Volume 1 number 7, July 1999 Measure Twice This spring I finally got those ducks. And chickens. I’ve been wanting poultry for some years. Finally the weary blandess of many commercially produced foods, the lure of a cake made with duck eggs after a dinner of succulent roast bird, and the just-do-it factor combined with the coolness of having livestock to put me into birds with both feet. Because there is an ample selection of nutritionally acceptable, even superior, foods available at reasonable prices, my choice to raise poultry has less to do with daily requirements and more to do with flavor and actual burning desire. Do not even imagine I never compromise on products or eat TaterTots and their ilk occasion-ally—there is no way of sating that particular yen with a cruciferous vegetable—but, ‘round here, we do choose foods of the less-processed variety as staples, for which I pay the price of preparation time. On the eating matter, face it. If you’re not a teenage boy, your body only allows you to consume a certain amount of food, so it is important to make each bite worthwhile—except for beer. Let’s not count beer. Or coffee. I like the idea that my kids learn where food comes from and what it actually is. Having a place to take all those kitchen scraps incompatible with dogs is just icing on the cake. Most likely, though, this is just a step in my own nesting behavior, kind of another dimension to the garden. Now, this cost thang. It’s tricky. While cold cash is culturally one of our biggest factors in decision-making, coin of the realm isn’t necessarily the bottom line. Costs come, for example, in time and energy as well as money. Raising my own food is unlikely to get me ahead in sawbucks, but I plan to realise a profit in my palate and beyond. Tot it up: initial purchase, feed, time, equipment, housing, stress... flavor... Each bird might be two or three dollars at the outset. Once purchased, a couple dozen head of poultry are not a responsibility to be ignored. They need to be fed and clothed, so to speak: fed and fed and fed and especially watered. With my varied livestock averaging ten weeks old I use about a bag of feed per week (at around $14), and I expect this amount to increase somewhat before levelling off as we close in on That Day. They all need and love fresh greens and weeds; supplements of that sort or table waste may reduce purchased feed costs by a bit. Everybody has to have fresh water available continuously. Ducks need to submerge their whole bills when drinking, and they will happily bathe any dippable portion of themselves. They can totally foul a small pond in the blink of an eye. It is important to keep distinct areas for drinking and recreation by making one the right size for beaks only. A secure, roomy place to live is essential. I knew that my domestic pets, predators from above, members of the weasel family, and foxes would all happily taste my wares, but the menace from within was a surprise. It turns out that ducklings are thugs, and need to be kept apart or hapless members of one’s chicken flock tend to become dimensionally challenged. Oh! the dispair of finding a pressed chick, or worse yet, five on separate occasions. Which illustrates the truth that chickens need to be protected from themselves as much as from others; those who went the way of the canard did so with great effort. Some time in the not-so-distant future will come the day of reckoning. I am dreading this. Not just dispatching the chosen, but also the stress of choosing. So far I can’t tell the difference! There are a couple of obvious cockerels, some virtually combless pullets, a whole mess of unsexable chickens in between, and five equally large black ducks. I am hoping that time will tell. Heck, by then I may have changed my mind about layers and they’ll all be in line. But as of today, I am planning to eat an egg tasting strongly of yellow on a buttery piece of whole grain toast. Soon. Amy Luick uses a calculator to check her math three times in Ester. | ||
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