A Deadly Ingredient in Chicken

[JudyJudyJudy]

Scary.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/25/AR2009062503381.html?wpisrc=newsletter

[Camille]

Gah. Feeding chickens an arsenic compound to make them appear pinker?

I really want to live on a 40 acre farm again so I don't have to worry about what's in the food we eat.

[JudyJudyJudy]

If the little house I grew up in was inhabitable, I seriously would move into it. I'd have plenty of land to farm.

[Ma_Whit]

Creepy.

[Meredith]

Gah. Feeding chickens an arsenic compound to make them appear pinker?

I really want to live on a 40 acre farm again so I don't have to worry about what's in the food we eat.

Me, too. DH thinks I'm crazy for wanting to.

[JudyJudyJudy]

Having a farm is hellacious work, but it's worth it if you're capable of doing it.

[Meredith]

I told him I want to start slow and build gradually - with a garden, and then work up to getting a few chickens, and then maybe a goat - very gradually.

[JudyJudyJudy]

That makes sense. By then your kids will be big enough to help. :p

[Camille]

Having a farm is hellacious work, but it's worth it if you're capable of doing it.

Very true! I grew up on a farm. When I was 11, my mom had to have surgery on her hand rendering her incapable of doing much that required two hands (like milking the goats). Being the oldest still living at home, I had to pick up the slack. I remember summers where my whole day one day per week consisted of hoeing and weeding our 1.5 acre garden. I got a nice tan, but man was that hard work!

My parents weren't overly diligent about cleaning stalls, either. I remember one time spending 10+ hours mucking the cow stall out. Oh, the blisters! After that, I took it upon myself to muck them out every few days so I didn't have to go through that again!

One thing I'm not sure I'd be able to handle is slaughtering chickens. It's disgusting. Not only are chickens nasty, flea-bitten birds that carry mites, but they also smell awful when dunked in boiling water (gramma did that to make the feathers easier to pull off). Yuck.

Oh, and baling hay would be another tough one. I'm allergic to hay, and mowing the grass makes me miserable. I suppose I could do it, but I definitely wouldn't want to. Maybe if I got some sheep they could keep the grass trimmed down for me? lol.

[JudyJudyJudy]

I'm also allergic to hay, and I know that I couldn't do the chicken slaughtering, either.

When I was in high school, some friends and I walked into Kentucky Fried Chicken, and I said, "I'm sorry, y'all. I have to go. I can't stay here." It had that smell of chickens dunked in boiling water to get the feathers off. :puke:

I wouldn't even eat chicken as a small child because I was always reminded of that smell.

[Meredith]

That makes sense. By then your kids will be big enough to help. :p


Good thinking. :D

[Sadalsuud]

We want to get chickens again, we are working on making a yard that is a lot closer to our house to help deter the lynx that found our chickens last summer.

I honestly don't remember having problems with our chickens wrt fleas and mites. My sister and I used to spend hours with our egg-layer Araucanas and we never had a single flea bite. Even our meat chickens didn't seem to have problems with fleas or mites.

I don't mind slaughtering chickens. Skinning them is a lot easier and less smelly/messy than plucking.

[StillSingingMom]

Our chickens were looking a little sad until my MIL told DH to go break up the ground in the pen for them. Apparently the clay soil had dried too hard for them to dust bathe.

Now they look fine, except for the Polish chicken, who keeps getting attacked by the four pound toy poodle. The kids allege that the poodle keeps dragging said chicken around by the head.

Also I have found my four year old carrying the Polish around. Things you never imagined yourself saying. "Put that chicken down! She doesn't want to be carried around. And stop hitting things with that chicken!"

[dramamine]

Ouch... one more reason why I am glad that I don't eat any conventional meat. That stuff is terrible for you.

[JudyJudyJudy]

I honestly don't remember having problems with our chickens wrt fleas and mites.
I don't remember having problems with that, either.


Our chickens were looking a little sad until my MIL told DH to go break up the ground in the pen for them. Apparently the clay soil had dried too hard for them to dust bathe.
Yeah, dust baths are good for them.

[Meredith]

Growing up, my neighbors had chickens that would hang out in our yard and let us pet them and hold them, and I don't remember them having fleas or mites, either (although, I don't think you can really see the mites, can you?).