"Free Range" is all the rage at trendy whole food stores these days. The Blue Hill Food Co-Op (food heaven for trust funders- males wear berets, women wear long dresses and high top work boots) is awash in free range everything. Not to be out done, we have free range chickens, goats and horses. We have a nice Chicken coop that houses the chickens at night, but during the day the chickens scratch out a living around the farm. I like to think of it as chickens without borders- a bucolic paradise in the middle of Surry... well if you're a hen, not a rooster. (The roosters have all become chickens without heads.)
Up until recently, free range was an easy and inexpensive way to raise our flock. The start of egg production is making "Free Range" a lot more challenging.
Chickens lay eggs during the day making free range eggs are a lot trickier to collect than coop eggs. I spent a day making nesting boxes in the chicken coop. The hens were unimpressed. They seem to think outside the box-- outside the coop and outside the pen for that matter. Well it is a small leap from Free Range to free thinking and free sex. Oh, yeah, the chickens and one remaining rooster are absolutely shameless. Now it looks like we have our own "Occupy" movement right here at Missed Skeet Farm. They already have free food, free housing, free range, free sex. I suppose once you spoil them, they whine over everything. Well, I am not sure what I expected when we started letting the chickens "Free Range" but certainly not that.
As a result of the Free Range movement, we now spend a lot of time lurking. Lurking is the best way to find a nest. There are eight hens and that requires a lot of lurking. Kris is better at than I am. I appear to be lurking and once a chicken detects lurking, it won't go near its nest. Kris can lurk and do other things and easily fools the unsuspecting birds. When I lurk, no matter how nonchalant I try to appear, the chickens see right through it. I might as well wear a trench coat and hang out at the bus station. Consequently, Kris finds all the eggs. I spend most of my egg finding efforts checking the stubbornly empty nesting boxes and dealing with disappointment.
With all the extra time it requires to locate truly Free Range eggs, it makes me wonder how many of the eggs at the larger whole foods stores are actually free range. I hate to think it, but some of the free range chickens may be a little less free than the image conjures up.
Well, anyway, we used our first eggs making homemade egg noodles last night. I couldn't discern any difference in the flavor of the noodles, but I felt good about eating our own free range eggs so maybe it really is healthier.
Up until recently, free range was an easy and inexpensive way to raise our flock. The start of egg production is making "Free Range" a lot more challenging.
Chickens lay eggs during the day making free range eggs are a lot trickier to collect than coop eggs. I spent a day making nesting boxes in the chicken coop. The hens were unimpressed. They seem to think outside the box-- outside the coop and outside the pen for that matter. Well it is a small leap from Free Range to free thinking and free sex. Oh, yeah, the chickens and one remaining rooster are absolutely shameless. Now it looks like we have our own "Occupy" movement right here at Missed Skeet Farm. They already have free food, free housing, free range, free sex. I suppose once you spoil them, they whine over everything. Well, I am not sure what I expected when we started letting the chickens "Free Range" but certainly not that.
As a result of the Free Range movement, we now spend a lot of time lurking. Lurking is the best way to find a nest. There are eight hens and that requires a lot of lurking. Kris is better at than I am. I appear to be lurking and once a chicken detects lurking, it won't go near its nest. Kris can lurk and do other things and easily fools the unsuspecting birds. When I lurk, no matter how nonchalant I try to appear, the chickens see right through it. I might as well wear a trench coat and hang out at the bus station. Consequently, Kris finds all the eggs. I spend most of my egg finding efforts checking the stubbornly empty nesting boxes and dealing with disappointment.
With all the extra time it requires to locate truly Free Range eggs, it makes me wonder how many of the eggs at the larger whole foods stores are actually free range. I hate to think it, but some of the free range chickens may be a little less free than the image conjures up.
Well, anyway, we used our first eggs making homemade egg noodles last night. I couldn't discern any difference in the flavor of the noodles, but I felt good about eating our own free range eggs so maybe it really is healthier.
Ha! That is so funny! I can just see you guys now searching for eggs :) glad to hear you are eating so well! Xxoo
ReplyDelete