Backyard Chickens: the deep litter method

In one of my first chicken posts I mentioned the book I “borrowed” from my grandparents, Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening: A complete guide to gardening without DDT or other poisons or chemicals edited by J.I. Rodale (published in 1969). There is a section on poultry. I took their litter advice for our girls: “A practice that makes healthier and more productive chickens in deep litter, sometimes called built up litter. Simply let the little accumulate instead of cleaning out the poultry house every couple of weeks. Biological activity in the litter, just as in the compost heat, produces huge amounts of rich food.”

Wait. Not cleaning out the litter from the coop on a weekly basis, me being lazy, is good for the girls? This seemed to good to be true! The section continues.

“Litter-reared chickens need no expensive animal proteins or mineral supplements, and if pastured or given ample feed in addition will need to vitamin A or D supplements. Antibiotics are also produced - litter-raised poultry is remarkably free from disease.”

Wow. What a huge gift. It is healthier for the girls to live around microorganisms in their litter. And yet, summertime is for cleaning.

The Augean stables it was not, but there was about 10 inches of accumulated litter to be transferred onto the compost pile. Last August, we put pine chips 2 inches deep. Over the course of the year we added handfuls of pine chips and cedar chips. The cedar chips smell nice; yet we found cedar stains the outside of the egg, so it is better to avoid cedar where the girls are laying.

I don’t know if they care one way or another, but I love the fresh yellow and the smell of the new sawdust - should last about another week.

Here is the link to the article!

Fresh Michigan asparagus with homemade mayonnaise

This appetizer combines two of my favorite things - farm fresh food and eggs from our girls! Asparagus dipped in homemade mayonnaise made from the eggs of our backyard chickens - I cannot think of a better way to celebrate the beginning of harvest bounty beginning to descend upon us. Asparagus is wonderful for all sorts of reasons: it tastes amazing, when it leafs out the fronds are soft and silky like baby hair, and when you prepare it there is snapping involved. I did not realize until I was in college that not everyone snaps asparagus. I was taught to bend the cut stalk until it snaps - the area where it snaps will be the demarcation of where it is still chewable and where it will become stringy and difficult to eat.

I was able to find glowing asparagus at Seedling's booth at the Westside Farmers Market. Seedling is located in South Haven, MI and they focus mainly on fruit. However, I had heard Locavorious was procuring asparagus from Seedling for their CSA and I was curious to try.

So I sat outside and snapped my way through a large handful - the leftover stalks to be divided equally between our chickens and to feed our vermiculture container inside the house (those worms are always hungry).

After snapping, I steamed the asparagus for 4 minutes and quickly ran them under cold water to stop them from continuing to cook.

Then I pulled out from the refrigerator our second attempt at making mayonnaise.

It seemed silly for us to be purchasing mayonnaise (one of my most favorite indulgences) when we have an abundant and never-ending supply of eggs. I was able to corner a family member to give me his recipe over Easter. His recipe is simple and elegant in its simplicity.

JP’s mayonnaise recipe: Two egg yolks, two cups of oil, juice of one full lemon, 2 tablespoons water, some white pepper, and a sprinkle of cayenne pepper to taste.

Blend together the two egg yolks and the lemon juice in a mason jar (I later learned this is important to prevent splatter). Still blending, slowly add the oil - the mixture should quickly solidify and lighten in color - if this does not happen, add another egg yolk. Continue to add the oil until it is all incorporated. Then add two tablespoons of water to stop the mixture from separating, or “oiling out.”

Add pepper, and voila!

When we returned home we tried another recipe for mayonnaise that we found in our fancy book of egg recipes, Eggs, by Michel Roux. His recipe calls for Dijon mustard and white wine vinegar OR lemon juice, we went with the white wine vinegar.

Roux’s mayonnaise recipe: 2 egg yolks, 1 tbsp Dijon mustard, salt and freshly ground pepper, 1 cup peanut oil, 2 tbsp white wine vinegar/lemon juice.

Place into a bowl on a towel the egg yolks, mustard, salt, and pepper. Whisk. Slowly add a trickle of oil while you whisk. Once the mixture begins to thicken add the oil in a steady stream, whisking the whole time. Once the oil is incorporated, continue to whisk briskly for 30 seconds and then add the vinegar/lemon juice.

First of all, I used our manual blender and the mixture refused to thicken when I started adding the oil. Our hand-held electric blender worked much better and the mixture began to thicken - but the splattering was considerable (note the Mason jar in JP's recipe).

Taste wise, when I think of my ideal mayonnaise flavor, I prefer JP's recipe. The addition of mustard in the Roux's recipe adds an element of non-mayo that alters the essence of the mayonnaise flavor.

But the mustard-esque mayonnaise is a beautiful dunk for freshly cooked asparagus - it gives it a certain bite that offsets the grassy flavor of the green stalks.

Here is the article on annarbor.com.

Chicken litter feeds cows feeds chickens feeds cows

The debate for the FDA about feeding chicken litter to cows appears to stem from their concern over Mad Cow disease, which strikes me as the tail wagging the dog. So before I talk about the dog, I will address the tail. Chicken litter, i.e. everything from the floor of a chicken house, sawdust, feathers, manure, spilled feed, etc., is being fed to cows in feedlots. The FDA temporarily banned the practice in 2003 because there was concern that the chicken feed (industrial chicken feed includes “recycled cattle proteins” and “ruminant meat and bone meal” - a.k.a. beef, in its ingredients) was spilling onto the litter and being fed back to the cows. As a chicken owner, I can verify that assumption - chickens are not neat eaters.

In February of 2003, a study done by the North American Rendering Industry, showed, “it will require feeding 10 pounds of poultry litter / cow / day for 6,442 days, or 17.65 years, to achieve a single ID50 dose!” The ID50 is the median infective dose for Mad Cow disease. Cows bred and fattened for industry live less than 2 years. The 17-year time frame is very compelling, and I can see why the FDA removed the chicken litter ban in their later rulings.

I had never heard of the National Renderers Association before reading their study, so I did some research.

Formed in 1933 as the professional association of the rendering industry, they process the leftover parts of the animals humans raise for meat and render the raw materials into usable products. As their Web site states: “Meat and bone meal, meat meal, poultry meal, hydrolyzed feather meal, blood meal, fish meal and animal fats are the primary products resulting from the rendering process. The most important and valuable use for these animal by-products is as feed ingredients for livestock, poultry, aquaculture, and companion animals.”

Nearly 59 billion pounds of animal byproducts are recycled and reused by the rendering association annually. One third to ½ of an animal we have bred for meat is not used and the renderers turn that into “feed ingredients” as well as “valuable ingredients for various soaps, paints and varnishes, cosmetics, explosives, toothpaste, pharmaceuticals, leather, textiles and lubricants.” Renderers are an integral part of the meat industry.

An association of renderers, who recycle leftover animal parts into animal food, paid for a study to show there is no harmful affect on cows eating cows (small amounts of cows). And honestly, who else has the time, inclination, or finances to run that study other than the people directly affected?

Assuming we have successfully rendered (hehe) the argument against chicken litter causing Mad Cow Disease null and void, let us return to the main point - feeding chicken litter to cows.

According to the North Carolina Extension service, the litter should be processed before being fed to cattle. There are several ways to process the litter, but the goal is to stack it to create conditions for bacteria to raise the temperature of the stack to 140 -160 degrees to kill pathogens present in raw litter (the main pathogen of concern being E. Coli).

The University of Missouri Extension has a chart discussing the nutrient basis of chicken litter. On average the litter contains 25 percent protein, which is a fairly cheap source of food for the beef farmer. The ability to recycle the huge amounts of waste from chicken factories into feed for beef in feedlots appears to be a win-win for all involved. Cheap feed for cows translates into cheap hamburgers.

Which brings us to consumer choice, and a theme I have touched on again and again - voting with your wallet. Do you want to eat cows that have ruminated litter from the floor of an industrial chicken facility, or do you want to eat animals that have masticated grass and felt the warm sun?

It is nice to have choices.

Here is the article on annarbor.com.