This is a guest post and entry in our non-fiction writing contest Gayle from Gainesville
What is the perfect survival food? Before we can arrive at a satisfactory answer to this question we must first agree on a criterion of perfection with respect to foodstuffs.
I wish to suggest that the perfect survival food must remain viable without refrigeration for weeks at a time. The perfect survival food must also be inexpensive and highly nutritious. It must be incredibly versatile, as food fatigue is a real concern. Finally, every part of the food item must be usable—there can be no waste in the economy of perfection. As the saying goes, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without it.”
Is there anything that answers to the description “the perfect survival food”? Yes, I say. The egg. The egg is the perfect survival food.
Fresh eggs will keep without refrigeration for weeks at a time. Eggs are inexpensive and highly nutritious. The egg is incredibly versatile: I have read that there are more than 100 ways to cook an egg! And finally, every part of the egg can be used: the yolk, the egg white, the eggshell and even the egg membrane. No waste.
Culinary Uses
Sure, everyone knows that eggs serve a number of culinary purposes. Eggs serve as thickeners, as for example, when we make custard. Eggs act as emulsifiers—without eggs, it would be difficult to make mayonnaise. Eggs serve as leavening agents. (A leavening agent helps a cooked product rise.) Without eggs, there would be no angel food cake or lemon meringues pie. Eggs help bind ingredients; try making meatloaf without adding a couple of eggs—it’s not pretty. We use eggs to coat foods—the breadcrumbs used to make fried chicken stick to the chicken because of the egg coating.[1]
Finally, we cook eggs—eggs benedict, eggs Florentine, scrambled eggs, poached eggs, hard-boiled eggs, deviled eggs, pickled eggs, eggs cooked sunny side up or over easy. We make omelets, frittatas, quiches, egg salad, egg sandwich, steak and eggs, egg drop soup . . . . The list is truly endless.
Nutrition
The egg is also highly nutritious. Eggs contain almost all the essential nutrients a body needs. Eggs are one of the few single source foods that contain complete proteins, and that means that the proteins are readily absorbable by the body. The egg is also one of the few food sources of Vitamin D.
The egg yolk is the most nutritious part of the egg. According to Living Strong, “An egg yolk is full of the minerals calcium, magnesium, iron, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, zinc, cooper, manganese and selenium and the vitamins thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, B6, folate, B12, the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, K and carotenoids. There are about 51 calories in an egg yolk, 11 calories from protein and 40 calories from fat. Egg yolks are have so many vitamins and minerals it is almost like taking a multivitamin.” [2]
Compost Ingredient
But the egg offers more than good nutrition for the human body. Eggshells help return essential nutrients to the soil through the process of composting.[3] Many soils lack calcium, and it is the lack of calcium that causes blossom end rot on tomatoes. Rather than throwing eggshells into the garbage, compost them. Composting is the process of returning decomposed organic matter to the soil. It is the best and cheapest way to improve your soil. And it helps keep organic waste out of landfills. The extra calcium in the soil will prevent blossom end rot, and your tomatoes will be much happier.[4]
And don’t forget, if you make hard-boiled eggs let the water cool and then use it to water your tomatoes. This will add even more calcium to your tomatoes, providing even more insurance against blossom end rot.
Slug and Snail Prevention
This is not the only garden use for eggshells. If you have trouble with slugs and snails, place broken up eggshells around your plants. Yes, eggshells help foil snails and slugs. The jaggedly surface of the crushed eggshells proves to be an organic deterrent to these unwanted bests.
Seed Starting Container
Eggshells may also be used as garden pots for seedlings. Simply crack the shell into two roughly halves. Carefully poke a hole in the bottom for drainage. Then fill each half with compost. Then plant the seed. When the seedlings are ready to be planted outside, gently crack the eggshell and insert the plant (eggshell and all) into the garden. The eggshell will provide additional nutrients for the growing plant.[5]
Wound Care
We are not finished touting the virtues of the egg. The super-thin membrane inside the eggshell has long been used as a home remedy for minor cuts and skin irritations. First, clean the cut with soap and water. Then carefully peal the membrane from the eggshell. Place the liquidly side of the membrane on the cut. Then let the membrane dry. What you now have is a natural band-aid. Moreover, this “band-aid” contains a natural antibiotic called lysozyme.[6]
References
[1] http://www.saskschools.ca/curr_content/paamidlevel/fd_st/mod8_eggs/ eggs_role_uses/paa_p1.htm
[2] http://www.livestrong.com/article/53249-nutrition-information-eggs/
[3] http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/nyerges44.html
[4] http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/composting-basics/eggshells-in-the-garden.htm
[5] http://ecolocalizer.com/2011/04/15/creative-reuse-egg-shell-planting-pots/
[6] http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-lysozyme.htm
[7] http://www.motherearthnews.com/ask-our-experts/how-long-will-fresh-eggs-keep-without-refrigeration.aspx
This is an entry in our non-fiction writing contest where you could win:
- First Prize) Winner will receive a gift certificate for $170 worth of Winchester Ammo donated by Lucky Gunner. A Smith & Wesson Heat Treated Collapsible 21″ Baton and a copy of my book Dirt Cheap Survival Retreat.
- Second Prize) Winner will receive a Wise Food Storage meat bucket and 3 dozen Tattler Reusable Canning Lids donated by LPC Survival.
- Third Prize) Winner will receive a LifeStraw water filter system donated by Eartheasy and a copy of the Wolf Pack Cookbook.
This contest will end on January 11 2012 so get busy…
{ 158 comments }
so if the onlyprotien you had was eggs ,you could live just fine? thats awesome. one more reason i want chikens on the bctruck homestead.thanks gayle,thats more than i ever new about eggs besides they are tasty.
Brad,
Yes, egg contains complete proteins. Most of our traditional meals mix foods to form complete proteins. For instance, we combine rice and beans because when combined they form a complete protein.
If you produce your own food………you may be a terrorist.
you can eat the whole egg.the membrane is also good for your joints and brain
If you eat the egg membrane, you may be a terrorist.
If it wasn’t for bacon and eggs, I wouldn’t have a diet, so I know I’m a terrerist!
gayle-i’ve learned more about the egg in your post than i have in the last 10 years. thank you for the info.
and if you have no chickens??????????????????
Sundance WMC,
Get some…
I would like to get chickens but my dh is not happy with the roosters that have moved in. He has shot them dozens of times with the pellet gun. (We live in suburbia so he’s afraid to use anything more powerful than a pellet gun.)
Does anyone know how to kill a rooster (without shooting it)?
Gayle,
You should be able to trap it alive and move it to a new location or give it to someone that is in need of a rooster. If you’re not good at building traps consider trying one of the Havahart Traps baited with corn. If you have an “outbuilding” you could probaly, leave a trail of corn leading into the building and when it goes in you close the door, where you can catch and remove it… If you know where it is “roosting” at night you can shine a bright light in its eyes and it will stay put while you grab it.
I just found out one of my neighbors is an animal rights activist. She called the sheriff on my dh for shooting the roosters with a pellet gun. The deputy was really nice. I think he was embarrassed to knock on the door. It turns out that it is illegal in the county I live in to discharge a firearm after dark (now whether a pellet gun counts as a firearm is a good question). At any rate, the deputy is going to arrange for animal control to come out and trap the roosters.
My dh is not too happy about having the cops called out.
That sounds like you have some srious issues with the neighbor. That will only worsen SHTF and what they will tell on you. I would fix that now
Well, she is a single female living alone. And apparently she has issues with guns. I don’t think she will last long.
Get a coyote
ps- he might need a subscription to Acme products.
I’ve watched someone kill a rooster. You get him under your arm with the head facing forward, so you have the wings pinned, and pet him a bit if you need to calm him down, then you tie a string around his head and the other end of the string to a nail in the top of a stump, so he can’t lift his head, then you take an ax and chop off his head on the stump. Then you hang him upside down for a while by the feet so he bleeds out and quits flapping. This is a job most easily done by two people. Then dunk that rooster in boiling water for something like 30 seconds or a minute, and you will be able to pluck him and dress him.
To get the rooster to come to you so you can catch him, offer him fruit.
Penny Pincher,
It’s a lot easier than that. I saw my grand ma do it many times when I was a kid. With the rooster facing you grab his head in your hand. Lift him off the ground and make a violent cranking motion with your hand like you were trying to start an old Model A Ford or an antique farm tractor. One time around is all you need. His neck is broken. He might run around for a few seconds involuntarily but he’s dead. The rest is just as you describe it.
Gayle, I don’t know what kind of pellet gun your DH has, but my pellet gun will kill a rooster. I’ve killed squirrels, raccoons and crows with it, so I’m pretty confident a rooster would bite the dust as well.
And a pellet gun is not a firearm in any jurisdiction I’m aware of, but some places outlaw pellet and bb guns. You might want to check your laws. As for getting rid of the rooster, you might call the Florida Game and Fish and report the rooster as a nuisance. Perhaps they could help you, either by trapping it or allowing you to kill it. If they won’t help you, I’d go with MD’s advice to trap them.
T.K.,
We already tried animal control. They won’t come out and do anything unless the animal poses a threat to someone. My dh is just too honest. He told the woman that the roosters were a just nuisance. I would have told them they were chasing little kids at the bus stop. LOL
I have a call into the sheriff’s department to see what we can do legally to get rid of the roosters. I am completely surprised that I can’t shoot a rooster on my own property with a shotgun (let alone not being able to shoot it with a pellet gun).
Watch where they go to roost at night, you might even set up a nice perch for them in a secluded spot. When it’s dark, grab one and hold it by it’s head and spin it around sharply to snap it’s neck. If you’re scared of it scratching you (it shouldn’t because they’re quite calm at night) just put it in a sack or pillowcase first.
Then either eat it, give it to someone else who wants to eat it (many homeless around?), bury it deep in your vegie garden or compost pile or give it to a dog.
Before long the problem will be solved and no-one will be the wiser.
Shame the neighbour got involved :(
Great article BTW, learnt alot!
Actually, before I moved into current location, I did have a bunch of chickens. I resided in a more rural location, and began noticing a few beautiful little chickens, “banties” I think they were called. I started putting out feed for them. It wasn’t long before they would start racing me to the house when I would come home from work. It was a funny sight. Then they took to living in the yard, laying eggs in the bushes. Free eggs!!!
After a while some of the eggs I did not find would hatch and there would be more chickens…..I began running out of name for the little guys….the only one who would never really come close to me was the rooster, who had personality all his own.
Over time, they began disappearing. I reckon dogs or something began thinning them out. Then I eventually moved. I always remember these chickens were a lot of fun, totally wild, and just amazing comedians. Maybe I will get around to getting some more……
Well that is truely amazing, especialy the membrane part, I will have to try that sometime!
Given the problems the corporate food industry seems to have with Salmonella these days that membrane band aid could be dangerous with a store bought egg. The odds of a problem are very slim but it’s worth being aware of.
Very interesting!
egg-cellent article!! (sorry, I couldn’t resist.) This truly was a great article though. I love eggs and my household uses 2 dozen or more per week. I have already used the info from your article to help convince my wife she needs to revisit egg yolks, as she does not eat them. I do use eggshells in my compost, though I had never considered them for use as seed starters… awesome idea. And I had never heard about the wound-care idea… I have to admit, the first thought that came to mind when I read that part was salmonella… would washing the egg membrane with a soap solution ruin the idea?
Flick
Unless my memory fails me (which happens) the salmonella is on the outside of the egg and not in the egg. Cross contamination of eggs occurs when the eggs is cracked, a good washing can’t hurt. I wash mine for that reason and I just don’t like the idea of poop being on my eggs. If I’m inaccurate here I’m sure someone will re-educate me and I encourage it.
Gayle… Thanks for the article; I have to try the band aid!! We lost one of our two birds last spring and the second dried up and stopped laying this summer. My family and the neighbors have really missed the fresh eggs. I want to put her in the stockpot but she has a name now, just like the calves that are ready for market or butcher. Guess I’ll have to sell the calves to buy beef and new layers!! Lesson learned: DON’T LET THE FAMILY PLAY WITH THEIR FOOD!!
this is what my wife tells me when i mention how im getting chickens when we come off the road. she says not only will i name them and have them sitting in my lap for petting,but we would have 12 year old retired chickens that hadnt layed a egg in 10 years. she is right but i still want chickens. ive already got names picked out,ruthy maybel,gertrude,to name a few.
LMAO!!! I am the same way. My mom says all my animals would die of old age before I ever got around to eating them. I would think she would be right if not for my husband. Even still the kids and I will probably be crying when we eat Daisy the cow. LOL.
My gardening nut friend keeps chickens, she got 5 or 6, she pets them in her lap and talks to them and so forth. One she named Mary turned out to be a rooster and got twice as big as the hens, the neighbor complained to the city because Mary was crowing all the time, and she ended up with her BF who wasn’t sentimental about animals, killing and eating Mary. The city thankfully looked the other way on the rest of the chickens.
I heard a funny story from a guy who keeps chickens yesterday: this guy had 10 chickens and 9 of them were healthy and 1 was all worn out and its feathers had all come out, so this guy scooped up all his chickens with the sick one in a separate box, and took them to the vet and asked the vet to cure the one chicken and see if the others might be inoculated against whatever the first one had, and the vet told him that he could not fix the sick chicken. He then told him that the problem really was, he had 9 roosters and 1 chicken and they had reached puberty so the roosters were wearing her out. LOL! The moral of his story was, it’s best to buy your chicks from someone who knows how to sex them.
When I got my chickens 3.5 yrs. ago, I knew I couldn’t name them or I would never be able to eat them. Well…right from the gitgo one Welsummer chick liked me better than all the others. So much so that she earned the name “Eat Me Last”. Only one other chicken earned a name – a mean bully of a rooster we called “Eat Me First”.
Brad. I once caught a garden snake and named it after my friends x wife. I thought that it was fitting.
a while back i killed a snake in my yard and put it on youtube asking people what kind it was. you would have thought id killed a baby! i never been called so many names. i eventually caved and took tghe video down. i hate snakes and i dont take time to get to know them before i kill them. if they are in my yard,they are deadly simply because they could cause me to have a heart attack!
I hate snakes too. That’s one of the reasons I put a call into the sheriff’s department. I don’t believe it’s against the law to fire a pellet gun on one’s property or to kill snakes or nuisance roosters. When the deputy calls back, I am going to ask him about shotguns. I don’t want to shoot a rattlesnake or a moccasin with a shotgun only to have the neighbor call the sheriff again.
Brad, My home schooled son was doing a unit study on snakes several years ago. One of the questions at the end of the chapter was, “Which snakes are our friends?” He wrote “dead ones”. I gave him an “A”.
BC, you are lucky you got that video down before some federal wildlife officer saw it. I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to kill ANY snake these days and almost all animals that don’t have a license available to hunt them. Rats, mice and coyotes are the only exceptions I know of. I believe it’s even illegal to kill “voles”, you know those little brown field mice.
Try naming them BBQ, Roasted, Fried, etc
All of Gods critters got a place
Right next to the mashed potates!!!
“mom are we eating crispy or grilled tonight?”
If I see those chickens again and my animal rights neighbor is outside, I am going to try calling the chickens, “Here dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner”
Gayle if you do that PLEASE video it, I would love to see that one.
….with a machete in your hand.
HeeHeeHee. I need one of those big pots that you heat up outside so she can smell the chicken cooking–that’s after I cut its head off and hang it from the tree in my backyard.
Yup- that’s how we got the kids to understand they weren’t raising pets: named them after meals… Steak; steak and eggs; bacon; Easter dinner… worked like a charm.
My wife says I can’t have chickens or bunnies until I’m travelling less or until the kids are oldr and can help with them. She doesn’t want to be responsible for them by herself.
My oldest wants bunnies because she says that the fur is soft and she wants to try making a jacket out of a bunch of bunny skins sewn together, my wife thinks she’ll be le interested the first time she sees one geting skinned.
About the salmonella, it can be passed on from hens to eggs to chicks. It is inside of them, not just on the outside of an egg. Michigan State University printed an article many years ago saying that if you fed the hens/baby chicks calf milk replacer, it would kill the salmonella. We did that for years when we raised meat chickens and then with our layers. Weird, but seemed to work.
Opps, you beat me to the Salmonella caution Flick. I agree with you. Can’t tell you if washing it would work or not.
Gayle, I think you are amazing! I absolutely love that you use proper citations on your articles. It really shows that you know your stuff.
Also, the second paragraph under culinary uses made me think of poor Bubba from Forrest Gump.
Tigerlily,
Thanks for the complement. I like to include the references in case anyone wants to do additional reading. I see the egg-shrimp Bubba Gump comparison. LOL
Hey, how did your speech go? Did you scare the hell out of them? LOL
I’m pretty sure I did. The looks on their faces when the picture of the starving kid with the vulture in the background came up were priceless. I did have one ask me lots of questions about water storage afterwards and another one showed me his paracord bracelet and walked me out to his truck to show me his BOB.
This is great information, many thanks to G from G, and to MD also for providing this forum.
How about some comparisons between other eggs? Any advantages to duck/turkey/guinea/???
My family really needs to get back to poultry raising. It’s kind of a bother at first, and predator protection is a hassle, but chooks are a great survival prep resource. Self propelled tillers, food resource, pest management.
I’m leaning towards guinea fowl. They may take some getting used to as far as taste goes, but they aren’t as frail as chickens and they make good alarms when someone or something comes around. When I was a kid, most of the old farmsteads had a few guinea fowl roaming around their yards.
Lint. get some emu or ostrich if you want some different eggs.
emus and ostriches are too big. Besides, I hear it takes a hammer to crack open an ostrich egg. You can’t just crack them on the edge of the fry pan.
Ostrich meat is excellent: low calories, low cholesterol, low fat. I’ve eaten it, and it’s delicious. The Ostrich egg is very similar in nutrition to a chicken egg, but are much lower in cholesterol, and a little lower in saturated fat. One Ostrich egg = 2 dozen chicken eggs in volume.
Ostrich meat didn’t catch on like it was hoped in the US when Ostrich ‘farming’ tried to go big. A shame, really. I’ve eaten Ostrich meat and it’s GOOD!
Guinea fowl eat ticks. I have a friend who keeps three for this purpose. Since she got them, no human or animal on her farm has had ticks.
Hey Lint,
Another good reason to keep guinea’s is snake control. My sister used to live down in Louisiana swamp country. She kept guineas to kill the snakes. They do such a great job she said she couldn’t even leave the garden hose out, they would attack it and peck holes in it :)
Bill
M.D. it looks like JWR (with a comma) is starting to change his “everyone is going to die east of the Mississippi” he mentioned the “Redoubt of The East” (the Cumberland Plateau of TN) even though he credits Joel Skousen instead of you, despite the fact that you have been saying this for several years and that Mr. Skousen’s post and where JWR read it was on your blog. I think it strange that he did not link back to that post instead linking to some forum. I don’t think JWR likes you very much Mr Creekmore probably because you don’t blindly agree with everything he says like all of the other bloggers.
Boone,
Did not see it – do you have a link to the post and I’ll look at it?
Don’t know if he likes me or not either way is fine – I will not lose any sleep worrying it as you should not.
Another benefit – lowered blood pressure……cooking an egg (any way you like) forms a chemical in the egg that acts like ACE-inhibitors (Lisinopril) that lowers blood pressure and has a mild renal protective effect.
Thanks for this post Gayle, I wanna me some chickens! I will have to keep working on the DH.
The “bandaid” idea is interesting. It reminds me of when we used to do civil war reenacting and did demonstrations for the Park Service. We would demonstrate different things they would use for bandages, i.e. scraping cloth with a dull knife would pull up lint particles and a pile of them would be used like a cotton ball. We read in a reference on civil war medicine that sometimes they would use “clean cobwebs” which always brought up the joke, How do you clean a cobweb? I think I would rather use the egg membrane!
Gayle great post! All of what I’ve learned over the years in ONE place instead of twenty! Thanks!
While at one of my work offices, I mentioned earlier this week that I had a surplus of eggs at home. My boss told me lots of the various staff would buy them, they love them!
So today I brought in about 8 dz., I had to laugh at one of the nurses who, almost shivered at the fact they were even on my desk! She told me she couldn’t “do” fresh eggs, her’s had to come from a refrigerater. I just laughed, “after she left”.
But then again, I have people that don’t want the green and blue eggs I get either. Sheeesh!
Those work offices are full of sheeple. They won’t last long when the trucks stop running.
Lint, yes I’ve determined very quickly that I’m ONE of maybe 3 ppl that could deal with SHTF situation. Remember, I live on the New Madrid Fault line and plan and prepare all the time. I’ll be heading home with my GHB while they are still trying to figure out what happened.
Gayle,
If your article doesn’t make a person wanna go out and buy some chickens, then nothing will!!
Great job :)
Wonderful article, Gayle, I really enjoyed it and learned quite a bit for this ole farm girl. Thank You! Sure didn’t know about using the membrane for a bandaid.
Great article,learned alot from it. I think this was just the convincing I needed to build the coop and raise a few chickens of my own. Thanks Gayle
Gayle you are in Florida, along with the regular collection of vermits (sp?), will you have to worry about big big snakes and alligators?
If things get bad, I will be bugging out to my brother’s property in Georgia. There are lots of snakes and gators. We keep dogs around to warn us about snakes and the gators only bother people during mating season–the rest of the year they tend to leave humans alone.
I did a story on alligators back when I was a newspaper reporter. I interviewed a state park worker whose job it was to count alligator eggs in the nests. I asked him how he got mama off the nest and he said, “with a broom.”
My brother lives out in swamp country. So do my folks. My little brother went to UGA. He brought his frat brothers to my parent’s home for the Florida-Georgia game one year. They were all city boys from Atlanta. I took them gator hunting at night with broom sticks. (It was exceptionally cold, below freezing, so even if we had stepped on a gator, it couldn’t have done anything.) I had these kids scared out of their minds. But they weren’t going to be shown up by a girl who went to Florida. LOL That was the year Florida won its first national championship. I got to go to the Florida-Georgia game that year but I had to sit in the Georgia student section surrounded by all my little brother’s frat brothers. HeeHeeHee.
Quite honestly, I’m more likely to have a bandaid handy than a chicken egg membrane. But maybe that’s just me. ;)
Good info, Gayle. You are quite the prolific researcher/writer – and that’s of great benefit to us. Thank you.
I read a lot of info about chickens on this blog and elsewhere and I get the impression they are hard to keep healthy or to raise up from chicks. But all my grandparents raised chickens and never seemed to have much trouble with them. So I’m not sure if people today are too finicky or if the chickens they raise are too domesticated. But I think raising them would be fairly simple with the right setup from the get-go.
Lint, my grandparents raised chickens on their farm in Arkansas, and rarely had any trouble. Of course, this was a time when all the foxes, hawks, coyotes, raccoons and other predators had been pretty much wiped out. Last year I put 12 ducks on my pond and they didn’t last a month. Every other day I found a pile of feathers, so I assume it was a fox or coyote that was killing them. I’ve seen fox on a regular basis, and I’ve heard and seen coyotes frequently, so I know they are around. Hawks are constantly flying on my land, so I know raising free-range chickens on my place will not happen.
That said, I do plan on having chickens in the future, and am planning on building a chicken house in the early spring, maybe February or March. It will have to be protected from fox, coyotes, possoms, raccoons, snakes and hawks. Maybe someone will write a post on how to build a successful chicken house in this era of protected pests. I’d sure like to read it.
I agree that building a chicken house/coop would be a great idea for an article. Any takers??
Google Backyard Poultry ( do not know how to provide link, computer skills lacking). We raise several types of chickens and ducks. It is fairly easy. Am new to prepping and have beeen enjoying your site for a couple weeks now. Thanks
New Prepper,
Welcome to the Wolf Pack. If you have any questions, ask away. This is the place to get down-to-earth answers.
I have heard that chicken tractors is the way to go for “free range” birds
looking into it.
Oh great! My daughter just asked me about getting chickens last week from a previous post, now she’ll double her effort. Anyone know a good link for someone who knows absolutely nothing about chickens to get started? This would be on a 1/2 acre suburban lot. Gotta check town laws. Do cats chase chickens?
Nice post Gayle!
Chickens chase cats. Chickens are bad-ass. My gardening nut friend’s chickens are maybe 4 or 5 pounders, and they terrorize cats that come in the yard. They gang up on the cats. There is one cat that isn’t a hunter, that they allow to come in the yard, that cat just sits there and hangs out, but if a hunting cat comes, they chase and peck it. Funny that they should know the difference.
I wish we humans could cultivate that kind of ‘inner chicken’ regarding other humans.
Why did the inner chicken cross the spiritual path?
to answer the which came first question.
No, the inner chicken crossed the spiritual path in order to transcend the priority of temporal order.
My “inner chicken” tells me to avoid all zombies, especially if they are carrying an AR.
Lint,
And those wearing jackboots with ABC’s printed on their vests…
Penny Pincher, animals are amazing…yesterday bought 11 kgs honey from a farmer – (first time from this supplier) his big dog came out barking when I pulled up – but I just got out of the car – just knew he was not going to bite…and so did the cows roaming on the lawn – the dog would bark and lunge and round up the cows, yet all 5 ignored him, with one actually wanting to head butt the dog…and yes it was funny to watch.
Try these two sites:
http://www.mybackyardchickens.com and http://www.mypetchicken.com
Nuttbush
Thanks for the links.
I hunted online for a chicken coop plan for six months before I decided which one I wanted. In the meantime, I had my young chickens in a chicken tractor. I wound up going with the Garden Coop. It is a very nice looking coop, which is important because it is close to the house and the focus of my kitchen window view and part of my back yard space. Another reason I went this way is because it is predator proof. It is built using hardware cloth rather than chicken wire and the hardware cloth is buried 18″ down into the ground around the entire perimeter. It was quite expensive to build, but for the looks, safety and the ease of feeding, cleaning out, egg collection this one got my vote and my girls love their new home! http://www.thegardencoop.com
Very inspiring ideas, Gayle from G-ville. Although two of my family members cannot eat more than three eggs a week, due to the cholestrol levels in them, the overage of yolks could be immediately given to a neighbor for their use and the whites saved for us. But, if eggs were the only thing available seven days a week, I have no doubt that everyone would eat them to stay alive. I like the little planters. Even a poor gardener could afford containers and that, in my opinion, is a brilliant survival idea!
SrvivlSally, I know what you mean by having family not being able to eat eggs. It is actually kind of funny, my dad is allergic to the chicken and my mom to the egg. Luckily us kids and so far, the grandkids have not been stuck with either allergy.
Hmm, I have been trying to research how to raise and care for chickens this past week since DH said he didnt mind me getting some. I checked our city/zoning laws and my back yard is situated just right so that there is enough space between us and the neighbors to have them.
From what I have been reading, the first couple of weeks when they are babies is when it is the hardest, after that it is just making sure they have a clean environment. Any body have something more to add to that???
I am not sure would have to do a search on it, but I *think* I have read something about using eggs on your feet to get rid of a high fever??
Oh and someone made a comment above about washing the eggs, you dont want to do that until right before you use them. There is some kind of protective layer there that will help keep the eggs from going bad.
ok I guess the remedy for the fever reducer is to soak something in egg whites and wrap around the feet and then put socks over that. Never tried it but here is a link explaining it and some peoples thoughts on it.
http://www.earthclinic.com/CURES/fever.html
TG, when I was a young teen, I fell asleep on a clear blow-up mattress on a lake. So I burned myself both sides. I had blisters starting. My grandma beat up egg whites to a froth and spread them on my sunburn. It felt really weird as it dried, but it took all the heat out of the sunburn and healed the blisters. Once completely dry I showered the egg whites off. Three days later no burn but a nice tan.
TG,
Keep baby chicks warm and clean. Overcrowding will quickly bring sickness. They need daily cleaning, feeding and watering until they finish growing their first full feathers. There’s a ton of material at the Mother Earth News site. Get your equipment set up and tested before the chicks arrive.
TG….There is a great book out there called “Raising Chickens for Dummies”. Tons of useful information written for those just getting into raising poultry.
TG, make sure whatever you put the chicks in when you get them home has rounded corners. When cold or scared, they will pile up in the corners and smoother the ones on the bottom. We always used an old large cardboard box that we bent into a circle, filled the bottom with wood shavings. You can tell if the heat lamp is just right – if no chicks are under it, move it up a bit; if they are all huddled under it, lower it a bit. There should be chicks sleeping under it, running around, eating/drinking and resting outside the edge of the heat lamp. That means they are all happy.
Egg-xactly what we needed. Thanks for all the research and a well written article.
I have seen a comparison of the eggs laid by different fowls. It was a long time ago and I have no idea where to look for the info.
I want chickens!!! Unfortunately here in SoCal suburbia it is against the law to keep them even though we are 2 blocks from an agricultural reserve. Go figure. Might just have to sneak a couple in.
Granny, you might be able to keep one as a pet in the house, and they’d be none the wiser. Chickens make sweet pets. It’s all the rage in London.
Chickens poop all over the place and they smell bad. I’m sorry but anyone who keeps a chicken in the house is nuts.
Gayle,
Hehhe.
Weren’t you sneaking around your neighborhood chasing chickens with a butterfly net just a couple of months ago? We have your pictures.
Sounds like you just told us where you kept them!
LOL.
Hunker-Down,
I wanted them when I thought they were hens. But they turned out to be roosters. They are roosting in our trees in the backyard. And waking us up at 4:30 in the morning. I don’t think my dh will ever agree to chickens now. They have been pooping on the porch, making noise, and now I find out my neighbor is a freak animal rights activist.
Granny. just tell them that you are hispanic or part hispanic and it is part of your culture to have chickens. You can also paint a rooster on your car door to make it more convincing.
Put up some A-frame fighting cock houses, too. That will convince the local office of HUD that your culture revolves around chickens.
I just read this and I want to make you all aware.
http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2011/12/08/oath-keepers-alert-federal-agents-demand-customer-lists-from-mormon-food-storage-facility/
So I wonder if they are going to start counting people’s chickens soon too? Anyone else have any firsthand knowledge of this? Seems I was right to amp up my food preps. My BOL neighbors have chickens and we have already made a barter agreement should I show up suddenly next door.
I would pay cash and give them a false name if they want it.Maybe wear an Obama mask when I pick up.
Ha ha it’s going to be funny in the news to see that Obama is buying bulk food all over the country from the LDS.
Wow, if federal agents are approaching LDS storehouses, it’s just a matter of time before they visit Emergency Essentials, Ready Made Resources, Augason Farms, etc. This is scary stuff.
I applaud the manager of the LDS storehouse, he did not give out any information and apparently the agents pushed him quite a bit for records of credit cards or checks used. And it is FEMA that preaches being prepared. Sheesh!
I posted the text of that article below. Didn’t see Mexneck’s link to it first.
Charlie (NC)
That’s OK, I think we should have this posted on every article for the last week and then next weeks to come. It really started to make me wonder what these people are up too?
I have done some research into this matter and getting their lists is because of how actual terrorists go about supplying themselves, so there is nothing for anyone, at this point, to be alarmed about. It is just another moment where our protectors are trying to keep such individuals from harming us and our nation. We better be glad that someone is watching and doing what they can so that we do not have to live in 24/7 fear of roadside ambushes, bombings such as Israel goes through on a pretty frequent basis, threats, etc. There has also been a lot of copper stolen from people’s air conditioners, phone company’s lines and everywhere that the thieves have been able to get it from and the result of those thefts have required pawn shops operators/owners to document who is buying, where they live, etc. so that it will be difficult for the sellers (the thieves) to sell it to them. The theft of copper has cost a lot of money and in time may cost the customers. We must not let our fears of tyranny and socialism take control but should keep our heads about us and fight against them at all times through voting and other non-violent means.
[....so there is nothing for anyone, at this point, to be alarmed about.]
Right!
The point to be alarmed at is when they start going down their list confiscating your food and supplies to be redistributed to the poor unprepared masses.
“thanks for the free supplies – you rotten hoarders.”
the Man.
mexneck, thank you for the link…
Wow, I think this is the best article i have ever read on this blog…not that i haven’t enjoyed many and even wrote one.
I might be partial cuz I have 4 city chickens…..but I don’t think so.
Had a rooster by mistake, took it too a lovely Amish woman who “processed” it for me at a bargin price of $2. For $2 I got a ready to cook rooster and an amazing education on rooster slaughtering.
G from G: Thank you. What a great, informative and well written article. Although I live in a small town where it’s not legal to raise any kind of domesticated farm animals, I nevertheless learned much from your article and will file it away for such time as I will be able to raise some chickens and/or other fowl.
Also, a great big thank you to MD for providing the space for articles as this and for all the other wolf pack mambers who have provided me and others so much useful information.
Jack
Jack
greetings. on the chicken eggs. i was born in 1942, which was not a very good time to be born in a big city, Detroit Michigan. were no drugs available since they all went to the military. damned few doctors either. at the time the big killers of civilian children were whooping cough. measles and other maladies. when i was a little over a year old i got the whooping cough and the doctor had my grandmother put me on a diet of egg yokes. egg yokes only. boring but the egg yoke contains sulfur which is the basis of a lot of medicines like sulfa drugs. I survived. many other children then that got whooping cough simply coughed themselves to death. i have also heard that the whites of eggs have no nutritional value. so how many calories are there in egg whites? there should be some people out there whose fathers were doctors during world war 2, that was before the big drug corporations took over the medical training. doctors then came to ones house because there were damned few hospitals to go to. they saved a lot of people back then when there were no medications available and very little healthy food to eat. be nice if someone who had access to one of these old time doctors put out a book of their remembrance like they did with Foxfire series from down in Georgia. the civilians here in America survived the second world war without any drugs. could do it again if we knew what to use instead of them.
greetings. along the same line as chickens for survival, it would be interesting for some one with the talent to put out books on what life was actually like during the war here on the home front. for instance how they converted and ran cars and trucks on wood smoke where there was no gasoline. how they made do with what little was available of everything else. that sounds to me like it would be information worth its weight in gold for when TSHTF or even before. and of course how they raised chickens in towns all over the nation back then for those eggs and Sunday dinners at a time when meat was a unobtainable luxury for most people.
RM: That is a great idea. I do remember my uncle blowing cigar smoke into my infected ear when I was about 3 or so. The infection went away, but don’t really know if that worked or not. I am also a “42″ baby, so “Happy Birthday” next year. I remember a lot from those early war years, but nothing that would help. My parents are gone, so cannot get info there, either. There must be some written accounts out there for us to find.
My mom blew warm cigarette smoke into my ears when they ached. She wasn’t a smoker, but she knew the warm smoke would relieve the pain. Now I use a blowdryer on my ear – set the blower on low heat – and use that to relieve the pain. I usually get ear aches when I drive up I-5 with the windows down on the Ol’ SUV. Should have learned by now not to do that, but some of us are slow learners. LOL
The old-time remedies still have value and it would be nice to have a book outlining them. That’s why I bought that book from Paratus Familia blog – it’s a book about oldtime remedies for diseases that are making a comeback. It’s a very good book.
Lint Picker…would you please tell me the name of the book? I would be very interested in it. I use folk and pioneer remedies often, and always like to add to my library of references. Thanks.
I agree with Lint Picker, it is an excellent resource. The name of it is “The Prepared Family Guide to Uncommon Diseases”. I have not seen it on Amazon. I got mine from the authors’ site at paratusfamiliablog. Very well presented and informative.
Thanks JEinIA…appreciate the info. :)
Apparently the safest way to clean eggs is to wait until you are just about to use them. If you wash them when you collect them, they will stand wet for a time, even if you wipe them. That is because the shells are fairly porous. Then bacteria can multiply in the microscopic pockets of water on the surface.
Also, best to use hot water, so that the air in the pockets expands and pushes out dirt instead of contracting and sucking it in.
If they need to be cleaned on collection just to look better, eg if giving to someone else, then they should be cleaned dry with steel wool or similar.
Gayle: Thank you very much for all the work you put into this article. I am new to chickens myself, and mostly just doing it by the seat of my pants and what I have learned here from all of you, and MD. So far, so good. Getting 7 eggs a day from 7 chickens and they are just wonderful.
Thank You Ma-am….. I can’t have chickens yet…. but I have a real estate agent working on it.
Dogs! Many have speculated that in a SHTF situation feral dogs will be a problem. Your typical dog could feed a family of four for 3-6 days when supplemented with some roots and greens. I consider other feral animals to be high on my list for post-SHTF. Here kitty, kitty…
We have a feral dog issue here but most of them are teaming with worms and dipteria (sp?) and i’m not sure eating them is a good idea. The problem is bad enough that the dog catcher puts down any dogs that come in sick with the symptoms because no one will adopt a sick dog and the worms can be passed to people.
A friend hunts bunnies and he said if you open them and find the worms burn the corpes since you’ll destroy the meat getting it hot enough to kill the eggs from the worms and you can get them from eating infected meat.
Anyone else have parasite issues in there area?
There is no way I would ever eat jackrabbits. They are notorious for having boils, particularly at certain times of the year. That they might also have some sort of parasitic worm is not shocking. Cottontails, on the other hand, would be of little concern to me although they are not found in my immediate area. If your friend is eating bunnies and by bunnies you mean jackrabbits, he should cease and desist immediately IMHO.
Domestic dogs and cats often have some type of nasty bugs – usually in their stool and saliva, just as humans do. A bite from either cat or dog deserves immediate attention. Now add in the feral aspect and you have a real threat to human health. It is a shame that people won’t care for their pets and often allow them to run wild and breed. In a few generations, all the domestication will be gone. I think putting these animals down is actually the most humane and rational way to deal with them. The animal shelters in this area are running out of room for animals since they have all taken a “never euthenize” stance on the animals they have. So as more people must give up their pets because they can’t afford them, the shelters bulge with cats and dogs, snakes and lizards, and assorted other critters. And crowding leads to more illnesses in the animals.
There has been a growing problem with feral dogs in this state. Far more often than not, they cannot become good pets. In some areas, they are dangerous to pets, children, and adults. This is why keeping your pets licensed and in your own yard is becoming more and more vital – keep your pets safe and your neighbors happy.
rabbits (cotton tails in my area) and squirells both get what they called wools when I was a kid or maybe it was wolves.
I never saw it spelled. It was a big, open sore on their skin.
If you touched the sore or ate the meat you were in danger of getting what was called “rabbit fever” which I think is encephilitis (SP). My dad would not allow me to go hunting in the fall until there had been a killing frost. Apparently the cold killed off what ever caused the problem and the game was then safe (or at least they thought so). He told me about one of his friends who got rabbit fever and his fingers swelled up as big as drink bottles. A couple of years ago I saw a squirrel in my yard with one of those “wools” on his back. I shot him and burried him.
Charlie, rabbits can be infected with what my grandpa told me was wolves in the months of the year that didn’t have an r in them, or so he said. Cats get them too, and I’ve seen him put turpentine on the open sores, which draws the worm out. I think it’s some type of fly larvae. He told us to never eat rabbit in the warm part of the year.
When I lived in Cal, we had to watch for spotted lungs in the Russian Boar and rabbits we hunted…it indicated diseases and made the meat inedible. Also had to watch for worms in the Rockfish we caught. Man, that was GOOD fish: Capezone, Red Snapper, etc. Awesome, awesome. I miss that.
SweetPea;
Good strategy in a “sudden” catastrophic scenario, eat what you can get. Better to plan ahead with standard livestock if possible.
I have long contended that FDA’s (Formerly Domestic Animals) will be a viable food source. As suburbs empty looking for abandoned guinea pigs, rats, rabbits which could be bred and ranged in a standard backyard, and mice which could be bred to feed to meat eating animals in “holding”. Snakes also make good eating.
Not a pretty thought, but shows good survival instincts. Good for you.
On the subject of survival food I’m taking the liberty of posting here an article from the web site RED STATE. MD I hope this is ok with you. If not I apologize. RED STATE encourages list members to forward articles but if I post the link you’ll have to join the list and log in to read it so I’m posting the text. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t think it was very important to our community (the Wolf Pack) and if I’ve gone over the line MD I’m sorry.
It’s also a bit long.
Oath Keepers Alert: Federal Agents Demand Customer Lists From Mormon Food Storage Facility
Posted by LBird on December 9, 2011 at 9:33am in American History, Education, Principles of Freedom, Preparedness
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Oath Keepers has learned that federal agents recently visited a Later Day Saints (Mormon) Church food storage cannery in Tennessee, demanding customer lists, wanting to know the identity of Americans who are purchasing food storage from the Mormons.
This incident was confirmed by Oath Keepers Tennessee Chapter President, Rand Cardwell. Here is Rand’s report:
“A fellow veteran contacted me concerning a new and disturbing development. He had been utilizing a Mormon cannery near his home to purchase bulk food supplies. The man that manages the facility related to him that federal agents had visited the facility and demanded a list of individuals that had been purchasing bulk food. The manager informed the agents that the facility kept no such records and that all transactions were conducted on a cash-and-carry basis. The agents pressed for any record of personal checks, credit card transactions, etc., but the manager could provide no such record. The agents appeared to become very agitated and after several minutes of questioning finally left with no information. I contacted the manager and personally confirmed this information.
This event points to a new level of federal government encroachment on the basic freedoms of the American people. Likewise, it points to a confused policy within federal agencies. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recommends that citizens store emergency supplies, including bulk food, in the event of a natural disaster or man-made event (the new politically correct term applied to a terrorist attack). The FEMA guidance is spot-on as it allows individuals and families to be self-sufficient during an emergency situation.
And here in Tennessee, we just learned that Nashville Metro Public Health and the Tennessee Department of Health are conducting “door-to-door assessment of disaster preparedness … using a tool designed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to go door to door and check to see how disaster ready you are. .. in 30 neighborhoods in Davidson County [TN] that have been randomly selected to be the target of a door to door assessment.” I have confirmed that that is a state run effort.
So on the one hand, government agencies both state and federal are urging you to be prepared and even checking up on you to see how prepared you are, and on the other hand, we now have federal agencies that are attempting to gather information on individuals that are following FEMA suggestions. What is the reasoning behind gathering this information? Are American citizens now being “listed” by DHS if they are simply following FEMA guidance and purchasing bulk food and emergency supplies for their families? It appears as so.
This should be a red flag to all Americans. Not unlike the “trip wires” identified in the Oath Keepers list of orders that will not be obeyed, this incident should be considered as further evidence that our federal government is out of control. What business is it of the government if any of us purchase and store bulk food? Answer: It is none of their damn business! Maybe during the next Katrina-type event federal agents will storm your home to take your food stores along with your firearms. We can only theorize as to the motives of the government for this type of “list” being developed, but it goes against the very fabric of what a free people should allow by our government.” – Rand Cardwell.
Additional comments by Stewart Rhodes, Founder of Oath Keepers:
As Rand noted, it was fortunate that this particular cannery does not keep records of its customers. And Rand is correct that this is a very serious red flag. There’s a very good reason why one of the top ten orders that active duty Oath Keepers will refuse to obey is “We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies.” As our Declaration of Orders We Will Not Obey goes on to state:
“Deprivation of food has long been a weapon of war and oppression, with millions intentionally starved to death by fascist and communist governments in the 20th Century alone.
Accordingly, we will not obey or facilitate orders to confiscate food and other essential supplies from the people, and we will consider all those who issue or carry out such orders to be the enemies of the people.”
If those who carry out such orders to confiscate food are enemies of the people, then that same label also fits anyone in the government compiling lists of Americans who store food. There is no legitimate reason for the Department of Homeland Security to compile such lists. Al Qaida suicide bombers are not known to store powdered milk and buckets of wheat. Nor are they known to store away dehydrated carrots and instant potatoes, or fruit punch mix for the kids. But the Mormons are known to do so, and so are many other Americans who have the common sense and maturity to take personal responsibility for ensuring that their families will have food, come what may.
It is part of Mormon Church religious doctrine to store food for hard times and emergencies, with a recommendation that each family store a year’s worth of basic dry goods along with three months worth of store-bought canned and boxed foods. To facilitate that practice, the Mormon Church runs its own food storage canneries selling powdered milk, wheat, flour, rice and beans, sugar, salt, and various other dry goods either in bulk 50 lb bags or in #10 cans for long term food storage (up to 30 years for some items). These Church canneries also often sell food storage items to non-church members, seeing it as both morally right and prudent to help their neighbors store food, whatever their faith. The cannery in Tennessee that was “visited” by federal agents follows that practice of helping the general public become better prepared.
So why do federal agents want to know who is storing away long-term food storage? We suspect it is for the following reasons:
DHS/FEMA wants to know which Americans have food storage so the federal government can at some future point confiscate that food. Just as with lists of gun owners, compiling such lists is the first step toward future confiscation.
DHS wants to identify those Americans who are “switched on” and squared away enough to actually store food for coming hard times (such as during an economic collapse). That population of awake, aware, and prepared Americans poses a “threat” to whatever DHS and its masters have in store for the American people, and as Joseph Stalin so ably demonstrated, one of the easiest ways to subjugate defiant people is to confiscate their food and starve them into submission.
charlie (NC), thank you for posting the text to that link. This is another attack on our privacy, with no apparent reason for doing so. It seems anybody who is self-reliant is on a goobernment watch list of some type. This also seems to go hand-in-hand with the NDAA (in which Americans can be arrested and held indefinitely without trial).
This week I called the NRA and cancelled my magazine subscription, although not my membership. I did this because there is too much intrusion into my mail at the local post office. I have had employees there (supposedly “civil servants”) ask me about some of my mail and I feel it is none of their business. I have also asked some of the long term storage food suppliers to use unmarked packaging and to NOT send me catalogs. It is no one’s business what I buy and how much of it I buy, and that includes the post office. The gooberment doesn’t need to watch me, I’m not up to anything nefarious (unlike the govt. itself). As far as I’m concerned, it’s NOTB (none of their business).
IMO, the greatest threat to our freedom is not the impending financial collapse. It is, instead, the overreach by our own federal goverment, which (not surprisingly) has been instrumental in our financial troubles.
I went to the post office yesterday and the postal worker handd me a couple of small packages for the wife. Then she said her is more chstmas ornaments. The customs form said craft supplie but theywhere ornaments. Makes me wonder how much they look into our mail.
I saw this today on Oathkeepers. The only real reason they should have to obtain that kind of info is if they were investigating someone or some group in particular. The way this is presented however, it would seem that they were “fishing” which is incredible. Isn’t Tennessee the state they also picked for random Homeland Security Checks as well? Why Tennessee I ask?
Why Tennessee? Because that’s where MD Creekmore lives. ROFL
Lint,
I’ve not seen or know of anyone who has been stopped at a security check-point.
[I’ve not seen or know of anyone who has been stopped at a security check-point.]
I’ve not seen or know of anyone who has been stopped at a security check-point – Yet.
There, fixed that for ya’ MD
That is what I thought, that Tsa was doing random checks on truck drivers there. Then that is also where they are doing the FEMA are you prepared checks. It does make you wonder…
It just doesn’t make sense why they would pick Tennessee. If FEMA was going to preparedness checks, you would think they would do them in hurricane country or earthquake country. If TSA was going to do random checks on truck drivers, you would think they would choose a border state to get all the Mexican truckers.
This could be a credible terrorist threat or it could be the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.
I don’t know about you folks but if FEMA comes to my door and wants to know if I’m prepared I’m going to say. Prepared, prepared for what? When they start to explain I’m going to ask them if they have a pamplet they can give me to help me get started.
‘G’ men, ‘T’ men, Rev-a-newr’s too!
Well if they are starting this early it is sure stupid of them. Letting the cat out of the bag.
Nothing like the grapevine to get the word out though.
Keep your ear to the ground and your eyes on the road and let us know if you see or hear anything.
American pet dogs and cats are chock full of chemicals (vaccines, flea meds, etc.)….they would be a last resort for me.
Good Point, many of the farm anitbodics or meds have withdrawl times on them before the meat can be used “safely” for humans.. Doubt very much that anyone would have studies the different vaccines/meds etc in pet animals in this same way.
10 days is the usual safe time for cattle according to a neighbour but he usually goes with 15-20 days med free for cattle he feeds his family. So assume that fluffy ould loose his med supply after a few weeks then wait another 60 days to be safe. Make it 3 monts from collapse to edible.
http://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/raising-chicks-101/
There is more on the link, but I am going to copy the main parts into this post, so that folks don’t need to follow the link if they don’t want to..
So you have picked up your chicks and get to have your first look at them, they should all look bight eyed and perky, they will be hungry and thirsty, so do your best to pick them up right when they are dropped off at your local feed store, and get them home as soon as possable, if its cool or damp, remember to cover their box with a light blanket to get them from the store to your vehicle and same to get them into the house..
Yup, you read that right, into the house if possable for the first 72 hours for sure and a week is even better, now I have used both the heat lamps that is recommended or I have used my old fashioned hanging wool strips, or I have used in floor heating, or if life is really good, I can slip some chicks under a broody hen.
The current chicks are in their homemade brooder, with 3/4 on their in floor heating and 1/4 off it, the chicks are not huddled, and are moving around eating and drinking and the sound is soft coming from the brooder so I know they are doing good, if huddled, they are cold, if all apart they are to hot, they do like to sleep in chick piles but they should not be piled on each other.
So once you get them in the house, take each one out and look it over, have a bottle of food coloring handy with a q-tip, and if any chick seems smaller or weaker, put a tiny bit of color on their back or top of head, it won’t hurt them, but it will make them stand out, into the brooder they go, lots of soft pine shavings underfoot, no slippery newspaper, you can use old towels, or in a pinch straw but honestly the best is shavings, they are easy to remove any that are damp around the water dish and you will need to clean and add a bit more a couple times a day for the first days. As you put each chick in, gently dip their beaks into the water, and make sure they all get their first drink.
So put in their chick feed, now I buy mine at the same feed store I get the chicks from, I am not going to get into the debate on if it should be medicated or not, that is up to you and what you know about your area and the way they will be raised, but if its in your buildings or your soil and you don’t treat for it, you will feel the effect in dead or sick chicks.
For the first feeding, I put the feed out in their little silver chick feeders and water ones, but if you only have a few chicks, you don’t need to spend on that, just use a low dish and put a couple nickels in the bottom and the shine will get the chicks all interested. sprinkle their food lightly over the shavings and then have a full small dish for them where the regular feedings will go.
If you have ever watched a momma hen with chicks, she shows them how its done, and she has a sound that says come here, grub is ready, try and do the same with your chicks, make whatever sound you want, I cluck for the chicks and we whistle for the turkeys, they learn and figure it out very quickly and it will be very helpful as they become adults and you want to move them around.
So the main four things chicks need are
■Heat- most folks use heat bulbs to make this happen, red seems to be the color of choose on this , but I can honestly say that the infloor heating works well for when they are in their brooder box’s and the wool hanging strips* work very well for when they are bigger and moved into their first out of the house pen if you don’t have power there.
* This tip came from a old homesteading book, find a worn wool coat of blanket and cut it up into stripes at least a foot long, hang them off wooden dowls in at least three to eight rows, about 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch off the ground, and the chicks will move into the wool stripes and it will retain their body warmth, I have done this a number of times and if I ever had to go to raising chicks without a mom or power or the warmth of a wood stove to put the box by, this would be the ideal choice for me.
■Food- I buy chick starter but soon enough I will be adding in extra’s, bits of fresh greens, as these are fall chicks, the greens will be soon hard to come by outside, no worries there, I have lots and lots of seed saved that will be used for sprouting, and these chicks will get fresh sprouted greens a couple times a week to make sure they grow big and strong. They will also get a feeding at least once a week of finely mashed up shelled hardboiled egg, and a couple times a month, I will raid my worm box’s and they will get some nice small fresh red wigglers to fight over.
■Water-Right now the chicks are on filtered water, once they are at least a week old and well started, I will move them over to straight well water, when it comes to water, room temp is best, but in time, they will get luke warm water a couple times a day as will the laying hens, with just a touch of apple cider vinager added to the water during the winter. The key to water is that its cleaned often, and that the dish is washed inbetween.
■Shelter/Bedding- It is very important to have a clean shelter and if you have had bird in it before its very important that it was cleaned between, it should be both draft free and at the same time have a good exchange of fresh air, the bedding was touched on above, it needs to be non-slipper or you will often end up with leg issues on the chicks, you need to keep a couple inchs of bedding , remove the damp or dirty bedding, you can use a cat litter scoop or on a bigger floor once they are bigger, you can use the stall bedding forks an then put down fresh bedding. Straw compacts and smells alot more then the cidar chips do.
Extra’s little perches or items to jump up and off, just for playing really, and soon a tiny bowl of grit will be need to be available to them.
Now once they are started, you need to listen to them, you will quickly hear be able to figure out a few different sounds, the most basic are
■I’m content -This is the sound you want
■Excited about food/water or you coming to visit
■Wrong- Regardless of what is wrong, the sound is the same.
■Fighting-Someone got peeked or a leg got grabbed, even at this young of age, they are figuring out who is boss chick, vs who is lower ranked.
Now, each time you check on them, and watch them for at least a min or two, take the time after just watching them, to check on your food colored chicks, gentle cup them and give them a check over, are they bright eyed, are they clean eyed and clean beaked, is they bottom clean and dry? Do they feel full in body? If you need to, pick up a unmarked chick and compare how they feel to you in weight, hopefully close yes? If the above is all good, then back into the bunch they go, but if any of the above are showing, time to move them to a clean empty fish tank set up, with a heating lamp on it, half screen, half light, and they get the same treatment as above till they are well and growing just great and then can be moved back into the baby flock, its not a good idea to keep a “off” chick or chicken with the main group.
I think I have covered my chick raising basics, got any questions? or comments? please feel free to ask..
Farmgal,
We also covered raising chickens here…
this is one of the sites I read this week. They have some good info.
Thanks, farmgal. I linked to your original article, and bookmarked it. I’m getting ready to start raising chickens in the spring, and this is the info I needed. Now, if you can give me a plan for a pest-proof chicken house, I’ll be set. LOL. I live on the edge of a national forest, and we have fox, coyote, raccoons, possoms, hawks and snakes to name a few. Also black bears, but I’ve never seen one on my land, although it’s an outside possibility. I have seen them within 5 miles of where I live, although across a river. They are much more numerous on that side of the river for some reason.
MtWoman,
Good point!
Dog ribs are a little short.
Yeah them chickens can be noisy. Just last month we had only one running around town here. It sounded like 10.
But noise or no noise would be a good thing to have fresh eggs.
Great article! Reminds me of the jimgle the egg producers used years ago – “The incredible edible egg!”
Great post, Gayle!
I want to get chickens when we relocate back to Kentucky. MD had a couple of great articles on chickens and how to raise them in his CD–thanks MD. Between you and Gayle, I have decided to give it a try when we move. From what I read, it seems that the roosters are the trouble makers, so I think I would start out with just 3-4 hens and see how it goes. I’ve learned a lot from this blog, and I even convinced DH about getting chickens. How wonderful to be able to eat fresh eggs every day! I don’t know if I could ever eat one of the chickens—but when SHTF, I’m sure I won’t have a problem. LOL!
Great Article. Thanks for the info.
I love eggs and they are quite versatile, although very fragile too. As such, they aren’t very portable. Hard-boiled eggs make them easier to transport, but they start going bad after two hours at room temperature. Depending on age, doctors recommend consuming no more than 3 eggs/day (young) or 3 eggs/week (elderly). Although nutritious, they aren’t very filling. I can’t say I’d call them a perfect survival food, although they certainly are a good food source to have.
I didn’t know that about the membrane “band-aid!” That is very cool! Thanks for sharing!
PTP= “Prepare to Protect!” D.K.L.
Always ~~~ Eggs for Protein good survival!
charlie (NC)
Everything is illegal or requires government permission via a permit in this free country or ours…
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