Our hens wait at the gate clucking for me to let them out into the world each morning. It feels like

Our hens wait at the gate clucking for me to let them out into the world each morning. It feels like there are hens in my chest clucking to come out, but I ignore them to instead post about buying our calendars, and I feel like I should post about buying gift cards and seeds for the holidays. We are a small business after all, and we only exist because people buy things from us. But promotional posts are not life-giving for me. I prefer to post something more informational or vaguely poetic. So here’s some tidbits about chickens, to relieve my feeling of stifled creativity and inquisitiveness:

1. Our chickens give us enough eggs that we never have to buy them, but I think their feed is actually more expensive per month than what it would cost to buy the highest quality eggs for our household, so we aren’t saving money. And we spent a fortune on the lumber for their coop. But we love eating our own eggs, and we love our chickens, and it’s nice to give our neighbors and elders eggs every now and then as gifts.

2. We feed our hens so much old bread and veggies and seeds and pies instead of throwing them out, which means we get to eat our slightly expired leftovers in the form of fresh eggs. And it gives the hens joy to mix up their diet.

3. Here’s a tidbit from Wikipedia: “Genetic studies have pointed to multiple maternal origins in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia, but the clade found in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa originated from the Indian subcontinent.”

4. Another: “Chickens were spread by Polynesian seafarers and reached Easter Island in the 12th century AD, where they were the only domestic animal, with the possible exception of the Polynesian rat (Rattus exulans).”

5. And here’s a bit on how chickens descended from dinosaurs from @omletusa: “The amino-acid sequence from T. Rex collagen was compared to that of various modern species. It proved to be more similar to the chicken than any other creature alive today.”

6. Reasons to learn this information, from @officialcibomatto:
“I know my chicken
You got to know your chicken
I know my chicken
You got to know your chicken”

#gallusgallus #knowyourchicken (at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
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