{"id":10619,"date":"2014-05-31T09:42:34","date_gmt":"2014-05-31T16:42:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=10619"},"modified":"2014-06-04T17:06:19","modified_gmt":"2014-06-05T00:06:19","slug":"loose-chickens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=10619","title":{"rendered":"Loose Chickens."},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a lot of debate regarding free range chicken.\u00a0 Technically, the government considers “free range” to mean that the birds have access to the outdoors.\u00a0 But it doesn’t actually mean they spend any time out there or that it’s more than a gravel yard.\u00a0 Most people (as opposed to the government) consider “free range” to mean chickens that are allowed to roam around a natural area, foraging for some of their food and choosing their favorite place for a dust bath.\u00a0 Although, with the rise of egg mobiles <\/a>and portable electric netting, lots of chickens are rotating through fields and woodlands in movable pens.\u00a0 Which some people consider to be “pastured” chickens instead of free range. \u00a0 Of course, there are also “cage free” hens.\u00a0 That simply means keeping chickens in a facility without cages.\u00a0 No limits on crowding and no guarantee of sunlight or open ground, just no cages.\u00a0 There’s “humanely raised” chickens—-a definition that is totally up for grabs.\u00a0 Or there’s Certified Humane<\/a> and Animal Welfare Approved<\/a>—-with documented standards.\u00a0 Very documented.\u00a0 Like so-long-I-only-managed-to-read-the-first-30-pages-before-I-lost-interest documented.<\/p>\n

Around here the chickens are fenced out of areas instead of inside them.\u00a0 They are fenced out of the landscaping in the front yard.<\/p>\n

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No swimming in the pond, ladies.<\/p><\/div>\n

Fenced off the deck.<\/p>\n

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No scratching in the flower pots, ladies.<\/p><\/div>\n

Fenced out of the garden.<\/p>\n

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No pecking the vegetables, ladies.<\/p><\/div>\n

And fenced out of the backyard.<\/p>\n

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You say "Chicken." We say "Yum!" <\/p><\/div>\n

Besides those small areas set aside for us, the rest of the farm is open for the chickens to wander.\u00a0 The livestock are contained with field fencing or cattle panels and the chickens can walk easily through those barriers.\u00a0 They can even walk down to the road if they’d like, although we don’t have a lot of chickens left that like to walk in the road.\u00a0 Because that’s a self-correcting problem.<\/p>\n

Based on all those conditions, I’d say our chickens qualify as “free range.”\u00a0 But the other day, Pretty and I stood watching one of the pastures and pondering all those definitions.\u00a0 Because in the pasture was one of our Americana hens.\u00a0 With a new brood of chicks.\u00a0 13 chicks in all.\u00a0 Little puff balls darting around her toes, looking just a day or two old.<\/p>\n

We weren’t sure how old they were because we didn’t know when they hatched.\u00a0 We didn’t know when they hatched because we didn’t know where she had hidden her nest.\u00a0 We didn’t know where her nest was hidden because we didn’t know she was broody.\u00a0 We didn’t know she was broody because we didn’t even know she was missing from the flock.<\/p>\n

I mean, I feed and water the chickens twice a day.\u00a0 I just don’t count them.\u00a0 I don’t count them because I don’t really know exactly how many I have anyway.\u00a0 I don’t really know exactly how many I have because every year some of the hens spend a little time with the rooster and then sneak off to some hidden spot to lay eggs, hatch their chicks, and not return until the deed is done.<\/p>\n

Pretty and I watched her for awhile before scooping her up with her chicks and closing them in the kidding barn for safekeeping.\u00a0 Safekeeping from the youngest safekeeper.<\/p>\n

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What are those? Are they chickens? 'Cause I know I can't eat chickens, right? But they don't look like chickens. Are you sure they're chickens? Why are they peeping? What does peeping taste like? Oh, they're running! Running and peeping!!! Oh, oh, oh, are you really sure they're not for eating??!!!!<\/p><\/div>\n

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As we headed back inside the house, I decided I knew exactly what kind of chickens we had.\u00a0 Loose chickens.\u00a0 Very, very loose chickens.<\/p>\n

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Yeah. That means you, sweetie.<\/p><\/div>\n

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There’s a lot of debate regarding free range chicken.\u00a0 Technically, the government considers “free range” to mean that the birds have access to the outdoors.\u00a0 But it doesn’t actually mean they spend any time out there or that it’s more than a gravel yard.\u00a0 Most people (as opposed to the government) consider “free range” to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10619"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10689,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10619\/revisions\/10689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}