Insect and Worm Farming – An Unusual Way To Make Extra Money

November 21, 2014August 21, 2017 by John White

Hens love bugs and so do fish. Worm farming is one way to provide a steady supply of food for both. If you’ve never thought about farming worms and bugs, look at some of the many potential benefits:

1. It is an inexpensive and unique way to keep your chickens fed with a high quality, natural protein source that will provide you with rich, yellow yolked eggs even in the winter
2. Your garden will thrive when it is full of earthworms and beneficial insects like ladybugs
3. Not only from the worms themselves, but the ‘worm tea’ they produce is a wonderful natural fertilizer for growing plants
4. When it’s time for fishing season, you’ll always have worms at hand
5. Also come fishing season, you can sell some of your extra worms as bait
6. Don’t forget other insects, though. You can sell some of those to your neighbors, too

The best time to start thinking about an addition like this is winter or what I call prime planning weather. Spring comes around faster than we are ready for it sometimes, so if you’re thinking that having a worm box or insect box might not be a bad idea then start looking for a place to put your new friends. This company has a great FAQ section and their products are available in the US, Australia, Canada, and several other countries.

Tumbleweed.co.au

It’s too complicated to get into the how-to on my blog here, but I wanted to put forth worm and insect farming as an idea that is rarely considered. It can be as big or small as you want, but the rewards are very gratifying for those who love to homestead.

A Little Cluck Therapy

December 15, 2013 by John White

I read an article recently about a three year old autistic boy in Florida who has therapy chickens. I’ve had a few people email me about therapy chickens the past couple of months so I’ve done some looking into it. Most people think of therapy animals as being dogs or cats, maybe even horses. But in recent years chickens have become an incredibly popular therapy animal for people with a number of different disorders from autism, to blindness, to seizures.

Most of us already know how much our personal flocks can lift our spirits just by looking at them. Chickens are hilarious! They have little personalities and do some really silly and just downright stupid things. They chase each other around, chase us around, maybe sometimes chase the dog, too. Nothing makes me laugh more than to see our great dane run away from a flock of chickens. That’s some therapy, there.

But aside from their entertainment value, chickens have been found to be especially helpful to autistic and asperger’s kids. The little boy in Florida I mentioned previously, his parents have said that the hens have helped bring him ‘out of his shell’ metaphorically speaking. He makes eye contact now, his personality has calmed down, and he laughs and smiles more easily than before.

The chickens, which he calls his ‘ducks’, run around the yard with him, and let him cuddle them. His parents apparently picked very docile breeds. I think I spotted a Faverolle in one of the pictures somewhere but maybe I’m wrong. They’re a wonderful breed for therapy.

This boy and others like him aren’t the only ones who have been benefiting lately from therapy chickens. Since chickendiapers.com rolled out and invented the chicken diaper, it seems to have really expanded the places chickens are going these days. Many therapists are starting to take chickens into nursing homes to cheer up elderly folks. They’re going into hospital burn wards. They’re going into children’s centers where the majority of the kids there are in foster care.

So apparently the world is catching on to something we already know: chickens rock!

What Is Egg Bloom And Why Should You Care?

November 20, 2013 by John White

Back when I wrote a couple of posts about egg refrigeration, I mentioned egg bloom quite frequently and promised an explanation later. Well, later has arrived so here is an explanation:

Egg bloom is the protective layer chickens internally coat their shells with that seals the pores of the egg to prevent contamination from bacteria and to help prevent moisture from escaping. This is all to ensure that the egg lasts as long as possible. It’s really amazing if you think about it. It’s just another way for Mama Hen to keep her eggs safe from harm and in turn it helps us.

Provided that bloom is still surrounding the egg, this is one of the reasons why I feel perfectly safe eating an unwashed egg from my backyard. I only wash them if they’re actually dirty and then they go in the fridge or are used right away.

Commercially, eggs are washed right away and then coated with oil. This doesn’t make a lick of sense to me, but I know most people who have never seen a farm animal in their life would prefer a washed, shiny egg versus a possibly dusty, matte egg that might have a feather sticking to it. This seems to me to be yet another example of our germaphobic culture, but that’s another story for another time.

Just like factory milk, we tend to hear a lot of scary stories about salmonella outbreaks in eggs. Where do these eggs come from? Generally from chickens raised in poor conditions (Ever visited someone who lives on a commercial chicken farm or close to one? Ugh!) these eggs are first given a chemical wash to remove dirt and the bloom, then recoated with a sort of ‘synthetic bloom’ as I think of it, which is mineral oil. Between the washing and the recoating and the already ill chickens, do these commercial eggs really stand a chance to be safe by the time they make it to the store?

Aside from chemical and bacterial invasions, though, the bloom also prevents the nutrients from escaping! If the bloom is intact there is no exchange of gases or evaporation of vitamins. No oxygen is getting into that egg, or in such small amounts that they’re miniscule. The egg will last longer and be healthier for you in the end. Once the gas exchange occurs, your egg starts to slowly rot and will not last half as long as it’s unwashed counterpart.

When Eggs Go Bad . . .

October 31, 2013February 8, 2015 by John White

Photo by: Alessandra Hayden

Opening a bad egg is never pleasant. For my wife, opening a bad egg is usually followed by a trip to the bathroom and an avoidance of all eggs (or any food) until she doesn’t remember the incident anymore.

So how can you tell a bad egg from a good egg? For that matter, how long can eggs be safely stored (either in or out of the fridge)?

If you look at a good egg and a bad egg, from the outside they rarely look different. Inside is another story. There are a few ways that eggs start to rot:

Once the egg has sat in one position so long that the yolk starts adhering to the inner membrane you are on the road to rotten eggs. This is why I always flip my eggs once a week to prevent the yolk from settling. If you do this, eggs last almost indefinitely.
When the bloom of the egg is washed away, viruses and bacteria may enter and cause mischief. To prevent this, either don’t wash your eggs or wash them, dry them, and lightly coat them in something like sunflower seed oil to create a seal. About a century ago, they just rubbed the eggs in butter.
Look for hairline cracks in your eggs. Feeding plenty of oyster shell to your hens helps to build stronger eggs, which will help prevent this problem. But if I get an egg with cracks in it, that egg goes straight to the dog that very day.
The older an egg is, the larger the air pocket at the top between the inner membrane and the shell grows. This is why if you dump an egg in water, it will float when it gets too old to safely use. Eggs, safely stored, can last up to a year (yes really!) The best rule for this is to test any eggs you are unsure of by dunking them in water.
1. Floaters immediately are thrown away (or saved until Halloween, shh!)
2. Eggs that only have one end touching the bottom get used in baked goods because they’re still good but perhaps don’t taste as fresh.
3. Eggs that are solid on the bottom are newer and perfectly safe to eat.
When roosters mix freely with the hens, you sometimes run into situations where there are half-grown chicks inside the eggs and you just aren’t aware of it. Maybe it rolled away without you realizing it and you find it again, not knowing it wasn’t laid that morning. Things sometimes get mixed up. It happens. To prevent this, shine a flashlight through each egg before you store it to ensure that you aren’t stealing a little chicken baby.

In a future post, I’ll discuss more about what egg bloom is and why it’s important.

Christmas Plum Jam (recipe)

October 24, 2013February 8, 2015 by John White

So here is the recipe I promised you all last week. My wife wrote it up especially for you all. We struggled for a while with what to call it because as I told her, it tastes like Christmas in a jar. So she called it Christmas Jam, even though I think it’s technically a preserve. I added the plum part myself.

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6 or 7 sterilized pint jars, or equivalent jelly jars

8-10# of plums washed, pitted, and diced (enough to fill a gallon jar)

2-3 TB of lemon juice

2 ½ c. sugar (coconut sugar works, but it will be a bit more brown)

½ c. low to no sugar pectin powder

½ c. honey

2 c. water

½ tsp cardamom

¼ tsp cloves

1 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp vanilla extract

I used red plums for this recipe, but I think black ones would look prettier. Wash, pit, and dice your plums but leave the skins on. Fill a gallon jar with the plums, squeeze the lemon juice over them, and leave them overnight in the fridge.

Pour all of your plums into a large pot the next day, cover with two of the cups of sugar and water and turn on the heat to simmer them. As they are cooking, you may want to blend up about ⅓ of the pot with a hand blender to make a richer preserve. In a small cup or bowl, add the ½ cup of sugar remaining to the pectin and mix together. Set this aside.

Simmer the plums and sugar until the skins start to burst and everything has softened. Add the honey and spices and stir until it starts to boil. When it is boiling, add your pectin/sugar mixture to the pot and stir to ensure there are no lumps. The jam will start to thicken instantly. Continue to cook it down for another minute or two. Then turn off the heat, add the vanilla extract, and stir again. Scrape down the sides of the pot and pour into sterilized jars. Wipe the edges, put the sterile lids on, and process in a water bath for 10-15 minutes. Makes 6 pints of jam. Plenty to keep some and give away some for the holidays. Especially in the cool new blue jars Ball sells!

Pros and Cons of Egg Refrigeration

October 21, 2013October 23, 2016 by John White

Photo by: Doug McCaughan

This may be a new subject for some of you, but anyone who’s been talking shop with fellow chicken aficionados will eventually hear a passionate debate on the pros and cons of keeping eggs cold.

Unless you were raised in Europe, you were probably taught that eggs always belong in the fridge and that’s that. The fact that this is even a debate may be an eyebrow raiser for you. But since we are going into the colder months, this is a great time to mention a new way of storing eggs.

If you think about it, raising chickens for eggs has been a way of life for people around the world for centuries. And they certainly didn’t always have a way to keep them in cold storage! It’s a fallacy to think that ancient peoples ate spoiled food because they didn’t. What makes us sick made them sick, too.

If you happen to be able to tour an old estate or go visit an Amish farm, you might see how they did things in years before. They usually had a spring house, which was built over or next to a spring or well and made of stone to insulate against the summer heat. This little structure is where they would store milk, cheese, eggs, yogurt, etc. to keep a consistent temperature year round. Even to the point of putting everything in a sealed container and lowering it on a rope into the spring or well so the water would keep it cold. There were usually shelves for eggs and cheese on the side, even in the heat. However during the temperate seasons, eggs and cheese would go right on the pantry shelf inside their homes. I suspect sometimes in the not so temperate seasons as well, but that’s purely speculation.

So what is the danger here? Provided you were responsible for raising the chickens yourself, there really isn’t much danger at all. Just like with raw milk from cows you raised yourself, as long as you know what you’re doing (mostly sanitary things) then the end product is perfectly safe. Don’t tell that to the USDA or FDA, of course. Then, they tell you that raw vegetables are a safety hazard. I suppose with conventional produce that hasn’t been washed this could be very true. The same goes for factory-farm eggs. I’d rather trust the farm-fresh unwashed egg that has been stored at room temperature to the factory-farmed egg that has been washed, bleached, pasteurized, and kept in a fridge.

It really comes down to what you personally feel is safe for you and your family. Doing your own research on the differences between family farm eggs and factory farm eggs may help you make that choice. Keep in mind, the eggs that the USDA and FDA usually test are directly from factory farms. Chickens kept in those conditions are generally very unhealthy. Sick chickens = eggs that can make people sick.

Anyway, I have personally stored my eggs on a little shelf in the walk-in pantry for years. I know that the temperature of the pantry is relatively stable because I’ve shut off the heat vents to that small room and it’s located under shady trees. The little gauge on the wall always says between 55-68 degrees. This is a great temp to keep just about anything fresher for longer. I also like to put desiccant packs around that room to prevent humidity as well, but that’s more for the dry storage than the eggs.

Here are some general guidelines you should follow if you want to keep eggs outside of the fridge:

Don’t wash them, the bloom protects the egg inside from bacteria and viruses
Keep them below 74 degrees for optimum freshness
Flip the eggs upside down once a week to prevent them from rotting
Cover lightly with straw or paper
If you must wash your eggs, coat them lightly in oil
Once you refrigerate an egg, keep it there. Don’t store it at room temperature after you’ve already put it in cold storage.

In a future post, I’ll discuss egg bloom, why it exists, and discuss the merits of washing versus not washing eggs and mention a bit more about how eggs go bad as well as testing for bad eggs.

Fall Fruit and Almond Cake (recipe)

October 18, 2013 by John White

When Mrs. White makes something she is particularly proud of, I like to share it with people I know. Since I know many of you here not only raise chickens, going forward I will also share things that are not purely chicken related here on this blog. If you’re looking for a way to connect this to chickens, it has eggs in the recipe!

She is going to experiment with changing this to a gluten free recipe by making it with coconut flour next time. I’ll keep you posted as to how that goes.

2 small to medium tart apples, cored and diced
2 small plums, pitted and diced
1 ½ c. AP or cake flour
1 TB baking powder
¼ tsp salt
4 eggs (room temperature, very important!)
½ c. coconut oil or unsalted butter, softened
1 c. sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp almond extract
½ c. milk
¾ c. toasted, unsalted sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Dump the fruit on a paper towel and set aside until you’re ready.

In a large shallow bowl, mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, and ½ c. of the almonds. Make a well inside the bowl and cream the butter and sugar together with the back of a spoon until combined. Add the eggs one at a time to the butter and sugar until combined well.

Add the extracts to the milk in a measuring cup.

Slowly stir in half the flour, add half the milk, stirring together. Then work in the remaining flour and lastly the remaining milk until all is combined. Hey, you only used one bowl and a measuring cup!

Spray a cake pan (I used a 10” round one. You can also use a 9×13 rectangular pan) and dust lightly with flour. I like to use Trader Joe’s coconut oil in a can to spray my pans with. It doesn’t have too many weird things in it.

Pour half the batter in the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle your fruit evenly on top of this layer, then cover with the remaining batter. You may need to smooth it over the fruit in some places with a spoon. Once it’s all mostly covered, sprinkle the top with the remaining almonds and bake for 25-35 minutes depending on how deep your cake pan is. Test for doneness when the edges are browned and start to pull away from the pan. To test, poke a toothpick or a fork into the center. If it comes out clean your cake is done.

Let it cool a little, then flip out onto a plate (make sure the almond side somehow settles upright) and drizzle a tiny bit of honey on top. Slice and serve while still warm. Makes a lot. Great for having with a cup of tea with a friend or five.

My wife also made a great plum jam with a lot of our plums this year. I’ll be sharing that next week after she writes up the recipe. If you have a recipe you’d like to share, please don’t hesitate to send it to me in an email.

Toxic Environment: Practical Solutions To Keep Your Flock And Family Safe! (Part II)

October 13, 2013February 8, 2015 by John White

So you’ve found your great dual purpose breed and have made the commitment to stop buying commercial chicken. What next?

I have to say that for most people, it’s impossible to keep enough chickens to feed their family all year long. Or perhaps they live in an urban area with restrictions on how many chickens are allowed. In this instance, I would suggest joining a local CSA, buying club, or hunt down your local farmer’s market. Here in Kentucky, there is a strong local movement and you can find an abundance of locally produced, GMO free food. Even if it’s not organic, many farmers locally have committed to feeding their animals naturally and provide plenty of access to pasture land. You can look for ASH free, which stands for Antibiotic Steroid Hormone free.

Even then, you have to be willing to pay the usually higher prices. It’s a personal choice: do you want to eat chemicals and GMO’s or not? Even surface research will turn up the dangers of modern industrialization on health. I won’t scare you with that today. What I will say is that every person on the planet deserves access to clean food and water. You and/or your children certainly do. So skimming a little off of your cable bill to pay for fresh food is a wise investment in the future.

For some, especially after the tumultuous recent years, it still isn’t feasible. To you I encourage not to feel guilty and to look at other ways you can make the best of things. A lot of farmers work in trade, so if you have extra time on your hands make friends with the farmers in your community (maybe at the farmer’s market) and offer your labor in exchange for food. This is a solution that helps everyone, building strong friendships and communities.

Or get your church or other group involved in group buying or building a garden. There are several churches locally that have not only built community gardens, but community farms with chickens and goats to nourish the community both physically and spiritually.

If you do happen to be lucky enough to have enough land to raise chickens for your whole family then how are you going to feed them?

Buying organic, non-corn, non-soy, non-GMO feed is ridiculously expensive as some of you are probably aware. If you have the money to purchase that then by all means do so. For the rest of us, there are ways to get around that cheaply.

Commercial feeds generally are the cheapest ingredients possible mixed into a pellet. Like dog and cat food, it’s poorly regulated and what’s in it today may be something different next month without notice to you or your flock.

To avoid this problem, it’s simple enough to make your own feed. I hear the groans already, but it’s not as hard as you may think. Bear with me for a moment.

There are recipes all over the internet for making your own chicken feed. A brief search on google turns up hundreds. What you want to look for is no soy, no corn, and generally easy to procure ingredients. Anything too fancy or expensive fed to BIRDS and I’m going to sit in the corner and cry when I get the bill.

To source ingredients, there are a lot of places you can look. If you’re part of a buying club locally then that’s the best place to go for bulk bags of winter wheat, oat groats, sunflower seeds, etc. If you want organic, this will definitely be your cheapest option. I’m usually just happy with GMO free for chickens unless it’s something I know is sprayed heavily, in which case I will go with organic only. Cotton tends to be sprayed with pesticides heavily, so cottonseed meal is a definite no-no. 63% of wheat in the US has significant levels of malathion, among other toxins. Corn is almost always GMO, about 75% of the corn grown in the US. Ditto for soybeans.

For more information, check out this link:

http://www.inspirationgreen.com/food-organic-choices.html

In upcoming posts, what would YOU like to see addressed? Leave a comment below and let your voice be heard.

Interesting Facts About Chicken Eggs

August 4, 2013February 8, 2015 by John White

The egg is a pretty simple thing. Full of protein and very inexpensive, the egg is part of human diets worldwide and has been for thousands of years. Its smooth and unassuming texture and taste lend it to usage in cooking styles of innumerable variety. Yet, have you ever sat and contemplated the egg? It may be more interesting than you think.

Why Do Some Chickens Lay White Eggs and Others Brown Eggs?

The color of the chicken, and specifically the color of the chicken’s earlobes, determines the color of the egg. Sounds strange, right? Yet, according to NPR, it is absolutely true (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5357549). According to the American Egg Board, feather color also determines egg color. If a chicken has white ear lobes, its eggs will be white. If it has brown or reddish ear lobes, its eggs will be brown. There are always exceptions to this rule, but in general the ear lobe rule works well. Egg color is a breed characteristic. Neither white nor brown eggs are healthier. An egg is an egg.

Egg size, just like color, is dependent on the breed of chicken. Egg size is also determined by the age and weight of the chicken.

Have Chicken Eggs Always Been About the Same Size?

If you read a recipe from Colonial America, one thing will stand out right away. They called for a ridiculous amount of eggs, such as 7-8 per recipe! Why? The eggs laid by the typical colonial backyard chicken were considerably smaller than the average supermarket egg of today. As chickens eggs entered the mass-produced, grocery-store market, consumers sought large, generally white, and uniform sized eggs in their prepackaged dozen. Breeds that produced these large, white eggs, such as the Leghorn, were chosen over traditional breeds. While many egg colors and sizes exist, the large, white Leghorn egg has become a standard in modern society. If you have a variety of backyard birds, don’t expect your eggs to all be the same size and color. You’re sure to get a much more eclectic mix!

Did Sailors Really Bring Chickens on the Ships of Old?

Yes! It was extremely common to find small chicken coops on sailing ships throughout history. There was no better way to provide the crew with fresh eggs than to keep some low maintenance chickens on board. Other ships carried huge amounts of livestock to meet the needs of passengers. The Great Britain (1852-1876) carried 550 chickens on its 1861 voyage from Melbourne to England, as well as lambs, oxen, 30 pigs, 250 ducks, 55 turkeys, and 150 sheep. Now that’s one full ship (including, of course, the 750 passengers and 130 crew members) (http://museumvictoria.com.au/discoverycentre/websites-mini/journeys-australia/1850s70s/ships-1850s70s/).

Egg-Laying Has Nothing to Do With A Rooster

One last egg-related thought for you: Do you have to have a rooster in order for your hens to lay eggs? No. Hens will lay eggs whether or not they have ever seen a rooster in their life. A rooster is not a necessary part of your flock if you want eggs. If you want fertilized eggs and thus chicks, a rooster is required.

Who knew eggs were so interesting?

Win a ChickenCoopGuides Membership!

June 25, 2013February 8, 2015 by John White

This contest is as silly as our Facebook page, but hey, you have the chance to win a FREE 1-year membership, so make sure you don’t miss this opportunity!

It probably won’t take you more than a couple of minutes. Here how to enter the contest…

CONTEST GUIDELINES

Enter the contest by following these simple steps:

1. Click the “like” button to like our Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/chickenraisingtips

2. Enter a funny caption to any of the silly images on the page by posting it as a comment below the image. A few of them already have captions on the images themselves, but I’m sure you can do even better 🙂

We will pick the top 3 funniest captions posted on any of the images to win a 1-year ChickenCoopGuides membership!

Don’t forget to “Like” the page first!

Good luck!

John