I have one lonely chicken in my coop. Chickens are flock animals, and I feel guilty keeping Bessie here alone. She’s an English Creel, a bantam who roosts in the rafters of the coop. She’s at least fifteen years old, the only chicken left of the ten bantam pullets I ordered from Cackle Hatchery all those years ago.
She comes running when I walk toward the aptly-named run, the run that’s the reason I have only one chicken. It needs to be rebuilt. The framework is falling in, but Bessie’s still secure beneath the sagging chicken-wire cover. I could keep her in a cage while we’re rebuilding, but the plan was to let the last flock I bought as chicks live out their lives before we rebuilt. I didn’t expect them to live 13 years, 14 years, and in Bessie’s case, 15 years.
Meanwhile, I’m buying eggs from friends who have their small flocks. I don’t argue about the price, unless they charge too little. I know how much it costs to maintain chickens. Even when the pandemic and bird flu drove up the costs of eggs, they were still a bargain.
I understand that four and five-dollar eggs hurt the budgets of those whose budgets are already stretched thin. Still, a dozen eggs provides a family of four with 18 grams of protein each. So would a pound of beans. Eggs and beans can help stretch food dollars. And there’s good news on the inflation front. At my local dollar store, eggs sell for less than two dollars a dozen.
Would chickens in family yards be less likely to succumb to bird flu? Maybe we could start a chickens in every yard campaign, as they did during World War II. We would also need a nonprofit to build secure runs and tight coops in people’s back yards. We could call it Habitat for Poultry. I guess we could also teach people to make chicken stew when their old hens are no longer laying.
Meanwhile, I keep feeding Bessie and she keeps running to the gate to greet me. I’d like to think I could do the right thing if she were an essential source of nutrition for my family, but I just don’t know. She’s like a member of the family now.
Apocalypse Farm 