Natural chicken eggs - truth in chicken keeping

In May of 2012, I got my first chickens - 1 day old chicks, a straight run - and it has been an amazing journey. I LOVE my chickens, I LOVE birds in general.

So, this post is about the eggs of my sweet girls, or rather, the egg laying. Some would call this a rant - but actually, it is the truth about what humans have done to chickens.
It has been 10 months and in the last few days, somethink else happened: I see those hens, the little ones and the big ones and notice: there are times - when they have yolks to fertilize inside - that they attract roosters more than others - and every day, all year - leading to wear and tear of their poor backs...but more importantly - I see them laying eggs: sometimes patiently, sometimes agitated and restless before, sometimes literally screaming when the

egg passes, and very often panting as if in labor - which they are.  Some will sit for a few minutes on the nest with remnants of their "nest-fixing" behavior, only to leave the nest. Broodiness has been bred out of  egg layers.

They are working hard - every day, and  attention from roosters every afternoon all year long - no break - so no wonder we have to cut the number of roosters..

THE WHOLE THING IS UNNATURAL. The entire: "lay an egg a day thing" is actually abusive. It is not quite like GMO chickens, but still, abnormal chickens. I feel bad for them ....

....  having to lay an egg a day and the resources that must consume in their bodies - they can't even forage enough food to sustain it. 

A first egg

Every day all year going through labor ....sweet little girls ...they don't seem to care much, and they don't know better - but it is NOT NATURAL....it IS using them and all the proud: OH she laid an egg a day all year  - is really being proud of having succeeded in perfect abuse. And the hens are spent spent spent after a couple of years as the number of yolks is limited.

It would be more "natural" to get meat from them, come to think of it, to let them be, let them be broody once a year after maybe stealing a few eggs for yourself and let them raise a clutch of chicks, and, unless you have a balanced predator control on your property, you are gonna have to cull - and get meat - not eggs. In the end, if you are not willing to cull, you can't keep chickens the natural way - and one option is to keep a few rescue hens, which will allow you to enjoy the birds, and maybe an occasional egg.

One of the reasons  we have Easter eggs is: there were no available eggs in Winter, otherwise we'd have had Christmas eggs.

So - I enjoy eggs - and I see that my girls have been bred to be living abnormal lives - abused by being forced to lay an egg almost every  day. At the very least, I owe them a decent chicken life.
I suppose you call it "progress" for humans, not being so dependent on the seasonal fluctuations of food supply ....the "problem" is: we are using breathing living beings for this, beings who feel - and who only have this one life to live on earth.

Once my current flock has lived out its days, all I can ever keep is rescue chickens. At least, I won;t be getting any more chicken from a hatchery. IF I were able to cull appropriately - I'd breed them back to normalcy....for truly natural chicken breeds....and I bet ya that you would be able to keep many more roosters to the hens.

Knowing what it takes to get eggs, and seeing the relative indifference with which people treat those precious perfect creations seals the deal: my answer to more chickens for eggs is NO.... unless they are rescue hens....don't ask me what I will do if one of the hens goes broody, I got a non-broody breed for a reason ... it made sense at the time.

Natural Chicken Keeping and the Rooster dilemma

Random thoughts on "Natural" chicken keeping, rooster dilemma  and the natural health of the flock.

Natural chicken keeping has at it's heart a way of keeping chickens that is as natural to them as possible.

This usually means plenty of space and access to free foraging most of the day, pesticide and GMO free foods, no antibiotics or immunisations. Given good nutrition and being allowed to do what they need to do - chickens tend to be very healthy.

So then I got chickens as a straight run - keeping them all "natural" as per above and they have been VERY healthy so far. However,  out of 53 chickens, 32 were male ....the first run being 17 males and 9 females - that is not 50/50 ....and the person who said they would take my males backed out - and I needed to do some managing of that situation - and learned a lot about roosters.

It certainly is more natural to have roosters in your flock than not. This is simply an observation - about how well they get along in general and they contentment.
I found out when trying to re-home roosters, that there are unwanted roosters everywhere.
I also did some research because I wondered - what the heck to chickens do "in the wild" surely there are as many males as females - and there is no such a thing as 1 rooster for every 8-10 females. And sure enough, they arrange themselves in pairs or small groups, sometimes a few roos stay together, some are solo.

When they all grow up together - given enough space and at least and even number of males and females - you can have as many roosters as you want. Does breed matter - yet it does - but it basically translates into: some need more space than others.

And they all, roosters and hens, are very content together - unless the hens are totally overrun by roos. The guys keep each other in check and off the females - on the other hand, sometimes they stand in line for mating. Again - you need the space.

Natural does not mean: kill 90 % of the males - most suffocating as baby chicks - others eaten for meat. 
Talking about natural chicken keeping after you killed most of the males is - closing your eyes to a part of it....but since this is in part another "rant"  -> it is hypocritical.
Calling yourself a chicken lover after you killed the males for your convenience - is equally hypocritical.
"Oh I love chickens"  (nvn those that got sacrificed so I can have the ones I love.....)

Not saying it is good or bad or that not everyone is doing the best they can - but it IS hypocritical.

So let's face it: it is all relative and you are keeping chickens for your own purposes, be it eggs, meat, business or pleasure. Being a truly "natural" chicken keeper is in a way an oxymoron, because there are no safe coops in the wild, no predator protection. Of course, without those, our chickens would not really make it it many part of the country at all. Natural and Keeping is the oxymoron. The only truly natural way is: in nature - not kept at all.

So, that being out of the way, we can keep chickens as natural as possible. .... except for the roosters part. Who wants to feed them? Who wants to take care of them? Their noise can be a problem even where there is no limit in agricultural areas. They are not economical, they can fight - but that includes fighting predators. They are quite watchful.
Of course because of inbreeding and breeding for fighting, there appears to be a lot of rooster to rooster aggression - and they will fight and will kill each other.....though in my research on the original chickens ...death seemed to hardly ever occur.

Of course, many breeds have had their broodiness bred out of them ...so we can have eggs all year, in fact, how natural is THAT?  And, how natural is it to take away the babies of those birds - so I guess the egg laying backyard flocks are by themselves a step removed from natural.

And what about those pet chickens in your flock? In a healthy natural flock - nature takes care of the small and weak and deformed and those who can't keep up. A lot of the more sentimental chicken keepers tend to those especially. I see it in myself: there is this runt in my second straight run...half the size of anyone else ...bottom of the pecking order and sometimes i think one day they are gonna kill her - and I try to give her the best and most nutritious tit-bits - how healthy and natural is THAT for the flock as a whole? - Pet chicken keeping is not natural chicken keeping.

Culling in nature, whether by predators or from their own kind always leads to the best and healthiest flock as a whole. Culling is a necessity of truly natural chicken keeping.


In conclusion:

The backyard chickens we have are no longer natural.
Natural chicken keeping does NOT require to kill most of the roosters. Monitoring rooster numbers  is only necessary if you keep too many birds for the space you have.
Culling of the weak and sick is part of good natural chicken keeping (unless you have predators doing it for you), given the same healthy living condition for all members of the flock.

No matter how I look at it though -  don't want to do the killing - not for space, sex, meat or to pacify some neighbors - and not because some chick is a runt.

So I am unfit to be a chicken keeper - natural or otherwise. I might be able to grow into  a chicken rescuer - but the vet requirements will probably prohibit that.

In "natural chicken keeping", and in  contrast to the abominations happening in the commercial  poultry industry, we strive to be as close as possible to allow the chickens we DO in fact keep around our house and yard their natural expressions and foods, ....but as a whole, natural - is is not.