someone who hasn’t lived a life that involved slaughtering your own meat to feel unprepared when thrust into that situation as an adult. If anything, it’s an opportunity for some enterprising hillbilly to get a chicken prep truck together and start making house calls.
For only twenty five dollars per chicken, I’ll pick up your chicken, professionally dispatch and dress it, and return it to you in a vaccuum sealed plastic bag. Plenty of buji would-be farmers out there (who already paid well over five hundred dollars to kit up their yard for a few dozen eggs and a lot of chicken crap on their back porch) would jump at the chance to brag about how rustic and “back to roots” their next dinner party was by serving chickens raised in their own yards just like a real farmer.
You CAN NOT RETURN CHICKENS! WTH.
People complicate things way too much. I have 3 chickens in the back yard. I built a nice henhouse from culled lumber. I used a piece of wood from the bathroom remodel for the bottom and a bunch of cut 2x4’s some siding and a sheet of plywood from home depot. All damaged or scraps. I had some old shingles in the attic which I made a roof from. The only wood I bought new was the two 4x4 fence posts cut in half to make the corners. My wife spent more on paint than I spent on wood.
Then we put up a 500 dollar dog kennel to keep the chickens in and the dogs out. Chicken wire roof to keep raccoons and birds out. I put a 4” ABS pipe and a couple of elbows to make a feeder. A 50 dollar chicken waterer to keep them hydrated. We let them out some days to forage.
We can go away for 11 days and the chickens will be just fine. Worst case scenario is we have 33 eggs when we get back. I tell you what, if you crack open one of our free range organic sustainable home grown chicken eggs next to the one from the store, the difference is eye popping and jaw dropping. Huge golden yolks and nice thick shells. You just don’t get them.
Where we used to live we had several people who raised chickens for eggs but could not stand to slaughter them.
So we ran a chicken retirement home.
I will bet these urban “farmers” regularly eat delicious chicken of all manner. Not ever thinking that their birds are exactly the same. “Why do I need to kill my chickens when chicken comes from the grocery store?”
“The sanctuary houses around 150 birds, and it might spend as much as $20,000 every year on veterinary care for the chickens” REALLY??? $133 per chicken per year???
For those of you that have chickens or birds....just be aware of histoplasmosis.
Many people haven’t heard of it. You can see what it does to your organs on a CT scan. Crafty disease that does many different things to the body.
My idea of "chicken rescue" involves a Dutch Oven.
Slice some sweet potatoes, put them at the bottom with a little olive oil and season. Lay the seasoned bird on top and stick in a 400 degree oven for about 90 minutes or until it reaches 160 degrees on the inside. Then let rest for about a half hour.
Perfect every time and all the drippings saturate those sweet potato slices.
Ha...seriously!! Doomed indeed.
