Uncle Sam Wants You ... To Raise Chickens!

At least he used to. Back during the Great War Uncle Sam thought raising chickens was one of our patriotic duties as an American! My, how times have changed, with all the government regulations and prevailing attitudes today that screams the opposite. Here is an advertisment from 1918 that I first saw on Amanda's blog and just loved:

If you can't read the small print, this is what Uncle Sam said:

"Even the smallest back yard has room for a flock large enough to supply the house with eggs. The cost of maintaining such a flock is small. Table and kitchen waste provide much of the feed for the hens. They require little attention - only a few minutes a day. An interested child, old enough to take a little responsibility, can care for a few fowls as well as a grown person. Every back yard in the United States should contribute its share to a bumper crop of poultry and eggs in 1918."

And then I love the Department of Agriculture's slogan,

"In Time of Peace a Profitable Recreation - In Time of War a Patriotic Duty"

Today, it seems, Uncle Sam would have Americans believe that it is our duty to allow the Government to protect us from ourselves. He would say we need to be protected from folks who would dare raise food without the inspections and additives and enhanced genetics that our all knowing and all powerful Uncle Sam can provide for our betterment! As long as we rely on him for all our needs, we will be fine, but if we would rather be self reliant then he will do everything in his power to change our minds. It is now our Patriotic Duty to be blindly led and fed by the government!

Well, we here at Pure Water Hollow Homestead are striving for the old fashioned notions of "profitable recreation" and also patriotism! We will continue to provide for our own food as much as possible. Chickens have been a part of the meat and egg equation here since 2004, and we don't plan on stopping!

Our current flock is down about as low as we have ever experienced, but we are not giving up. The predators were particularly devastating this past year and after loosing 2 more chickens this week we are down to just 5 hens and 1 rooster. (We fear that our puppy, Thor, may have been responsible for these last two deaths so we are keeping a close eye on him. We want to keep him, but we will not if he is now a chicken killer.)

I am going to take this opportunity to demonstrate my patriotism by capturing our 2012 Pure Water Hollow chicken flock on camera.

We will begin with Queen One Feather:



She was a pullet in 2004 and was one of the original Pure Water Hollow chickens. She is a tough as nails game hen, and even though she is small in size she has always ruled the roost! She has been through a lot and has had a long life considering she has been a mostly free-range hen living in a predator laden environment!



To survive for 8 years she has to be a pretty smart bird, and she proved it again the other night. You see, since we were having predator problems in the coop last year I never made the pullets go in the coop, choosing instead to allow them the safety of the trees that Queen One Feather took them to. One Feather has not been roosting in the coop since last winter and she has always seemed happier in the trees. But after our snowy day Monday, guess where One Feather slept that night? And when the temperature got down to 16 degrees she was again in the coop! She remembered the refuge of the coop from previous years gone by and changed her roost all by herself! The past couple of nights she has been back in the tree, but we have had mild temperatures. (As I type this right now our thermometer is at 62!)



This is one wise queen and I hope she stays around to rule her kingdom for some time to come!



In the summer of 2008 we purchased Buff Orpingtons, Light Brahmas, and Black Giants from McMurray Hatchery. Those birds were wonderful, but sadly, none of the originals have survived to 2012. What we have, though, are their decedents, which are a mixture of the three breeds. We have two hens surviving from the bunches that hatched in 2009 and 2010. Here is a pretty Buff Orpington/Light Brahma mixed hen:





And here is the other older hen, a mix more of the Buff Orpington and Black Giant (based on her clean legs):





Next we have a young hen that seems to be a full Light Brahma, except for a dingy patch of buff on her back. The buff spot hardly shows up at all, and I don't think you can see it in the pictures, but I think it means that she has a Buff Orpington gene somewhere. Or maybe it is just dirt and she is really all Brahma!




Our last hen is one who has been an excellent layer this winter. She is a pretty hen, as well. I like the lacey pattern, which is something like One Feathers.



Here she is behind the Light Brahma. Two of our prettier chickens!



Here is her nest in Lisa's herb garden. She lays an egg here almost every morning and sometimes the other hens join in, too. (They seem to like having golf balls in there to keep their eggs company.)



And last but not least, I'll show you our rooster. This is not the rooster that we would have chosen, but he is the last surviving rooster from last year's hatchings. He seems to be a good rooster, but we have decided that we don't really like black chickens because it is more difficult to get them looking clean when we butcher them.



I mentioned our Great Pyrenees/Norwegian Elkhound puppy, Thor, earlier. If we were the police, we would definitely be looking at Thor as "a person of interest" in the murder cases of two chickens earlier this week, at the very least. Since I had the camera out, I decided to take a few mug shots.




So far, by throwing himself on the mercy of the court, he has been allowed to stay free.




And Sandy, one of our cats, got a picture today. He has nothing to do with the chickens but I'll put his picture up anyway.



There you have it; our patriotic chickens, a dog, and a cat.

So now, whenever I see a backyard chicken flock, I may start singing, "My Country Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty, of thee I sing..."